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Who Gets angry about free music?

Doctor Doom
Joined: April 23, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 3745
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 11, 2010 at 11:09 PM UTC #
vansmack wrote:
I only get mad that you hand out CD's.  Tangible media is dead.

Hand me a slip of paper where I can download it or give me a flash drive with your tracks on it that I can reuse.


I don't think this is a very valid point.    On a slip of paper, the odds are 99.9999 percent certain that it will end up in the trash before getting anywhere near a download.    On a flash drive, the odds are 99.99999 percent that the media will get written over before ever being heard.

The only way a free CD at a show is likely to be heard is if someone takes it and pops it into their CD player on the drive home.   Once you get past those initial moments, into the next day, I'd say the odds greatly diminish.

All in all I don't think handing out stuff at a club is a very effective promotional technique… but it must work or people won't do it, right?  Anyway, effective or not there's no reason for people to get mad.

Finally, it's worth noting there were jerks at the old club too… but since the capacity was 500 rather than 2,000, there were fewer of them.

sweetcell
Joined: July 18, 2006 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 22608
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 11, 2010 at 11:31 PM UTC #
beetsnotbeats wrote:
And enough with the MP3s. The MP3 is dead. Average download speeds are hundreds of times faster than when Napster started. Hard drives are now measured in terabytes. I no longer download lossy files (with occasional exceptions). ALAC or FLAC, please, or move along.

most music is consumed on portable players nowadays - you think folks are going to stuff their ipod nanos with loseless?  that would mean holding 4 to 5 times less music.  furthermore, the limiting factor for fidelity is the player and earphones.  there is little to no perceivable difference between a 256 mp3 and loseless on an ipod (even with after-market headphones).

and with the ADD'ness of today's consumer, downloading a 4 MB mp3 is a chore (even if it takes "only" 20 seconds)… what do you think their reaction will be to a 20 MB flac download?  "sheesh, that's going to take over a minute!  forget about it!"

as an audiophile, MP3 might be dead to you - but it's alive and well with the average consumer.
beetsnotbeats
Joined: April 26, 2002 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 5756
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 12:05 AM UTC #
sweetcell wrote:
beetsnotbeats wrote:
And enough with the MP3s. The MP3 is dead. Average download speeds are hundreds of times faster than when Napster started. Hard drives are now measured in terabytes. I no longer download lossy files (with occasional exceptions). ALAC or FLAC, please, or move along.

most music is consumed on portable players nowadays - you think folks are going to stuff their ipod nanos with loseless?  that would mean holding 4 to 5 times less music.  furthermore, the limiting factor for fidelity is the player and earphones.  there is little to no perceivable difference between a 256 mp3 and loseless on an ipod (even with after-market headphones).

and with the ADD'ness of today's consumer, downloading a 4 MB mp3 is a chore (even if it takes "only" 20 seconds)… what do you think their reaction will be to a 20 MB flac download?  "sheesh, that's going to take over a minute!  forget about it!"

as an audiophile, MP3 might be dead to you - but it's alive and well with the average consumer.


There's enough of a difference in sound quality between lossy and lossless for a growing number of people to care. Lossy compression was a necessary evil in the days of 56.6kbps dial-up and "gargantuan" 50GB hard drives but those days are long over. MP3s are the wax cylinders of the digital era. Keep offering the MP3 for the ADDled but please offer lossless for more critical listeners. I'm well into a project of re-ripping my CD collection into lossless. My next iPhone will likely have 64GB of capacity (still speculative, of course). I devote 5GB of my current 8GB iPhone to music; I'll devote 50GB on the next and still be able to load twice as much music as on my current device, and with better sound.
vansmack
Joined: October 04, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 19725
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 12:43 AM UTC #
Doctor wrote:
The only way a free CD at a show is likely to be heard is if someone takes it and pops it into their CD player on the drive home.   


I was unaware that the majority of concert goers still drive to concerts in DC.  I am fairly confident that they don't here in SF.
Doctor Doom
Joined: April 23, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 3745
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 12:46 AM UTC #
vansmack wrote:
Doctor wrote:
The only way a free CD at a show is likely to be heard is if someone takes it and pops it into their CD player on the drive home.   


I was unaware that the majority of concert goers still drive to concerts in DC.  I am fairly confident that they don't here in SF.


I'm not sure what you found in my post to enable you to surmise that a majority of concert goers were driving.  I certainly didn't say that.
jaguar
Joined: October 28, 2001 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 3869
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 03:41 AM UTC #
One thing that is apparent from this thread is that there are a lot of different preferences with how one would rather sample your music. Forget that a lot seem to assume that everyone thinks as they do.  ::) Just goes to show that you should be a bit more versatile.

Personally, I much prefer the hard CD, especially if I end up liking your music. They become cool promo items for my collection. If not, well someone else might like it.

Flyers and postcards will definitely get lost in my purse or before I ever bother to investigate online. Even if it survives, it still has to work its way into my agenda for any given day. I need something extra to entice me to do so if you aren't already on my want to check you out radar. 

I'm not a lossless snob and would prefer a decent higher grade MP3. That's my compromise between space and quality. Not all of us can afford to upgrade our techno lives with the extra bells and whistles and there are lots of us out there. Do not assume that everyone has all the new toys which is another reason to offer CDs for those not even digitally equiped. Don't go below 192kps though. A lot of bands use 128kps and they are just too damned thin and crappy sounding. In fact, I'd suggest you sign up with Bandcamp.com and offer some free tracks there. Let the consumer decide on their format. You can download the level and type of your choice. You just have to get them there.

Ideally, I'd say give them a CD with a card that has the info for getting into your web address/es which allows them to download digital copies. Take extra cards so that if you run out of CDs, or Smackie wanders along, you can just give them the digital directions.
sweetcell
Joined: July 18, 2006 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 22608
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 06:01 AM UTC #
beetsnotbeats wrote:
There's enough of a difference in sound quality between lossy and lossless for a growing number of people to care.
(…)
Keep offering the MP3 for the ADDled but please offer lossless for more critical listeners.

that "growing number", unfortunately, is now 2% of the population instead of 1% (or maybe 6% instead 2%… i'm guessing here).  huge gains, but i'm not sure it's enough to move an industry.  yet.

beetsnotbeats wrote:
My next iPhone will likely have 64GB of capacity (still speculative, of course). I devote 5GB of my current 8GB iPhone to music; I'll devote 50GB on the next and still be able to load twice as much music as on my current device, and with better sound.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for higher fidelity - but the average iphone buyer isn't thinking "twice the music and better quality" - they're thinking "TEN TIMES MORE MUSIC!!!".

Jaguar wrote:
One thing that is apparent from this thread is that there are a lot of different preferences with how one would rather sample your music. Forget that a lot seem to assume that everyone thinks as they do.  ::)

yup.
sweetcell
Joined: July 18, 2006 at 05:01 AM UTC
Posts: 22608
Re: Who Gets angry about free music? May 12, 2010 at 06:03 AM UTC #
vansmack wrote:
I was unaware that the majority of concert goers still drive to concerts in DC.  I am fairly confident that they don't here in SF.

i don't remember taking public transpo or walking to the last show i went to with you in the bay area just a few weeks ago… and i seem to remember music being played on our way there.  just sayin'.
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