SoundCloud has decided to stick to it’s old policy so our music still is and will be available trough SoundCloud. Today two new tracks were added – fresh mixes and 100% original songs! Two completely different tracks: one song leaning towards hard rock and the other is ‘christian rock’.
Let’s start with the Christian song, it’s not the average gospel song. Of course it’s a song about a christian theme in fact about Jesus but I think the music won’t fit in the standard ‘gospel songs’ you know. Writing the lyrics took a lot more time than expected despite it’s simplicity.
Both songs have an original approach and chord progression. For the songs two different vocal mics were used and both were recorded using a different DAW. The first one was recorded using a MXL770 vocal mic and Mixbus as a DAW. The second one was recorded using an AKG C900 with Ardour as a DAW.
Guitars: Hondo H-175 (vintage) guitar for rhythm, Harley Benton Telecaster for lead guitar and Harley Benton bass.
Drums: AVL Drums (plugin)
The Mad Men’s Show
Well the fires in Australia triggered this; that is: environmental damage. Done by lunatics who deny this world is going down hill fast. The power of crazy guys at the top also inspired it. So it all got mixed up in this song. And in the end the “master of slaves” shows his face. Hope you like it as much as I did writing, recording and mixing it.
Guitars: Harley Benton Telecaster for rhythm, Gretsch g5420t for lead guitar, Washburn WD-42S (acoustic) and Harley Benton bass.
Drums: AVL Drums (plugin).
Spotify has just released the statistics over 2018 and as an artist you can see how many streams your songs got, how much time people spend on listening to your songs and some more.
For us, it was a nice surprise to see how many streams the songs got. I’ve always been curious about this and now, finally, I can get some insights from Spotify directly instead of the statistics from CDBaby, Tunecore and the like.
Much to my surprise, it seems people listened to the “Down for the Count” album a lot: 815 streams and 2k minutes (yes, that’s well over 33 hours!). Despite this, no sales from or related to Spotify. And if you’re in it for the money, don’t trush to be able to make a living out of it unless your name is Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan. But even they won’t get much payments from Spotify.
As long as you’ve had more than three listeners before October 31st, there’s a wrapped experience waiting for you. Spotify
For sales, we depend on CDBaby and BandCamp. If interested in high audio qualiy downloads of our music, please check them out:
As of today, the full back catalog of the former “Barking Aunts Project” and the “Solid Rock Blues Band” are now available for FREE at the BandCamp website.
Except for our most recent Single, No Limit (On Love) all albums, EP’s and other materials are now available as a “whatever you can afford” FREE download.
The only thing we ask in return is your email address, so we can send you updates about the projects and albums. Don’t want to receive email updates? Donate a small fee and we won’t bother you!
WHY DID WE DO THIS?!
You might wonder why we are now offering all music as free downloads. The reason for this is simple: over the years we’ve spend a lot of time and effort in recording music. Publishing it. On Spotify, for example, this resulted in well over 33,000 plays/streams. We got paid US$ 1.35 for those 33,000 streams. That’s what we consider a total and complete insult. So, since they’re giving it away – why don’t we? And get something in return: a way to get in touch with the people listening to our songs.
We will continue to make singles, albums and EP’s and make them available on commercial platforms (since they will put them on Spotify, iTunes and so on). But on our BandCamp page you can get them for free. Except for the most recent publication. So, the back catalog, as of now, will be free. Forever. As soon as we publish something new, it will be for sale and the previous single, album or EP will be set to “free download” and so on.
Drooble announced new guidelines for the “Drooble radio station”. Drooble will now reject people from rotation on the ‘Drooble radio’ because of “poor quality”. This Social Network is no longer a Social Network for musicians if they do so.
Radio is a feature of the Drooble Network right? Rejecting people because they have made recordings or songs that are not up to Drooble’s standards (that is: standards for radio) is plain stupid.
People pour their heart and soul in to a song, upload it. Get applauded for it. Receive feedback and will get better because of that. And now, no one will listen to these “bedroom recordings” anymore because it’s “substandard” and will no longer be played on Drooble Radio.
