Questions about the approach to marketing an album
Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:23 amHi all, I'm about to upload a newly-completed album to CD Baby and I'd like a few opinions, since this is the first time I'm doing this sort of thing.
I have recorded seven separate tracks, and imported them into a master file in Cubase. The tracks have short soundscape pieces ("joiners") linking them together, so the end result is an album that is one single audio file, but with seven tracks listed in the DDP image. Each track will have a little bit of overlap with the joiners before and after it, so there is no gap between any of the tracks or any periods of silence (the album is one big 43-minute track but a CD player can still jump to the individual songs - think along the lines of Oxygène).
Now I know the answer is "do what you think is right" but still, I'd like other people's opinions as selling an album is a new experience for me. So here is where I'd like some opinions/guidance:
1. As this is a concept album, I was intending to make it an album-only release (not making individual tracks available to download). This makes sense to me as it's one continuous 43-minute piece, but I've been told that you severely limit your audience by not making individual tracks available to download.
2. If I do make individual tracks available, which is easy enough to export from the DDP image I've made, then none of them will have a clean start or a clean end, because of the "joiners" overlapping them. I suppose the answer is to either fade the joiners in and out, or just use the original track files from before they were copied into the master file. If I do the latter though, they lose the "flavour" of being segued and so it would ruin the flow if you wanted to play the individually-downloaded tracks one after the other, instead of playing the album's single file.
3. If I do the former, most MP3 players can't play sequential files without gaps between each file, from what I can recall, so that also kind of ruins the flow of the album. Or is that just the way it would have to be for people that didn't buy the whole "single-piece" album?
4. Regarding making the whole album available on MP3 (as opposed to CD), one big problem is that as far as I know, the MP3 file format doesn't support indexing, so someone playing the MP3 wouldn't be able to jump to individual songs. Would this alienate listeners?
5. Finally, if the standard practice of individual songs selling for $1, and albums selling for say $12 (from what I remember of CD Baby's recommended pricing structure, iTunes is probably similar) is used, how would you reconcile the gap if you only have seven tracks and so people would never buy the whole single-piece album? It's still 43 minutes' worth of sound, but the album approach makes it seamless.
Like I said, this is a new thing for me so I'd like to hear people's thoughts. Thanks.
I have recorded seven separate tracks, and imported them into a master file in Cubase. The tracks have short soundscape pieces ("joiners") linking them together, so the end result is an album that is one single audio file, but with seven tracks listed in the DDP image. Each track will have a little bit of overlap with the joiners before and after it, so there is no gap between any of the tracks or any periods of silence (the album is one big 43-minute track but a CD player can still jump to the individual songs - think along the lines of Oxygène).
Now I know the answer is "do what you think is right" but still, I'd like other people's opinions as selling an album is a new experience for me. So here is where I'd like some opinions/guidance:
1. As this is a concept album, I was intending to make it an album-only release (not making individual tracks available to download). This makes sense to me as it's one continuous 43-minute piece, but I've been told that you severely limit your audience by not making individual tracks available to download.
2. If I do make individual tracks available, which is easy enough to export from the DDP image I've made, then none of them will have a clean start or a clean end, because of the "joiners" overlapping them. I suppose the answer is to either fade the joiners in and out, or just use the original track files from before they were copied into the master file. If I do the latter though, they lose the "flavour" of being segued and so it would ruin the flow if you wanted to play the individually-downloaded tracks one after the other, instead of playing the album's single file.
3. If I do the former, most MP3 players can't play sequential files without gaps between each file, from what I can recall, so that also kind of ruins the flow of the album. Or is that just the way it would have to be for people that didn't buy the whole "single-piece" album?
4. Regarding making the whole album available on MP3 (as opposed to CD), one big problem is that as far as I know, the MP3 file format doesn't support indexing, so someone playing the MP3 wouldn't be able to jump to individual songs. Would this alienate listeners?
5. Finally, if the standard practice of individual songs selling for $1, and albums selling for say $12 (from what I remember of CD Baby's recommended pricing structure, iTunes is probably similar) is used, how would you reconcile the gap if you only have seven tracks and so people would never buy the whole single-piece album? It's still 43 minutes' worth of sound, but the album approach makes it seamless.
Like I said, this is a new thing for me so I'd like to hear people's thoughts. Thanks.
