Trancehead Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Hi I am looking to start an mp3 shop specifically for psytrance. I stay in South Africa and getting CD's is a long and frustrating process (especially if I only want 1 or 2 songs). I would be keen to hear your thoughts on the subject as well as what prices you would be willing to pay. So far here are some my ideas: 1: Download mp3 files 2: mp3's use Digital Rights Management to protect Artists copyrights. 3: Allow Independant artists to sell their songs. 4: Provide a CD burning facility for "mix & match" compilations. 5: Songs would be about R9.99 (Rand) but the record label I contacted in Britain wants royalties that would probably push foreign songs to somwhere around 2 pounds. I also feel that this will allow a lot more artists and labels to promote their stuff internationally so everyone can trip the pink flamingo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinos Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 What is a "Rand"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trancehead Posted February 3, 2005 Author Share Posted February 3, 2005 What is a "Rand"? 216177[/snapback] South African Currency. Equal to about $6 or 11 pounds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naiman Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 South African Currency. Equal to about $6 or 11 pounds 216179[/snapback] How can it be 6$ or 11 pounds, if 11 pounds is over 20$? Are you talking about Usd $ and Brittish pounds? Sounds like a good thing, maybe risky, but if it would succeed you would atleast be alone selling so you could make good money hehe. One problem is that if one foreign track would cost 2-pounds, which is something like 4$, making 10-tracks cost 40$, which would be way too much.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseanomilie Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 How can it be 6$ or 11 pounds, if 11 pounds is over 20$? Are you talking about Usd$ and Brittish pounds? But the shop else sounds good, only strange thing is that one foreign track would be 2-pounds, which is something like 4$, making 10-tracks 40$ which is way too much.. 216188[/snapback] It is actually the other way round it is 6 rand for 1 dollar and 11 rand for 1 pound that makes better sense now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseanomilie Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 So basically you can put a cd together for around 100 rand which is about 10 pounds or 16 dollars. Sounds Good Hey? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 freeeeeedoooooooooomm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I wouldn't pay for mp3's. I can get mp3's for free. Sometimes I might pay for cd's. I can't get them for free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xamanist Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 the 10 Rand-per-song price seems good and fair for me.. the 2 pound is too much, i this it will be a central issue to talk with the labels in order to make it work for everybody.. and this isn't easy as you know! best of luck, good project, lets twist this system Serguei Swan X-1 www.swanx.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest .::E.P Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I wouldn't pay for mp3's. I can get mp3's for free. Sometimes I might pay for cd's. I can't get them for free. 216195[/snapback] See thats the essense of how the majority of people think. Thats why I seriously doubt any shop would do any good. You cant change people's nature by putting up a shop. All the attempts to sell mp3 in our scene has so far had a result of almost ZERO sales!´ It's a shame though but reality. I would be very careful starting up a business like yours without proper financial backing. If you dont you wont last a year. But your intentions are good.. I just dont think our scene is mature enough morally to buy any music! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseanomilie Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Give me your honest opinion how much you are willing to pay for international stuff in pounds per track? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseanomilie Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 its the wave of the future if done right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spindrift Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I run a self distributed label with digital downloads and ordering of custom burned CD's and have thru that gained some insights about the industry that I don't mind sharing with you. About prices you have to of course look at the competitors. With a download shop there is not so much reason for customers to use a local shop, and also not so much point to focus on the local market IMO. Normal prices in download shops is between $1-$2 depending a bit on what resolution you offer. One thing you have to keep in mind also is that opening a download shop is not at all like opening a CD shop. You have to get the labels to accept that you sell downloads of their material and that seems to be difficult many times. Some distributors also do not give their labels permission to sell downloads even. So you cannot count on getting a very complete assortment. About digital rights management is that they are not working very well, and the customers do not like it. None of the download shops I know of actually use any such system. You can have a look at your competitors at