Best places to post up music, for people to actually listen/comment

[strayboom]

I went through this thread and clicked on all soundcloud links
Thanks guys, this was a great experience, listening to many different music.

To be honest, I was in a quite bad mood, something like a "crisis of creativity". Listening to something else than I used to, helped me to find different ideas, and different thinking people.

A thread like this can help to gather listeners but also helps to find interesting people and music.

Sendy: SID & Amiga <3

[srv-musikmaker]

100+ listens on a track and a few sincere comments are better than nothing I suppose. So I know that there's a group of people out there who enjoy the music I make.That keeps me going. I also make music for myself. It doesn't follow any trends so to say, just has to be satisfying to me and enjoyable to other people.
Sometimes I just type in 'trance' on the soundcloud search bar to get an idea what people are coming up with. I check the recent sounds and if I truly like something,I comment and like(maybe even follow). Doesn't matter if the person returns the favour or not. They do though and some of them are sincere and have even expressed their wish to do a collab sometime. Just love it when music brings people together.
It's possible to know which comments are genuine. For example someone saying "love it it's so dynamic " has taken the time to listen to the track and likes something specific about it. On the other hand,someone sayin "Yo, dope beats man ! Check out my channel @soundcloud.com/xxxxxxx" most probably doesn't mean it and is just looking for people to give him some free publicity through likes or comments. Maybe I should get a few of my tracks on some other website too. Any suggestions ?

[dichotomos]

cold hard truth. soundcloud: good music gets comments with less effort. bad music get comments and reviews from doing other reviews with a lot of effort and review time put in. the best bedroom/unsigned tracks only are popular for a couple weeks. dont kid yourself, popularity is entirely based on others opinion. youtube/social media: don't bother with the whole music protection thing. post a track and put a download link to you song. dont expect your song to go viral or even get over 200 views. accept that you write music for yourself and not others, write more music without giving a shit what people think.

Exactly on point.

Getting listens and feeback takes time and you have to work for it. Want more listens and or feedback. Post a track in here....or other like minded places (future producers, gearslutz) link soundcloud to your twitter/facebook/tumblr....where they are posted automatically.

my 2 cents.


BTW I left feedback on your soundcloud.

[Backspacez]

Great question, I send my stuff into blogs. You can find email lists online. If you search on Google for hip hop blog email list, you'll find an article from Praverb with somewhere around 400 blog emails where you can submit your music, that is if it's hip hop. I'm sure there's lists for other genres.

[chrisby]

It's too bad... the answer to this question really used to be garageband.com. You had to work and do reviews (a lot actually!) but you were guaranteed reviews in return and everything was by genre so you generally got actual decent reviews from people interested in the kind of music you posted. They closed a few years ago though. I really expected someone would open quickly and fill the same niche as they seemed to have a pretty big user base back in the day. There definitely are plenty of places to get listens and reviews but that was one place where it was very organized (they did their best to keep scammers out) and had a lot of activity for all levels of music. A lot of really beginner stuff, a lot of really pro stuff, and a ton in between. Wish they'd come back....

[ntom]

I would love to get caught up in what all is going on in this thread, but it seems everyone (including myself) has to write a fairly lengthy response....Especially Sendy who decided he wanted to write his biography as the response to this thread

Just to reinforce a point that has been mentioned a couple of times throughout; You have to give to receive - give other people attention and more frequently you'll garner more responses than not doing so. But, bare in mind, just because you gave 10 different responses to different tracks doesn't mean you'll get 10 in return.
I try my best to respond to anyone's feedback unless of course their thread in the cafe already has a lot of attention already. Additionally I try to also leave a response on any thread that doesn't get a lot of attention. Key word in that is "try".

I may have missed your music, and sometimes topics like these are helpful (although don't make a habit out of doing topics like this) as they help bring some more attention.
So, if you would like, you are welcome to send me a link to your music and I will see about leaving my own response to it. I am fairly critical though.

