Hi, I'm just doing some research. I was wondering how many of you have trouble getting a lot of people to listen to your music and getting feedback on it, and if you find this frustrating. What would you think of a service/website that targets you specifically and tries to help you get lots of people to listen to your music and helps you find the music of people like you? Would you want to use something like this? What minimum needs of yours would you expect this to meet?

At 9/29/12 02:16 PM, bearskin wrote: Hi, I'm just doing some research. I was wondering how many of you have trouble getting a lot of people to listen to your music and getting feedback on it, and if you find this frustrating.

Almost everyone, regardless of their popularity. We always compare ourselves to people who are more popular than us and feel bad about not being that popular ourselves.

What would you think of a service/website that targets you specifically and tries to help you get lots of people to listen to your music and helps you find the music of people like you? Would you want to use something like this? What minimum needs of yours would you expect this to meet?

Are you starting a label? If not, I guess you're making a site like Soundcloud or the audio portal. Thing about sites like that is, the majority of the people who would want to visit such a site are music producers. Not regular old listeners.

At 9/29/12 02:22 PM, Buoy wrote: Thing about sites like that is, the majority of the people who would want to visit such a site are music producers. Not regular old listeners.

Do you think that enough music producers would want to listen to other producers' music, bringing attention to a song and attracting regular listeners? I also think people who run blogs would want to come to a website like this to find certain music before anyone else does.

At 9/29/12 02:39 PM, bearskin wrote: Do you think that enough music producers would want to listen to other producers' music, bringing attention to a song and attracting regular listeners? I also think people who run blogs would want to come to a website like this to find certain music before anyone else does.

Sure, that's possible of course

So what in a website, as an artist, would make you want to use it or not use it?

At 9/29/12 02:51 PM, bearskin wrote: So what in a website, as an artist, would make you want to use it or not use it?

Reach.

The problem with trying to recreate soundcloud or newgrounds is that the only reason these sites are useful is because they are known to millions of people and thus grant significant amounts of exposure. Hence you have a classic chicken and egg problem, where you need listeners to attracted producers, but you need producers to attract listeners. Some sites have attempted to leach off, say, reddit, but these have only seen moderate success. In addition, attempting to expose new artists is very difficult because most of them suck horribly.

At 9/29/12 03:00 PM, Blackhole12 wrote:

At 9/29/12 02:51 PM, bearskin wrote: So what in a website, as an artist, would make you want to use it or not use it?

Reach.

The problem with trying to recreate soundcloud or newgrounds is that the only reason these sites are useful is because they are known to millions of people and thus grant significant amounts of exposure. Hence you have a classic chicken and egg problem, where you need listeners to attracted producers, but you need producers to attract listeners. Some sites have attempted to leach off, say, reddit, but these have only seen moderate success. In addition, attempting to expose new artists is very difficult because most of them suck horribly.

Well, I think a site such as this would definitely first attract the producers, who are likely listeners as well. Hopefully, they would want to listen to other people's tracks. Or perhaps the site should implement a system in which producers are encouraged to listen to other tracks because the site will give their tracks more of chance to be heard. Like how Newgrounds implicitly/de facto has this system because people are likely to review your music if you review theirs. This could possibly be built into the website?

Additionally, what would you think of website that still uses rating to filter out the music that simply sucks, as you mention, but encourages listeners to listen to the less popular music rather than the most popular or the "Hot"?

At 9/29/12 03:28 PM, Omegeist wrote: My main problem is zero bombers etc

read his post not just the title

Guys, read the thread or don't bother posting. Not once was 0 bombing brought up.

At 9/29/12 04:05 PM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: Guys, read the thread or don't bother posting. Not once was 0 bombing brought up.

Elaborating... The OP is not talking about 0 bombing, and you shouldn't either, because it's a dead horse, and it's been beaten...

Thoroughly.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss new methods for a website to distribute music so that artists can get more of their work listened to. The theory is that some people may actually have very good music but it doesn't get listened to by enough people or by the "right" people because of a fault of the existing system. So I think everyone will generally want their music to get listened to more, but do you think there is an actual problem of people not getting music listened to enough or rather the listens it deserves, which of course is very subjective.

