| CD Baby DIY Musician Podcast |
 June 29,
2009
Ep.65 : Matthew Ebel - Stream your concerts to the world
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| CD Baby Music Podcasts |
 Music Discovery
 Hip Hop
 60's Pop
 Rockabilly
 Top Sellers
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| Yahoo Music Unlimited / Yahoo Music Engine |
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I have been hearing how great digital distribution is
going to be, but Im afraid my experience with it so far
has been frustrating, and Im not getting any idea as to
when it will stop being so.
I understood it would take several weeks after I signed
up for digital distribution to actually get submitted to any
of those sites. However, it took me calling CD Baby (or
it could have been a coincidence) after several months
of seeing nothing happening at all, to see that it was
submitted to itunes. That was February 25th. Since that
time, it has been submitted to only eight companies. A
search of all of those found me on only one of them at
almost three months later. Now, I know it states clearly it
takes up to three months after submission to actually
see it on the sites of these companies, but it also states
clearly that by now it would have been submitted to alot
more than 8. At this point, Im hung up at the submission
portal.
I did receive a friendly e-mail response to my phone
quiery on this issue months ago stating that sometimes
companies take a while to return the harddrives on
which music is submitted, and this turn around time
causes some delays. What I would really like to see is a
change in what the website states about how long it
can take to get even submitted.
Such a long delay, when not antcipated because of
inaccurate information given by cd baby, means a
member cannot promote this aspect of their availability
to the public because they have no way of knowing
when their music will be available in this form.
Every other aspect of dealing with CD Baby has been
great so far, but this one thing is a really really big
disappointment. PLEASE change the timeline indicated
on your site to let members know this whole digital
distribution thing could take many months as opposed
to several weeks.
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AHA!! I didnt think the information on the digital
distribution page had been changed, but I see it has
since I last checked. So never mind about my complaint
about misinformation at THIS point. I just wish that
information had been available to me when I signed up.
Had I known it could take " a very long time" and up to
"years" I might not have signed up for it, or looked for
other options. At this point, I just hope that itunes will
someday make my tracks actually available. THey are
approaching the three month mark of having my music
submitted to them- and I dont know if I can even find out
when it will become available. CD Baby is a great
service in really all ways- but the lack of info on this
aspect is something I am hoping will evolve over time to
match in caliber the rest of CD Baby's services.
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The biggest problem is that the companies don't tell us when albums are added - and they have no systems in place to do so.
So... we don't know if something is NOT there unless you go search for it yourself and tell us it's not there. Then we start to ask the retailer why it's not there, and wait for a reply. Often they say there's just some delay on their side so we wait, until you ask us again why it's still not there, then we ask them again, etc.
Fun, huh? :-)
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The fact that companies do not have a system
in place to tell another company (in this case
CD Baby) when their CD's have been added
is highly illogical, since in fact they clearly are
in the business of soliciting other companies
to provide them with potentially money earning
music. Why on earth would they not have a
system in place for keeping track of their
inventory? That sounds like an untenable
arrangement destined for breakdown.
Besides not knowing the order in which CD's
are sent to the companies, I don't know what
the system is for the order in which
COMPANIES are sent things to. Im guessing
itunes is first, because that is the first that I
saw my music as having been sent to. I guess
I would be somewhat comforted to know that it
was being sent to the biggest distributors first.
Is it? My work is still not available on itunes,
though it was submitted there first on February
25th, and available at only one of the eight
companies submitted to thus far. Visiting the
sites of these companies is a bizarre process
as well that I got into about two weeks ago
and took some notes on, which I will find and
post so as to show what this process looks
like on artist end.
Judging from Derek's post above (and see,
how nice that there was such a quick
response) I am likely destined to experience
an information blackout (not in keeping with
how CD Baby operates). I appreciate the
honesty, but its not a pleasant truth. Given I
have 30 days notice to pull out of the digital
distribution deal, it looks like I could find out
sooner that I have released myself from the
arrangement than I could find out if I have
been successfully assimilated into itunes
collective. Im not resisting, but it seems kind
of futile...
