How important is vinyl to you?

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cbld
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by cbld »

I think it has to do with the throwaway culture that has become the norm in society. I cant speak for everyone but I would have missed out on a bunch of great music if everything was released digitally. By pressing a record it shows that you are serious about your product. I can fully trust a label or artist that releases on vinyl as I know that they are not doing it for the money because lets be honest how much money does an artist make by putting out a record?

I just had this discussion with a close friend of mine who has been collecting music for over 20 years. The artist doesnt make much, the label doesnt make much, the distributor doesnt make much, and the record store doesnt make much. However people that press vinyl do it because they love it. They know that they arent going to make much but they are spreading an individuals creativity to a set number of people. IF you press a record in a quantity of 300 and sell out, at least you can sleep at night knowing that 300 people like and are inspired by what you do.
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soapz
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

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Vinyl isn't important to me at all. Of course mp3's sound like sh!t on large systems, so let's forget they even exist, I don't know why are even mentioned in the conversation. But if artists want their music to reach the widest audience and not go bankrupt, then selling digital wavs surely is the most sustainable way?

Costs next to nothing to save your music as wav then sell the digital file via a website. You can also sell loops/parts of the track for people to use in their sets.

I understand vinyl is a fundamental part of the DJ culture and lots of people stick by it. and if you love mixing vinyl then that's your preference, but it seems to add a lot of unnecessary layers to an otherwise simple business model - selling digital products the same way any website sells any digital product.. ebooks, digital courses, podcasts, membership programs etc. I know people don't like to see it as business and are doing it because they love it. But surely sustainability is important. Whether you wish to make a profit or not, still doing it in 10 years has to be the primary goal. If you're only selling vinyl coz it's 'cool' and are losing money, but are happy to continue anyway coz you're doing coz you love it. it's just bad business.
cbld wrote:By pressing a record it shows that you are serious about your product. I can fully trust a label or artist that releases on vinyl as I know that they are not doing it for the money...
So if somebody releases music you absolutely love but only as digital, you wouldn't trust the artist and wouldn't buy the tracks? Doesn't make any sense.?

IMO the hesitation to release digital products is because of the association with the 'throwaway culture', low quality mp3s and Beatport. and that labels don't think they will be taken seriously. But why even bring these things into the discussion? It's obvious you aren't going to start buying sh!t music all of a sudden and banging out the 128kbps in your next gig. Labels that release only quality music and only at the best quality sound, how will they not be taken seriously?
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soapz
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by soapz »

Mick wrote:I can't see the appeal in collecting digital music however good it might be
Again, to me doesn't make any sense. No matter how good the music might be? What are you even collecting music for if the quality of music isn't the major factor?

I'm not trying to stir up arguments, really, I just want to understand other perspectives as I personally think the electronic music industry is sort of hanging on to old ways too much and might be done in a much more progressive manner that benefits everybody. it's like there is a worry that once the industry goes fully digital, everything will turn to sh!t.
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John Clees
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by John Clees »

old ways.. digital was "in" around 2007-20011 so... funny you should mention "old ways".. digital / beatport is for sale and vinyl sales have been in an upswing for many years in a row... where you been g?

so nice to see you post here of course!..

hope this finds you well!!!
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soapz
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by soapz »

I think maybe i’m just irritated that I can’t get access to a lot of the great music I find as it’s not for sale anymore, limited edition or just older and not being repressed.

I’d really love to be able to give the artist some money for their music and them send me over a copy, but most of the time it's not possible. I either give up or give my money to some dude on discogs.

What a weird system :(
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soapz
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

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John Clees wrote:digital / beatport is for sale and vinyl sales have been in an upswing for many years in a row... where you been g?
I haven’t been following the beatport thing, didn’t know it was for sale.

I wasn’t talking about Beatport anyway, the faster that disappears the better. I meant more like how Omar S sells his music digitally and independently on his own site. http://www.omarsdetroit.us/mp3s.php

It makes the music accessible to everybody. No need to make the music scarce by only releasing 50 copies and blaming the budget. It’s always there. Omar S always gets paid for every sale, no second hand market, No discogs sellers cranking up the price, Artist takes full share.

Perfect.
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John Clees
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by John Clees »

soapz wrote:Artist takes full share.

Perfect.
I agree I think that's exactly the point of bandcamp. something very interesting I posted previously..
Fans have now given artists $100 million USD through Bandcamp. Fans give artists $3.5 million every month on the site, and buy more than 16,000 records a day, which works out to about one every five seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Furthermore, sales on Bandcamp are up 30% in the last 12 months, at a time when the rest of the industry is down 11%. We see this growth as proof that if you give fans easy ways to directly support the artists they love, they’ll take you up on it every time. So a big, big thanks to everyone supporting artists on Bandcamp, and to all the artists and labels posting great music too. We wouldn't be here without you.
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soapz
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Re: How important is vinyl to you?

Post by soapz »

Maybe another reason why labels are digging their heals in the ground so much is that the idea of artists releasing their own stuff digitally reduces the need for such labels to exist.

So instead, let's make only 50 copies of the music so they are really scarce (to appear more valuable) and add a hand-stamped label for good measure -squint

Selling music like this (bandcamp, omar s, etc) makes sense for everybody involved. The buyer and the seller. it's like what Amazon did with books, now the authors get paid for every sale, instead of the second hand book shops earning more over time. In book world, the only people to complain were the publishers and the second hand book shops,... and in music land.. that's the labels and the discogs sellers.

Perfect example; your post about Discogs doing $43 million in sales for 2015. How much of that went to the artists?
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