#[0] What is the number one thing preventing artists from becoming their own record label??
Discussion
promotion, thats the main advantage of being on a label.
How do bitcoin and nostr fix this?
I’m no expert on this, but a problem I would like to see addressed is rewarding music curators.
On YouTube creators get rewarded, but in the past radio DJs were highly valued to unearth new talent.
Rewarding the music curators not just the creators would help unearth and promote new talent.
Definitely something nostr can fix
BTC feels like a trade & if you’re an artist who can exchange things for what you truly need, free promotion for example, that’s a huge asset. Audiences want to donate to artists as well, making that seamless is a money maker.
My first thought is that promotion isn’t really fixed by bitcoin/nostr. But Bitcoin does make it possible to stream sats to the artist while listening to their music.. that could be cool. Podcast apps are already doing that, when music
Hmm ya know what, lets imagine a “perfect” world where V4V completely replaces the ad model. In this world, promotion no longer matters. All that matters is the ability of the artist to produce high quality content in exchange for pure monetary energy. In this world, one would help artists not by helping them expand their reach, but by helping them increase both the quality and quantity of their content. Give them tools to collaborate with other artists frictionlessly.
…was literally having this convo in my engineering class. We want to focus on quality too & having programmer friends can help save hours on fixing software, in what a programmer can do in seconds.
I’m an artist who created my own record label ☺️ Probably the admin work is too much for most artists.
What all goes into that?
When I started, I had to engineer, produce, compose, write, and perform my own album. The album got an Angel investment to build a bedroom studio/home studio.
Publishing has to be established. It’s still all pulling together.
I’m at the stage where I have a really strong team.
Here in New York as well, a list of nightclubs who want performances - which is the real profit maker, along with NFTs, paid hourly rates on producing others.
Would tools for collabing with artists via nostr be useful to you? What causes the most friction in the publishing process?
I’ve been drawing up a plan to bring everyone here. My co-produce bought my flight ticket for Nostrica.
It’s great because everything we do is too-secret. We can trust the communication on it, & it’s fast for tiny-talk.
The most friction in the publishing process is when your workload is so heavy, it’s like the last thing you want to think about - & your dates have to be aligned properly, split sheets written, the work needs to be reviewed for errors (engineering errors), it has to be perfect before it’s our & also be on time - probably the greatest conflict; it can get tedious making sure the sample on TikTok is the perfect section of a song, to aligning all the visuals on multi-channel marketing. It needs a team, but one person can do it - we all have to wear many hats, probably the most exhausting part of the musical artistic process.
*my co- producer
*everything we do is top secret
Absolutely yes, especially when we start building visual content. The interaction on Nostr is beautiful 🥹
Speaking of, today I have to solve software issues with my DAW & I have a waitlist/request of 5 songs I’ve been procrastinating on for other artists- some of which could be knocked out in about 3 days. The label began with all volunteers & a lot of tools were donated: such as, Ableton Live, sample libraries… As for performances, artists had to be more aggressive about pay-outs, but since the pandemic it’s become more cut & dry.
Everyone’s interests are peaking in NFT - 2 of the songs on my track waitlist are for video games.
distribution network
Can you give more details?
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> advertised to a bajillion people on their dime
What I meant with that was that most musicians probably don't have the distribution network or partnerships to get their music out to the masses.
I have a friend who's been a musician most of his life, he produces, he dj's, he's writing plugins for the hardware he's using and he had labels down the road. several. Yet he never got "that" exposure he kinda deserves.
Sure, he's on spotify and other platforms. he even tried CHOON in 2018 who was going to "give the power back to the artists", then they rugged and they came back as ROCKI. But anyhow. I think that distribution and marketing to get wider exposure is where most musicans probably hit a barrier. I hope this makes sense and if you want to check out my buddy (don't want spam here) look for Theatre of Delays on spotify or on my timeline here.
Totally get it! I also wonder if artists wouldnt necessarily need “that” exposure if they got to take home most of what they made, and if the money they were making wasnt a depreciating asset
I agree. Sometimes less is more. It's the same for content creators as myself on sites such as Twitch and co. Those sites take up to 50% from all donations and subscriptions and some even have the guts to demand exclusivity on your live content. For Twitch that means if you want to be affiliated we'll take 50% of your money for our cloud service and you may not restream at the same time. I take the 50% cut for the extra exposure and to drive my viewers to another site but I will not give you exclusivity over MY content so no affiliation for me. - also means I don't get subs or donations on Twitch.
I think decentralised distribution, audio and video networks have a huge opportunity in the years to come if they BUIDL solid brands. Some are already thriving but not so much for musicians.
Content distribution is definitely a key part of it
Crap just realized i accidentally typed two exclamation points and now i look like a psycho
Are you sure you mean “!!” or “??” 😂
Welcome to the club!!!!!
⚡️and🤝
