Hello there!
Welcome to the FATdrop blog. We want to invite an open discussion of digital music related matters and to provide articles which help with releasing music in the digital age. Your input is very welcome so feel free to comment on any of the articles you read.
Recent Articles
Sync or sink? · 24 days ago
Licensing music to be played in films, adverts and TV shows has been part of a label’s income for a long time, but recent high profile artist tie-ins with games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero has made it big news. As sales from physical music decline, how far can this slice of revenue help to plug the gap? How much of a priority should it be for a label?
Like many parts of the music industry, sync looks like a black art to outsiders. How do you start getting sync work? Who do you need to know? Who should you be working with? We asked three industry experts to let us into their world…
ithinkmusic: "less people are going to be making money out of music as middle men" · 43 days ago
We’ve been doing some research so we can update our article on different digital download stores, and have been checking out ithinkmusic. ithinkmusic provides a way for record labels to sell directly to fans by building their own store and lets them keep 95% of revenue.
Michael Cassidy, the person responsible for the development team working on ithinkmusic, was kind enough to chat to us, explaining what the service does, and what it can offer to labels and bands…
When will we .wav? · 49 days ago
How did we end up with MP3 as the standard format for digital music, and not something better? While MP3’s small size was crucial in the early days of digital music, today, cheaper storage and higher bandwidth make file size less and less of an issue. Alternative, higher quality formats are available; .WAV, FLAC and AIFF are all lossless (that is, they produce an identical sound to the original), so why aren’t we using them?
We ask Will Saul from Simple Records about MP3 v .WAV…
Protecting Digital Promos · 57 days ago
Promos have been big news lately following the arrest of a London-based DJ and reviewer for selling 150 big name pre-releases on eBay. This arrest came only days after Universal lost its court battle in the US to stop an eBay trader from reselling promo CDs (although these had been bought from second hand stores and weren’t sold pre-release). If charges are brought against the London DJ, this will be the first ever prosecution involving the sale of pre-release music in the UK. For those of us involved with promos it’s going to be interesting to see how it pans out. One thing that we were wondering already is why the reviewer wasn’t taken off the lists of those sending him stuff after the 3rd or 4th or 100th promo CD popped up in the ‘the UK’s favourite marketplace’? Do labels and promoters have a blacklist for this sort of thing?
Jumpstart: Art of Digital Marketing – tips for bands · 59 days ago
As promised in the last post, here’s a quick summary of the best advice from last week’s Independent Label Scheme panel. It was mainly aimed at artists just starting to do their own digital marketing (so from a label point of view this might all be a bit basic). If anyone wants to add any other DIY advice for young bands/labels, don’t hold back…
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