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| by J
on Tuesday May 17 2005 @ 04:42PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Just to give you some idea of how it is for somebody else's digital distribution. As far as I can tell my music is available from iTunes and info from cdbaby says MusicNet has made it available via f.y.e. Download Zone (I assume that that is the source of my $.03 streaming revenue from musicnet. I had no idea it was there or how to access it so of course there was no promotion. I'm still not sure and can't imagine subscribing to each service just in order to find out availability---that would get expensive even if it was possible)
company name date sent
MusicNet November 5, 2004
LoudEye December 1, 2004
Apple iTunes February 25, 2005
Etherstream April 6, 2005
MusicMatch May 5, 2005
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re cdbaby comment above. "So... we don't know if something is NOT there unless you go search for it yourself and tell us it's not there. Then we start to ask the retailer why it's not there, and wait for a reply."
Just a question about time frame. If I've been delivered to Loudeye Dec. 1, 2004, should I assume that there is a problem or should I accept that this is a normal delay? At what point do I tell CDBaby that its not there? What are the acceptable time frames?
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LoudEye is just a sub-distributor that sends it out to other companies. In their case, that means AT&T and OD2. So - soon we'll have a way to show you where those tracks are going, too.
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| by
on Tuesday May 24 2005 @ 04:41PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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I sort of understand that, but when I click on Loudeye in the cdbaby list of companies, I get taken to Cingular MMode Music store (http://musicstore.mymmode.com/) and if I search for my name, it isn't there. I'm still wondering if this is normal (it was sent to Loudeye Dec 1st 2004)OR should I mention this to CDBaby?
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Ignore that link. Sorry if it's hard to explain, but LoudEye is a sub-distributor and the services they distribute to there is no way to see if you are "on" because they are more behind-the-scenes services like future AT&T mobile developments and European backend providers.
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| by
on Wednesday May 25 2005 @ 07:09AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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| by J
on Tuesday May 17 2005 @ 09:35AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Your frustration is understandable. Its been almost seven months since I signed on for Digital Distribution and my "CD" has been delivered to a total of FIVE companies. Interesting , though, is after my Feb 25th iTunes delivery, it is up and available for downloading at iTunes. Since Feb 25 , I've been delivered to TWO companies. It is difficult to understand the delivery process and the order in which CD's are dealt with.
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I signed up 5 months ago. I keep seeing Feb. 25 listed by others here as the magical date when our music was allegedly delivered to iTunes. Mine used to say that too. I just checked my listings once again and...surprise! the delivery date has been moved. To May 17! 3 months of waiting down the drain, it seems. Consider yourself very lucky, J, that you have anything at all up and selling.
My scorecard:
Delivered to: 4
Available: 0
Optimism: -5
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Over 3500 albums delivered to Apple in February were lost on their side. We just re-uploaded all 3500 albums to Apple this week.
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How very perplexing. I just checked my digital
distribution dates and found that lo and
behold, all the dates had changed. Then I go
to post this and see another person with the
same experience.
I was given the impression by the magical
February 25th date that my music was
submitted to itunes FIRST. Now, mysteriously,
right after I post a note of concern and a voice
of complaint, the dates are all different, with
itunes now showing a submission date of May
17th!! That is YESTERDAY. So all the waiting I
have been doing has been answered by more
waiting in store for me. Now, this could be a
coincidence, and probably is, but
nonetheless, the change of dates is _not
explained_. Nor was I prepared to see it.
I think its safe to say that despite CD Baby's
efforts in other areas, there is a problem with
digital distribution. Its simply too vague for the
end user (the artist) to have any clue as to
what is happening. THe whole point of being
affiliated with CD Baby is to take control of
one's music and its availability to the world.
Now, as it turns out, in the hottest trend in
music, namely downloadable song files, I feel
like we're actually in a position of
_disadvantage_. None of this makes any
sense with the standards that CD Baby
adheres to. There is a disconnect, and its
dismaying.
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| by J
on Thursday May 19 2005 @ 02:34PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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I just found out that only residents of the United States can purchase downloads from music.yahoo.com/ at this point. Just thought I'd pass that on.
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just a note I,ve been with cdbaby sience the digital ditrabution started, I know people,s frustragtions also ,but it,s still the best for me I,ve been sent to about 41 services and 28 are active ,but I look at it this way I read www.digitalmusicnews.com everyday and notice that some of the services I,am on have emeraged with other services .I still think the out look on didtal downloads looks good .hang in there it will get better . walter goulet
CDBABY ALSO PUT UP 2 OF MY CD,S FOR FREE OVER 2 YERAS AGO ON A PROMOTIONAL DEAL WHICH SAVED ME 70.00 HOPE THIS HELPS A LITTLE
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We released our CD in December of 2003, and to date we've been delivered to 29 companies. I've seen checks and payments, with the biggest payers being I-Tunes, Napster and Rhapsody. I can't wait to see how and when Mp3Tunes pays out because apparently, we're charting there pretty well. (discovered by Google search on a whim.) I think again, it's what you make of it promotion wise. I say be patient. Derek and his service has changed the indie world from when I first started playing out 18 years ago, and he and CDBaby are nothing but aces in my book.