Oh and per Sendy,

my opinion of a piece can vary and often I've told someone I don't like something because of reason "x" only to regret it the next day and retract my statement making me look flakey and shallow

I often feel the same way, as music can be very subjective to time - sometimes something may sound right, sometimes, not. It's not a science, it's mostly a matter of opinion.
Hopefully, however, other's who are in the music community understand this as I am certain they experience the same thing, so hopefully they would not be so judgemental to call you a flake.
I am certain we have all experienced it with our own music where one day we think "Well this needs to be loud" or "This chord sounds better as a minor" and the next we completely flip flop that choice.

...I know I my most recent song I couldn't make up my damn mind on the guitar's levels....

EDIT:
(look now my post is going to be it's own biography!)
I also wanted to mention using your talent to add to other "fandom" communities. I will admit it hasn't garnered me tons of fans, but it certainly pulled in a few.
Youtube being the best place, if you have someone you are subscribed to who has tons of fans (but not too many is the key here) posting something - like, say, a remix of one of their videos

--shoudl probably disclaim right here, there will be lots of flashing colours in the video if you are proned to seizures it'd be a wise idea not to watch the video. It's just music though, so you ARE welcome to listen to the video.

And leaving it as a video response will attract some people to your music. I rarely do this because I can't take these songs serious so I can never get fully immersed into the writing experience so usually my remixes come out lackluster and short, but they remain my most viewed videos.

[hotmitts]

It's too bad... the answer to this question really used to be garageband.com. You had to work and do reviews (a lot actually!) but you were guaranteed reviews in return and everything was by genre so you generally got actual decent reviews from people interested in the kind of music you posted. They closed a few years ago though. I really expected someone would open quickly and fill the same niche as they seemed to have a pretty big user base back in the day. There definitely are plenty of places to get listens and reviews but that was one place where it was very organized (they did their best to keep scammers out) and had a lot of activity for all levels of music. A lot of really beginner stuff, a lot of really pro stuff, and a ton in between. Wish they'd come back....

MMnnn..good point...be good to have more filters from my point of view, I mean organising by Genre and such. The thought of wading through everything and anything is pretty daunting, If you want to just see what's out there and have a random listen to stuff.

[Nanakai]

It's too bad... the answer to this question really used to be garageband.com. You had to work and do reviews (a lot actually!) but you were guaranteed reviews in return and everything was by genre so you generally got actual decent reviews from people interested in the kind of music you posted. They closed a few years ago though. I really expected someone would open quickly and fill the same niche as they seemed to have a pretty big user base back in the day. There definitely are plenty of places to get listens and reviews but that was one place where it was very organized (they did their best to keep scammers out) and had a lot of activity for all levels of music. A lot of really beginner stuff, a lot of really pro stuff, and a ton in between. Wish they'd come back....

A site with some sort of social reward would be great, I think. Earn badges, unlock achievements and maybe even get some swag from generous big-names (looking for free marketing, of course). It's a system that could work pretty well, I think. It's just too bad I wouldn't know how to start a site like that or I would in a heartbeat.

I also like what Jango.com does - every few songs or so, they introduce you to an independent artist who's (supposedly) in the same genre as your current station. Most of what I've heard was crap, but some was really good.

[chrisby]

It's too bad... the answer to this question really used to be garageband.com. You had to work and do reviews (a lot actually!) but you were guaranteed reviews in return and everything was by genre so you generally got actual decent reviews from people interested in the kind of music you posted. They closed a few years ago though. I really expected someone would open quickly and fill the same niche as they seemed to have a pretty big user base back in the day. There definitely are plenty of places to get listens and reviews but that was one place where it was very organized (they did their best to keep scammers out) and had a lot of activity for all levels of music. A lot of really beginner stuff, a lot of really pro stuff, and a ton in between. Wish they'd come back....

MMnnn..good point...be good to have more filters from my point of view, I mean organising by Genre and such. The thought of wading through everything and anything is pretty daunting, If you want to just see what's out there and have a random listen to stuff.

Yeah, it really was a good site. The singular purpose of it was that you would review other people's music (and you picked the genre) and in return others would review your music. Everything was optimized toward that and it was quite well done and it seemed to have a large enthusiastic user base. When it first closed there was a good bit of talk of recreating it but in the end nobody did... which is really too bad.