I would also like to discuss problems that people have with current systems, such as Newgrounds or Soundcloud. One may be 0-bombing. I don't want this thread to turn into a thread of people bitching about 0-bombing or other problems though. I also think the way most websites have a list of the most recent tracks and the most popular tracks causes problems because if you post a song at a certain time it will eventually disappear off the most recent list, and if it doesn't become popular right away it becomes very hard to get people to listen to your music and to give you feedback. Of course there are many ways you can accomplish this with existing websites, but it can take a lot of work. I don't think laziness should be reward, but I think this process can be made easier so that more people can get the listens and feedback they want.

At 9/29/12 02:16 PM, bearskin wrote: Hi, I'm just doing some research. I was wondering how many of you have trouble getting a lot of people to listen to your music and getting feedback on it, and if you find this frustrating. What would you think of a service/website that targets you specifically and tries to help you get lots of people to listen to your music and helps you find the music of people like you? Would you want to use something like this? What minimum needs of yours would you expect this to meet?

Well it's like this. We are all small fish in a very big pond. Put it simply, we are all trying to get the same thing achieved but with a lot of competition

At 9/29/12 04:38 PM, weiss993 wrote:

At 9/29/12 02:16 PM, bearskin wrote: Hi, I'm just doing some research. I was wondering how many of you have trouble getting a lot of people to listen to your music and getting feedback on it, and if you find this frustrating. What would you think of a service/website that targets you specifically and tries to help you get lots of people to listen to your music and helps you find the music of people like you? Would you want to use something like this? What minimum needs of yours would you expect this to meet?

Well it's like this. We are all small fish in a very big pond. Put it simply, we are all trying to get the same thing achieved but with a lot of competition

I agree, but do you care to elaborate on this? Are you okay with the existing system, then? I don't think there's a set limit of the number of people who can "make it." Of course there's a lot of competition, but I think there can always be room for more artists, considering that people can listen to many different artists and that there are niche audiences.

Yeah, I definitely feel that becoming really popular shouldn't just be about being in the right spot at the right time or getting this one person to listen to it and say it's good. So, yeah I do feel that more music should be judged on the actual quality of said music rather than other factors. I do fear that this may accelerate the growth of our single-oriented music culture nowadays (Is this a problem, the future, or just a natural trend? I don't know). Furthermore, I mean, why do people use soundcloud and newgrounds mainly - to get discovered, to let some people online hear their stuff, to just get feedback and get better, or a combination of all three?

Also, I am worried too that some people might suck or some good genre music might be placed in front of people who wouldn't appreciate it, so how would that work?

tl;dr Yeah, I definitely like the premise and I think it'd be cool to hear more peoples' opinions/ideas/concerns about it.

The only time I have trouble getting listens is when I do nothing... It's not a case of 'if you build it they will come.

It requires effort! NG is fine, Soundcloud is fine... Hell youtube is fine. It's up to the producer to get out there and interact with people. PM people you think might like your track, do a collaboration, take part in a contest, joined forums, comment on other peoples music and ask for the same in return. Jump on Facebook groups and talk to other people. You can't sell a secret.

Negativity doesnt help either. If a track sucks and you've got nothing useful to say, dont review it. If you cop a bad review, or a troll review, respond positively.

Don't just sit there and rage about your meaningless rating, low view count etc if you've done little to NOTHING.

Peace.

At 9/30/12 08:09 AM, Bafana wrote:

:PM people you think might like your track

OMG, please don't, because everyone hates that, and the chances are that you are just going to get yourself removed from someone's favorite list.

Instead of trying to get people to listen to your music, focus on making it good first. Once it starts to get good, people will share it around, blog about it, facebook it...like an STI.

Seriously, just focus on improving your sound until YOU think it's good enough for other people to listen to.

For some reason, I'm getting more feedback from low-quality tracks than the higher-quality ones.

I'm going to chuck in an idea here taken from CTGMusic, where the people who wrote the most reviews would get their songs promoted on the front page, with the caveat that the reviews must be at least 200 words and if they aren't reasonably thoughtful and constructive they will be flagged by moderators and removed. In addition, writing a review was the only way to actually affect a song's rating, which resulted in lots of helpful feedback, but in turn made it so if no one reviewed your song, you were doomed to obscurity. A slightly modified system that rewarded you only for reviewing songs that had few or no reviews could potentially be more effective.