Of course it is sub-standard! That’s the whole idea right? As the Drooble Mission says:
At Drooble we believe that music has the power to change the world for good. So our mission is to provide musicians with better opportunities for growth and networking [..] Imagine a community where you can connect with others to collaborate, exchange ideas and share knowledge. A place that unites all artists worldwide and offers them a revolutionary approach to promote their work. A place where music comes first.
Sharing stuff, getting feedback, getting better. Enjoying other peoples hard work.It’s almost impossible if they kill their radio station and only allow “radio ready” (a.k.a. “commercial stuff”!) songs. The rating system they propose now also doesn’t give any insights to what you should do to improve yourself.
This will only lead to people “applauding” stuff they don’t give a rats ass about to earn “Karma points” so they can get their song in rotation. This might lead to many leaving Drooble or frustrate them so much they won’t upload anymore. They will lose a lot of active members this way. If Drooble insist on this stupid new policy, it’s only going to lead to people using Drooble to “get plays” .. It won’t help the community. It won’t help musicians to improve.
The songs you upload will no longer be automatically streamed on the Drooble radio. Instead, there will be an approval process managed by Drooble Team – your songs will receive different in text and colour labels, which show your songs’ statuses: Pending Review in yellow, Live on Radio in blue, and No broadcasting in red (Please, note that you can click on each status for more information. You will be notified every time your songs’ statuses change). These statuses will increase the overall quality and give a signal to those who need to spend more time on production – this is a good way to see if your production skills are on a radio-ready level or not yet.
In other words: they don’t want to play your bedroom recordings. They don’t want other artists to listen to your latest masterpiece because you recorded it using a smart phone playing on your old acoustic guitar. They want radio-ready shiny sleek produced stuff. So, we all know what this, in the end, will lead to. Hip Hop, Rap, commercial radio music.. “Bye Bye Talented and Aspiring Musicians – we no longer welcome you to Drooble Radio”.
BUT I STILL LIKE DROOBLE…
Despite the policy change I still like Drooble. The concept is good. They’re the new kid on the block and I’m willing to wait and see how these changes will effect me and the community. For now, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I’m afraid this move might cause them to be forgotten, over and done with, just like MySpace in the past (and many others before that).
UPDATE!
(November 2018)
So far, one of the SRBB songs was rejected for Drooble Radio. Other songs were accepted for rotation. And yes, those are more commercial sounding tracks, as we suspected.
Do you want free promotion for your music? Do you want to join a free and awesome community of musicians worldwide and for free? Post your songs there, your videos,.. chat, collaborate? Join Drooble!
At Drooble they believe that music has the power to change the world for good. So their mission is to provide musicians with better opportunities for growth and networking. Unlike the other platforms where promotion is paid with money, musicians on Drooble can contribute to the community and earn points, then spend those points on the valuable promo tools they’ve developed and constantly improve.
Only about two weeks ago I’ve joined Drooble. And ever since I felt very welcome. People respond to your posts. They respond to your music. Give good (but nice) feedback.
It looks a little like Facebook. On Facebook however, most people aren’t interested in your latest songs or video’s. Apart from that, the Facebook algorithm has been changed in such a way it’s almost impossible to get some serious attention for your bandpage. They want you to pay for posts. And, when you do, it shows up as an add on Facebook and people don’t like adds.
DROOBLE MAKES ME REMIND THE OLD SOUNDCLICK!
Years ago I’ve joined IUMA (Internet Underground Music Archive). It went down, so I joined mp3.com. That one went down too.. and after that, there was (and still is) SoundClick.com. It was fine for many years. Great forums. But the owners don’t seem to care much about it anymore. They promised updates for many years, but won’t do so. The forums have been gone for a long time. Many accounts are “dead”. And the site seems to have been taken over by “beats makers”.
Soundclick was a great site (many years ago) and I’ve made some friends over there. Drooble has that same “feel” SoundClick had back in the old days with a modern look and feel. It’s a great community to be part of. Oh, and did I tell you it’s free? It is!
Join Drooble when you’re serious about music and want to get in touch with other musicians worldwide. Or if you want to find great music. Go to: https://drooble.com/
SoundCloud has decided to stick to it’s old policy so our music still is and will be available trough SoundCloud. Today two new tracks were added – fresh mixes and 100% original songs! Two completely different tracks: one song leaning towards hard rock and the other is ‘christian rock’.
