I tried Catapult and in the end found them lacking in a number of ways.
1. No phone number if problems come up.
2. A dashboard menu that locks in the data too quickly. If you make a mistake, you do not get the chance to review and edit at the end of the song/info
entry process. You are stuck! AND they may refuse to help you make changes.
Very poor customer support.
3. Their stores serve largely the subscription and streaming market. The vast majority of these stores fall into this market. Not good for the band or composer.
4. Everyone has their opinion. And you have the right to your opinion. My opinion is avoid this company. They may be OK for a single. But I would certainly not approach them with an album. For an album, you want a distributor that is dedicated to you as a customer and is absolutely willing to work with you. IMO, it's not this company.
Review of Catapult Music Distributor
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- Banned
- 43 posts since 29 Apr, 2014
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- Beware the Quoth
- 35517 posts since 4 Sep, 2001 from R'lyeh Oceanic Amusement Park and Funfair
An idiot on Set Theory:
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
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- KVRist
- 260 posts since 30 Oct, 2002
I think you are going to find the phone support thing just isn't available. None of these digital distributors make enough money from any small, non-label client to do that kind of support. You are their customer but it's more like McDonald's not a five star restaurant. The level of service is kind of scaled.
I've been reading your posts and following your search, I believe it had come down to CDBaby and Catapult. You had removed CDBaby because they wouldn't allow you control the start time of the sample clip on stores other than theirs. So is there anyone left?
To be honest I suspect part of the problem with the sample start is that the final end stores don't really let publishers control that. I'm also not so sure it matters as much as you'd think. I never buy music from any band/artist without also going to their website and listening to much better demo's. The tiny samples on stores is only used as just a taste. I generally expect to find a YouTube video and a artist website with more information. And I don't count Facebook pages as websites with more information as a rule. But then I'm over 40 and really only buy whole albums, so maybe I don't count anymore.
The big thing I think that matters is how exactly you are going to promote your album. These digital stores and digital distributors aren't really setup to sell you, they are only a channel. If you want to sell music you are going to have to do most of the marketing yourself (or find a label). Even if one of these digital distributors did everything you wanted, it wouldn't directly sell any of your music. You have to find the customers and drive them to these stores somehow yourself.
Please let us know where/who you try next though, the more people talk about their issues with digital distributors the more likely some of them will fix some of these things. Though I really don't think you are going to ever get them willing to answer a phone.
Good luck.
I've been reading your posts and following your search, I believe it had come down to CDBaby and Catapult. You had removed CDBaby because they wouldn't allow you control the start time of the sample clip on stores other than theirs. So is there anyone left?
To be honest I suspect part of the problem with the sample start is that the final end stores don't really let publishers control that. I'm also not so sure it matters as much as you'd think. I never buy music from any band/artist without also going to their website and listening to much better demo's. The tiny samples on stores is only used as just a taste. I generally expect to find a YouTube video and a artist website with more information. And I don't count Facebook pages as websites with more information as a rule. But then I'm over 40 and really only buy whole albums, so maybe I don't count anymore.
The big thing I think that matters is how exactly you are going to promote your album. These digital stores and digital distributors aren't really setup to sell you, they are only a channel. If you want to sell music you are going to have to do most of the marketing yourself (or find a label). Even if one of these digital distributors did everything you wanted, it wouldn't directly sell any of your music. You have to find the customers and drive them to these stores somehow yourself.
Please let us know where/who you try next though, the more people talk about their issues with digital distributors the more likely some of them will fix some of these things. Though I really don't think you are going to ever get them willing to answer a phone.
Good luck.
-Matt