[ntom]

I suppose I should care to mention (the the mention of garageband.com) that there is a site called soonvibes.com
Basically you upload your track, then a song player will shuffle all tracks uploaded on the site and play about 1 minute of a track without naming artist,album, or track name (to stray from biases), after the track is done playing, if you want to hear more music, you have give the track atleast a rating, comments are welcomed though. After a rating is left you can either move on to the next track or the artist, track info, and all that will be revealed and you can review their profile.

Maybe something you are looking for?
I tested it out when the proprietor stopped by KVR and I uploaded 1 of my tracks and still to this day about once a week I get an email telling me I have received a review.

[b4serenity]

If you don't mind me asking; how much did you make off that 20 seconds? What show was it on? Doing something like that would make me proud!

So....I've recorded a few songs, put huge amount of hours and care into them, learning how to play/sing/arrange/mix better. And I'm pretty proud of them, they're a pleasant listen I'd say.
Posting them in the music cafe got me 300 views ..and 3 replies. Now that seems average, unless there's something really hot. So maybe that isn't the best place to post? I'd really like some comments/ feedback to what I consider decent music, some sign that people are enjoying it in some way....I'm not really planning on making money...but there has to be some sort of goal
So there must be millions of us who feel the same ?! Where do we go?
The one though I was to post on a specific forum..for instance, I'm into that kind of classic rock from the 60's-70's, maybe the best bet is to find a forum which caters for that niche....I've just no a big experience of this side of it..

What are people's thoughts ? Where do you post/ what do you expect (if anything) ?

There's no substitute for elbow grease. If you want people to listen and talk back you have to market yourself relentlessly. If there's one lesson I could send back in time to myself 20 years ago it's "put as much effort into the marketing as the music, if not more."

My wife just started fiction writing and she spends most of her days on twitter, facebook, forums, yahoo groups, building up a social network. She's got close to 1000 followers on twitter now. I've been writing electronic music for 20 years, I have dozens of releases, and I'm still virtually unknown. She's lapped me in just one year because she put the effort into it.

The only time I got any attention is when I worked with a very well known musician with a built in fanbase.

If you don't want to spend your time marketing, and I totally don't blame you, then expect to keep getting what you're getting. I made my peace with it a long time ago.

Now, interest/feedback and money are two different things. If you want to make money, that's a whole other discussion. The answer there is easy: licensing and playing live. You will not make any money just putting music on bandcamp/iTunes. I wrote 20 seconds of music for a TV show back in 2000 and I still get royalty checks for that every quarter like clockwork. I'm signed up with Music Dealers and Rumblefish and SoundExchange. That's where all the money is coming from. (Not that much of it, but it's non-zero, and that's comforting. Actually depending on the quarter, Rumblefish has been quite good lately.)

When I played live a lot I got a lot of interest. I'm not into that scene any more. I'm too old and lazy, My direct sales have dried up commensurately.

Good luck with it, but don't fool yourself - there's a reason they call it the music BUSINESS.. if you're not prepared to do the business part, you won't reap the rewards.

[VicDiesel]

It's too bad... the answer to this question really used to be garageband.com.

MacJams.com still exists. The design hasn't been updated in forever, but it still gets 10 tracks or so posted per day, and everyone on the site is there to post music and listen to music. And if you don't comment on other people's tracks you're unlikely to get much feedback yourself, so there is a big incentive. Not all comments will be equally incisive, but hey it's better than nothing. On average the audience is more into "alternative rock" than electronica, though.

Victor.

[tapper mike]

I belong to another forums where I post critiques of peoples songs but it is quite draining for me. And the policy there is you have to provide at least two well thought out responses for every song you ask others to critique.


I rarely critique there anymore because it's rather time consuming. The site is primarily for the singer/songwriter (folk, country, rock)with an emphasis on lyrics.
http://songstuff.com

[allarms]

Thirty years ago, no Internet. To be listened, the only way was self production, or tapes to Labels, concerts. Now, it's... the same way, I'm afraid.

Yes, I'm often thinking something like this lately. I feel like internet is a tool and oportunity to be heard worldwide, but getting people to actually hear and care takes almost always very good and extensive promotion appart of the quality. I feel like the myspace era when a lot of very "unknown" music whas getting heard are over. There people got increasingly saturated and sick of band spam. But the ease to be able to be heard worldwide is there for all of us...