http://www.sonicblend.com/links/digital-music-downloads.php to get more idea about prices etc. Sales of downloads is quite low still like, and it's not easy to do well yet at least. The cost of developing a good system can be quite high because it can be a bit complicated to develop. Personally I think the future lies in web shops, but probably providing both downloads and physical CD's. A shop that could provide custom burned CD's from a wide range of tracks would be very nice in my opinion, but that wikll be very hard to negotiate with the labels probably. Anyway, good luck with your project if you decide to go for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest .::E.P Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 its the wave of the future if done right 216199[/snapback] I doubt mp3 is the wave of anything It's simply to bad in quality! Other formats will take over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 allofmp3.com sells music 100MB/$2 and you can select the format you want. Of course if you're happy with 192 mp3 you get almost an album with that, if you want lossless you need to pay a bit more because it's bigger. And of course, no DRM, who the hell would want to buy DRM restricted shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spindrift Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Err...you think that is a legal site redeemer. The price and the russian language make me suspect that it's not at all. Anyway $2 for 100Mb is totally unrealistsic that you will be able to sell trance for and have any labels sign up with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neophyte Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I would pay, provided there was actual content. As in, practically every psy track to choose from. I'm currently fed up with soulseek and people not having any freakin albums I want...but yeah, it were a network packed with psy I would be more than glad to dish out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krelmatrix Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Yes, please. I would fully support something like this - I'm a regular customer of places like Beatport and EDM Digital that do the digital download thing (although more for progressive/tribal/breaks stuff) and would most definitely buy a lot of psytrance in this format as well. I just don't have the money to spend €12-15 for a CD with only 2-3 good tracks, so as I result I only get a handful of psytrance CDs per year and have fallen behind in keeping up with the style. Spindrift gave very some good advice from the label/shop owner side. Speaking from the consumer/DJ side, there are also some things to keep in mind. 1. Price - 2 GBP is far to high for an individual track, period. The successful stores are able to keep their prices at 1-1.50 USD per track. You could maybe get away with 2-2.50 for exclusive digital-only pre-releases and remixes, but few people are going to to pay so much for a single track that they can freely download anyways. 2. DRM - just say no. It's a useless pain in the ass to deal with and will turn countless customers away. As long as the file can be burned to a CD then re-ripped, it can (and will) be cracked. Also, if you are selling tracks that are released on CD, the tracks will be shared on P2P networks anyways. It accomplishes nothing except creating problems and pissing off potential customers. 3. Quality - you must offer the hightest quality possible. For mp3, 320 kbps. For mp4, 192 kbps. It is also advisable to offer lossless FLAC. The most common request I see on the forums at other digital stores is to offer .wav for download as well. Bandwidth costs may prohibit this from being possible right now, but it give you the general idea of what consumers want - highest quality possible. With something so complex as psytrance, I would refuse to buy a track encoded at less than 320kbps (and I'm certianly not the only one). 4. Independent artists - cool idea, but please be sure to have a very strict quality-control screening. You don't want it to turn into something like mp3.com where every dick & harry with a pirated copy of Acid or Reason is trying to sell their crap. Preview all potential stuff, only take the very best. You could also combine the digital store and digital label concepts (ala Audiojelly) so that the independent tracks are still technically signed to a label (the store's label). This gives you a bit of help with the screening since you will only be making available tracks that you want represented on your digital label. I do hope you are able to get something like this going. I shell out quite a bit of money at places like Beatport, and would love an option to buy a lot of psytrance in this way as well. Whether the format is mp3, FLAC, wav or something yet to be invented, digital stores are going to be a huge part (if not the major part) of the music sales industry in coming years. I've found it strikingly ironic that the psytrance scene, which is supposedly so much farther advanced in the technological sense, has lagged so far behind just about every other style of music for this. Time to catch up people!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insejn Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I download MP3s for free. And I will continue doing that. If the music I hear is good I'll buy it. If not, I won't buy it. It's up to the artist to make good enough music for me to buy. @ krelmatrix I wouldn't recommend 320kbps mp3s. VBR (variable bitrate) is much better than CBR (constat bitrate). 