I think that if people are signed up to individual services that aren't as popular as the top guns, consummer prompting is going to win the day. I can't imagine these companies not listening to irate fans who want to purchase specific songs or CDs not available on their service, and risk losing their business to the big guys of the industry. At least that's how retail worked when I was there.
Keep the faith!
Cobra
http://www.cdbaby.com/omegatrain
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| by
on Sunday May 29 2005 @ 07:31PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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It must be great to have your stuff available for download at more than 2 or 3 outlets. BTW how did you find out how you were charting at mp3tunes via Google. I'd like to know for whenever my stuff is actually available at mp3tunes.
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I try to "Google" our band every now and then to see how our promotional efforts online are going. It just so happened that when I put our band name in quotes, next to the word "charts" in the Google search engine, the reference to one of our songs popped up as one of the results. When I clicked the link, the Mp3Tunes page with the song in question popped up, an low and behold, there was one of our songs at #4 on the Glam chart. I traced back the link for the Album, and found the Omega Train page on Mp3Tunes, with the album photo, tracklist and rankings, and the full text that appears on the CD Baby page. There are still some bugs in the system, I think, because I have a problem searching for the band name with the link it provides, but I can deal with that inconvenience knowing that people are checking out our music without that much conscious effort (or COST) on our part.
Internet searches on Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Excite or other search engines sometimes pulled up different results than Google, but I've found a good deal of our Digital Download music deliveries up and running this way.
The tough part, as always, is CONVINCING PEOPLE TO BUY IT, but Derek's program has certainly laid the groundwork for an effective 3D promotion for indie artists.
--Cobra
http://www.omegatrain.com
http://www.cdbaby.com/omegatrain
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| by
on Monday May 30 2005 @ 09:36AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Thanks . I'll try that when/if my stuff ever gets up on mp3tunes.
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Greetings
Well I understand the delay. I guess I'm little surprised why it takes years to post music to all music services. There must be some reason for that, but it would be better for customers if the folks would say "now, lets concentrate to this album and submit it to all services".
Otherwise, I just saw my album posted to MSN Music few days ago. Unfortunately on their side they made a "minor" mistake to my artist name. Mr.Jason became Mr.Watson. I was pretty upset at the beginning, but well its nobodys fault and I guess they will change it in few weeks *sigh
All what I would wish to add to this great system would be a bit more swift action.
Mr.Jason
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Yes there is a very long delay to find his works on line. But worst, it's longer to repair a mistake. My (great) album "Firework" is on iTunes since last summer. (I wait only 3 weeks since CDBaby sent it to iTunes).
Unfortunately, the audio file of the first song was a bad file (i dont know who was singing a song). They suppress this song yesterday only.
And now i'm waiting for they insert the right file... maybe next year, with my second (great) album "Marée d'équinoxe" wich is avalaible on my site since 4 months:
http://www.bernardtrillot.com
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The Thrill of Delivery!!
I just thought I'd mention that Digital Deliveries have really picked up lately. I've had 5 deliveries since May 26th (vs the 5 I had between October and May 5) Heck ! finally a delivery to MP3Tunes...now if only the "companies" can get the stuff "up and available" at their end. Big thanks to the people at digital distribution at CDBaby. I guess the problems are beginning to get sorted out. Much appreciated!
http://cdbaby.com/cd/zifkin
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More frustrations with Digital Distribution!
I did a search the other day to see how my
album was doing in the 14 companies its
been submitted to. My album appeareed on
MP3 tunes AND itunes. Boy was I excited!!!
Especially since I just signed up for a radio
promotion and thought GOLLY GEE, people
will be able to download individual tunes. How
excellent!
Well, lo and friggin behold, when I actually
clicked on "buy" on Mp3 tunes, I got an error
message saying "the item you selected
appears to not exist". I later called a friend
and asked him to check if I was actually
available on itunes, and he said oh yes
indeed. But when I said "please see if you can
actually BUY a track" he got an error message.