Of course, if your site loses most of its active userbase, some dickhead can come in, be the only one reviewing songs and horribly abuse the system.

The main problem I see with sites such as NG and SC are that there is such a wide variety of artists that don't contribute, they post their (usually crappy) tracks up and expect to get reviews/play/ratings back either without doing anything within the community or by spamming their music everywhere.

At 9/30/12 09:55 AM, GumsOfGabby wrote: Instead of trying to get people to listen to your music, focus on making it good first. Once it starts to get good, people will share it around, blog about it, facebook it...like an STI.

Seriously, just focus on improving your sound until YOU think it's good enough for other people to listen to.

God finally! OK first of all the whole advertise things is really really important but how do you expect to advertise a product that sucks and have good results. You got to concentrate on doing good music and getting involve in contest, reviews, helping people and things like that and then a smart advertise strategy. Really my first songs sucked and they have no reviews and low views but my newer songs still sucks but they have more reviews, better scores and way more views.

Now for the thread, if I am going to join a community the first thing that I look is the interactive system between the users. I have to see that I am not joining just another crap page where the people post their songs and doesn't do anything. One of the reasons because I got here was because of the contest and forums, I just love to see how you can interact with other producers in your same situation and learn from them. Now if your plans are starting a new audio portal you have to go in a new direction because in my opinion is not easy to compete with big sites like NG or SC. Maybe a new system in terms of how people share their music can do the first step. Your page needs something new or special that will make people say hey this is good I am going to start using this new community because it has something that soundcloud or newgrounds doesn't have. For me that can be your advantage if you are going to make a new audio community.

Sorry for my English.

In my humble opinion, two things could happen to the audio portal that would go a long way:

First, and I'm not sure if this has been brought up in the past a lot or not, but a more robust genre selection for music will allow users to find EXACTLY what they want to hear. I personally am pretty open-minded regarding electronic music, and I tend to have "phases" that determine which kind of music I want to listen to. Sometimes I really want to listen to some airy, uplifting melodic trance, and other times I want to mellow out to some down tempo. I think it would be nice for artists if they could be more specific about genres when publishing a song on the portal.

It doesn't have to come down to things like different types of DnB (Jungle, Liquid, etc.), but separating it by slightly broader genres like trance, techno, dnb, down tempo, dance, house, and ambiance; would definitely allow users to find a specific style of music much easier.

Secondly, and this is something I spontaneously thought of after reading this thread, but a system in the audio portal that encourages listeners to show off songs they liked would help out artists immensely. Maybe something like a notice that pops up after you rate/score/review a song that suggests something like "Tell the community about this song if you liked it." Subtle things like that can go a long way.

At 10/2/12 06:11 PM, Nubblecakes wrote:

Secondly, and this is something I spontaneously thought of after reading this thread, but a system in the audio portal that encourages listeners to show off songs they liked would help out artists immensely.

This already exists. It's called your "favorites" section.

Maybe something like a notice that pops up after you rate/score/review a song that suggests something like "Tell the community about this song if you liked it." Subtle things like that can go a long way.

Pop-ups are far from subtle I think. Personally, I think pop-ups are annoying.

Does favoriting a song really "alert" other users? It would only have a real effect when a user who has lots of traffic through their profile (e.g., other users/artists who are popular amongst the community) favorites something. If it were just some random shmuck like me who favorited a song, it would literally have no effect. I don't have a following of any kind.

And yeah a literal pop up would be pretty annoying. i meant it could be more of a little notice that's integrated in to the web page that appears or something when you rate a submission. It doesn't have to interrupt the user's browsing or anything.

Hey guys, I see some really good points being made here. I can only agree with most of them, but I would like to add a little 'twist' into the discussion (nothing serious, but simply something to consider). Obviously, as most know, artists essentially want to be acknowledged and appreciated through their creations...that may sound slightly cheesy but guess what? It's true.

I think we can all agree that at some point or another we have all said "Ah man...I really wish people would listen to my music more!" We don't all say it out of hopes of being famous (though some do), we simply want the chance to be recognized for what we create.