[oldlibmike]

I blog a lot about the whys and hows of music publishing at my blog - Where's Walter (see link in my sig). Here is an excerpt on giving/getting feedback that I posted in December:

One interesting point for amateur musicians is why do it at all? Of course, in an amateur case, music is not a livelihood - it isn't putting food on the table and it isn't in life changing terms, essential. So why does it matter so much to me? Tons of psychological reasons, no doubt, but it is a fact that I publish what I create and look forward diligently to feedback of almost any kind. At some level, for me, it matters!

I can at some level accept that music makes my life better and is also a healthy escape when life or life experiences are um...less than optimal. So again, I produce this "stuff" and publish it with no other expectations of renumeration.

One very nice thing about publishing musical works - finished or unfinished, good or bad, is that you will inevitably get feedback from other musicians. I think this is what I enjoy most about my "hobby".

If you do publish something to Soundcloud, or MacJams or iCompositions (or someplace else), you will hopefully see some form of feedback based on what you submitted.

Many of the listens and feedback that you receive will work best on a quid-pro-quo basis (i.e. I listen to you, please listen to mine) and if you contribute your own opinions to other works, you will have a much more positive experience.

The types of listeners will vary and I can't stress enough that even if all someone does is click onto your profile, you are winning in a big way. Out of thousands or millions of possibilities, someone has stumbled onto you!

So every touch is valuable to me, but I do tend to value some listens more than others. Here is my take on what happens with my own amateurish compositions:

The "Pings" on your submissions - These are folks that clicked on your song in MacJams or Soundcloud and decided whether or not to listen to it. You win in that at least you caught their attention! If they don't actually listen, at least you managed to catch their attention with the song title, song art or something.

Speed listeners - This is a bit more subtle in that you will get feedback (often positive) on your submission and the user will comment on your songs (quite possibly, 5 - 10 of them) all within a 2 minute window (soundcloud, for example, will actually timestamp when someone comments or likes something) which is remarkable when your average song length is 4 minutes! Be grateful that you got the attention at all, but this is definitely an attempt at quid-pro-quo and don't feel obliged to listen to their 20 minute opuses based on their 10 comments all within a minute. Seriously, if you don't have the time to listen to my stuff, its ok! Really! But lets not pretend

Speed and Scatter listeners - There are other folks who will comment on many songs within minutes of each other. To be quite honest here: If someone is truly listening to your work and assessing it, it will probably take at least the play time of your piece for them to come to a critical conclusion. If you see on soundcloud or anywhere else that users comment on 20 pieces in 2 minutes - um...its great to get the feedback, but it isn't really valuable (see previous comments on "pretending").

Pure Quid-pro-Quo - This isn't really a hard rule, but I would say this is the norm for amateur musicians and it is terrific. Groups of amateurs wanting to perfect their craft will comment on each others' pieces with the hope that the recipient will reciprocate. This is honest, worthwhile and will certainly drive more traffic to your own submissions if you listen in turn and comment. Now the egoist in me wants music lovers to flock to me for some bizarre reason, but the norm is that other musicians are more likely to take the time when I take the time to comment on their work.

Serendipity - Some folks just seem to listen to amateur music even when they don't produce their own and they like to comment. This is RARE! If you are this lucky, its really good feedback to get. Some music lover stumbled upon you and liked something - or hated something! I once had someone pour out negative feedback on something I published only to later delete their comment. I was able to privately ask what happened and they responded that they had remorse about their comments (which were very direct and critical). I responded that honest feedback was the best kind and learned a bit more about what they didn't like about my piece which ultimately caused me to rethink some of what I do. Its important not to freak out about critical feedback but to balance it with any other feedback you get.

If you accept the many forms of feedback you get in the categories above, or other categories, you will undoubtedly get better at what you do. The truly honest feedback from non-musicians, when you get it, might prove the most valuable. Other musicians do tend to be overly positive in their comments which is fine, but doesn't challenge you to improve.

I can't stress enough that you should not snap back at critical comments or get into long arguments if you really want to get better at what you do. On occasion you might run into someone irrational who hates your "stuff". That's fine - they will tire of trolling or if they keep doing it, there is some undocumented fascination that you seem to provide them which is art in itself!

So anyone who takes the time in any fashion to click on my own submissions or works - Thank you!