So, what we have here is another situation:
albums APPEARING to be available when
actually they are NOT. I personally would
rather my album didnt even appear as
available, rather than having it be there and
NOT be purchaseable. This makes ME look
bad. Its basically a point of purchase BUZZkill.
When people cant buy something NOW, they
go away.
I would highly recommend everyone double
check to see that in fact their albums are really
purchaseable, and do NOT rely on it being
there visually to mean its actually there.
I reported the Mp3 tunes problem to CD baby
and got an immediate reply that they will look
into it. I also wrote directly to Mp3 tunes.
I reported the itunes problem to CD Baby
today.
This is a _real_ drag. Im wondering whether
this is just a bump in the road at the outset of
a relatively new distribution technology dealing
with the influx of _thousands and thousands_
of indie artists. OR, are these companies
giving CD Baby the short end of the stick? I
hope not. Derek Sivers really is doing an
important thing with CD Baby, and I know the
Digital Distribution thing is clearly out of
his/CD Baby's control on some level or this
would not be happening. However, these
companies are being complacent behemoths,
and they need a serious talking to! But by
whom? As a business owner, I know that
there is only so much Derek would be likely to
be able to do besides complain, which Im
betting he has AND in the context (obviously)
of establishing a working relationship with all
of them. So I feel for him, but I also feel for me
and everyone else who is NOT getting their
music sold this way. Im just wondering what
the excuses these companies are handing
him.
Argh. Blargh.
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In two years and 50,000 albums that is the first time I've heard of that happening.
When you have a problem, please always email dd@cdbaby.com with the details. I rarely ever check old postings the message boards and just happened to be pulling up the "Yahoo Music Unlimited" post here from last month, to show to a friend. So posting problems here is very ineffective.
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| by
on Thursday June 16 2005 @ 08:44AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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VERY interesting, and disturbing. Unfortunately, being in Canada, I've only been able to check iTunes which had my stuff listed. I bought 1 song at the beginning of May and it seemed to work. It hasn't shown up in my "accounting" yet. Since signing up fot Digital Distribution in October 2004, I "THINK" that my stuff is available at yahoo music engine but I can't check; Same thing for FYE. That seems to be it for availability. My name doesn't exist on MP3Tunes so no "buzzkill". I think your points are well taken. Deliveries seem to be happening BUT there is no way to take care of business from the artists end. We can't promote UNTIL/UNLESS we know that there is availability and there isn't an easy way to find out short of subscribing to each service and making purchases. I can't even do THAT from outside the USA for any of the outles except iTunes Canada.
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Send me your info and I will look for you.
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Have you tried going to music.yahoo.com? This works for me!
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yall sound like a bunch of babies...(How long do i wait before i check and tell cdbaby its not there) just be happy ur being distributed in a digital format where you dont have to provide any thing solid to continually get paid , and get exposed on worldwide music sources like itunes a and rhapsody yahoo music engine ect.
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| by
on Sunday September 18 2005 @ 08:14AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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I'm curious about "MusicMatch Audio jukebox program for Windows. No longer accepting any new content, as they were purchased by Yahoo." Now that Musicmatch has officially stopped accepting indie albums from CdBaby,and has been purchased by Yahoo, will this have an effect on CdBaby Music on Yahoo? Will Yahoo Music Engine and Musicmatch BOTH exist?
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BOTH will continue to exist, but have completely different backends. I think Yahoo is more comitted to Yahoo Music, long-term, and so only wanted the CD Baby catalog to go into Yahoo Music, instead of into both.
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| by
on Sunday September 18 2005 @ 07:15PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Thanks for the information..although I assume that don't really know what you mean by "backends"
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I think what Derek is trying to explain, is that the "Backend" delivery system. I.e., what format, layout, metatag info, etc CDBaby has to compile and then deliver to them so that they can just "Plug" it into their system.
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| by
on Wednesday November 09 2005 @ 06:25AM PST [ reply | parent ] |
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Much to my Surprise and delight, despite all I've been told, my stuff just appeared available (I think) on Musicmatch (delivered May 5 2005) so perhaps there is still hope for some other cdbaby people. Thanks CDBABY DD -
JZ
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| NOTE: If you need a reply you should email CD Baby directly instead of posting here. We don't often read old message board postings, and have no way of replying to them!
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