In fact, it wasn't until very recently that I finally decided it was time to start up in the forums here and talk with other musicians/artists (along with writing more reviews). I just felt that I had to start having more of a presence by participating and sharing my own ideas. By nature, I'm quite shy (even on the interwebz...yeah that's odd I know, don't judge :P ), but even so I am reluctant to post this very message because of that fact. Yeah I make music, but I don't always want to discuss with others due to a variety of factors. For those who are like me, and I'm willing to bet there's a few, there are times where we have nothing substantial to say at the time. In my case, I had to observe and read what people say around here for the longest time to gauge what it would be like to converse around the site. Hell...it took me over a year to finally say anything on here! Hahahaha! :D

Anyway enough about me...this is getting too long and I'm willing to bet there are a few 'TL;DR' faces happening. My main point is that it takes a bit of courage to want to make your music heard regardless of the site you post it on. I commend everyone who posts their stuff in the audio portal (except for the obvious trolls but anyway.....)

P.S. If I have offended anyone (hopefully I have not) then I apologize! Apologies for the long post.

At 10/2/12 08:43 PM, Neon-Bard wrote: Apologies for the long post.

It's ok, actually you have some good points there.

Now, from my experience:
- Get a Soundcloud account and join Newgrounds Audio Artists group. Make a band/ artist page on Facebook, link the two accounts and update regularly.
- Use magic words in description of your music, like "royalty free", "suitable for action scenes"...etc.
- Put all the links everywhere, on your NG profile have the Soundcloud and Facebook links, on your Soundcloud have your NG and Facebook links.
- If you get a free account on Soundcloud and you can't share your track in two groups, join several groups with similar interests and rotate your tracks (share one week on NG group, next week remove from NG and share on "Techno Aficionados"...etc).
- Offer some freebies on your pages (sample sets, presets for Massive, free drum loops), this way some musicians will follow you. They will maybe share some tips, reviews or at least "like" some of your tracks and you'll appear on their news feed.
- Make some live gigs, film them and put on YouTube, Vimeo...etc, then link on your "studio recorded" tracks in the description.
- Advertise on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace...etc, whenever you put a new track or whenever it's a season and you have a fitting track.
Here, just several ideas to get you started.

At 9/29/12 02:16 PM, bearskin wrote: Hi, I'm just doing some research. I was wondering how many of you have trouble getting a lot of people to listen to your music and getting feedback on it, and if you find this frustrating. What would you think of a service/website that targets you specifically and tries to help you get lots of people to listen to your music and helps you find the music of people like you? Would you want to use something like this? What minimum needs of yours would you expect this to meet?

I'm currently on a site that is very similar to what you're proposing. Its called Jango. Check it out. Its used by millions of listeners worldwide and is set up like Pandora. As an artist, you can target your audience by state, region, and country. You can also tell Jango who your music is similar to and have your music heard on that artist's station. For instance, if your music sounds like Linkin Park, your music will play on "Linkin Park radio". You can also set up your own radio. I'm on there under my artist name, DJsNeverEndingStory.

people on newgrounds don't got ears

At 10/2/12 07:21 PM, Computer112 wrote: Blackhole12's solution turns out to be the only best. I also want to add something to his solutions, is the comments will be rated by other users, takes save & blame on unjudged comment. The more positive points he/she getting, the higher chance he/she will get featured. Do this on statistic ratio.

Remember to use statistically accurate algorithms!

At 10/4/12 10:51 PM, Blackhole12 wrote:

At 10/2/12 07:21 PM, Computer112 wrote: Blackhole12's solution turns out to be the only best. I also want to add something to his solutions, is the comments will be rated by other users, takes save & blame on unjudged comment. The more positive points he/she getting, the higher chance he/she will get featured. Do this on statistic ratio.

Remember to use statistically accurate algorithms!

Blackhole12's idea combined with this formula might just create a really good system. Then again, it would require a massive amount of input from the audio community. Don't forget that Newgrounds' main attraction is the flash portal (yes, I still call it that), and that the audio community is relatively small. That said, if anything new were to be implemented, this should be it.