320kbps will be huge in MB. And I can assure you that you won't hear the slightest difference beteen VBR and a 320kbps CBR mp3 file. As most "mp3 releases" out there is in VBR. And there is a reason for that. Altho, if you planning on burning it's a different story. I myself never burn any mp3s I download. I mean instead of buying the cd. I burn some CDs to have in the car but ye... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krelmatrix Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I wouldn't recommend 320kbps mp3s. VBR (variable bitrate) is much better than CBR (constat bitrate). 320kbps will be huge in MB. And I can assure you that you won't hear the slightest difference beteen VBR and a 320kbps CBR mp3 file. As most "mp3 releases" out there is in VBR. And there is a reason for that. Yeah, VBR will work as well - even better. The main thing I would hate to see is if a new store would sell a low bitrate like 192kbps. Click-a-track is a store that was started by the Plusquam guys and had a lot of nice psy-progressive labels. I would have blown loads of money there except for the fact that they only sold 192kbps format and did not even consider the possibility of anything higher. Several other stores I've checked out have only had 192kbps files (CBR) as well, which is quite a shame, IMO. 320 CBR is IMO the minimum I would like to see. But a 320 VBR would be even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insejn Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Yeah, VBR will work as well - even better. The main thing I would hate to see is if a new store would sell a low bitrate like 192kbps. Click-a-track is a store that was started by the Plusquam guys and had a lot of nice psy-progressive labels. I would have blown loads of money there except for the fact that they only sold 192kbps format and did not even consider the possibility of anything higher. Several other stores I've checked out have only had 192kbps files (CBR) as well, which is quite a shame, IMO. 320 CBR is IMO the minimum I would like to see. But a 320 VBR would be even better. 216229[/snapback] There is no such thing as 320 VBR, since the bitrate shifting up and down. Altho, you can decide from which bitrate the mp3 will shift. Like from 96 to 320. VBR is the best format if you consider both storing and quility. The smallest file you can get with high quality like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spindrift Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I was considering if I should use VBR for the tracks at resonantearth. The thing is that it is nice to be able to tell people that the tracks is encoded in 320k, which like you said is not really the case if you use VBR. There is no quality issues with 320k CBR though according to the tests I came across and my own ears, and the filesize is only marginally bigger than if you encode using highest possible VBR settings. Maybe people is more technically minded that I thought, and would be satisfied with that the files is encoded using VBR with a little explanation about that it's on highest quality settings. But for me it díd seem easier to assure people about the quality by simply being able to state that the downloads is in 320k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krelmatrix Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I was considering if I should use VBR for the tracks at resonantearth. The thing is that it is nice to be able to tell people that the tracks is encoded in 320k, which like you said is not really the case if you use VBR. I believe you can state an average bitrate, if I'm not mistaken. I know with Beatport, they claim an average of 192kbps for their VBR mp4 files. And when I look at the info for a certain file in iTunes, it gives a single number for the bitrate of VBR files (usually 180-200 for the mp4 files I buy from Beatport). So I think if you did use VBR on Res.Earth, you could say what the average encoding of the file is, which should be decently accurate. An average 320kbps VBR mp3 should be higher quality than a 320kbps CBR mp3, AFAIK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sherlockalien Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 nope, I wouldnt buy them.. I preffer downloading mp3s and buying the cds that I like.. BUT... I have one big problem.. appart from chill/dub and prog trance, which I can get on cd, I have a taste for the prog house stuff too, which is almost all the times only released on vynils... As I am no dj, and only have cd-player, I would consider buying from you if you had these vynil releases on FLAC or WAV.. I would consider even more buying, if you could do like spindrift, and sell custom cds, where he prints the covers and burns at low speed and ships to you.. spindrift.. if you ever get some prog house in your site, tell me please =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest .::E.P Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 spindrift.. if you ever get some prog house in your site, tell me please 216259[/snapback] I would not count on it. Al though he's from from Sweden and it's developed in some ways since the 80's he still have long blond hair, walk in a suit with white socks and white tennis shoes and drive a Volvo which only have the cababilty to play psy/full on and "Gyldne Tidar" PS! A freindly joke from a Dane to a Swede Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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