Do you sell more music if you offer physical media as well?

[Jwar]

Yea I buy both. I dig vinyls and cd's, but I listen to digital as well. I mostly buy digital or vinyl these days. I do expect the digital shit to cost less though.

I mostly buy on iTunes because I have a Mac and an iPhone and listen to almost all my music on one of those via bluetooth speakers. lol.

I use Bandcamp as well but mostly free. I don't notice any downgraded sound, but my ears suck.

[waltdogg]

i always buy records, cassettes, shirts, etc. from my favorite bands. tangibility with a digital backup option is ideal. just don't get too attached to your collection. although i do have most of my favorite records on vinyl or cassette i also have digital copies of them just in case.

i will only buy digital if i *really* like it and it's the absolute only way to get it. but in that case i'll just scour soulseek till i find it (and i usually do).

most physical releases come with download codes these days anyways, so. why bother not going tangible for a few dollars more? unless you don't have a turntable or tape deck.

[Blackened Soul]

My take.

If I like it enough to listen want to listen to it I will pay for a download so I can play it at work to cancel out the christian radio that wafts from my manager's office.. If you don't offer a digital version and I still like it I will order a copy of whatever you put it on.. and then turn it into a mp3 so I can cancel out the christian radio that wafts from my manager's office..

by the way my manager is not a christian.. he just says it calms him...

As to worth. Even if you don't offer a physical copy doesn't mean you didn't put a LOT of work into the thing but if you are not selling the things all over then you will be sitting on tons of shit.. sorry modern world and stuff.

[BitchPudding]

As a dude whos always had his music free in one format or another, I've only recently starting selling my music places in order to cram my shit into as many places as possible.

All my stuff is still free on bandcamp, but in order for my label to get my stuff other places it had to be for a cost. Even then thankfully you can get both my albums for 4.99 each which is great. And I guess if you stream then you dont really notice that your technically paying for the music. I do feel like paying for downloads at least in the pay what you want format is great for essentially "tipping" the artist if you want.

But the way I've always approached things is I want my music to be accessible by everyone. I don't really care about pay and never really will. Only recently have I started to see small amounts of cash come from shows and streams, and its definitely nice but its not the main goal really.

I feel like if your paying for something it should come with something tangible that you can hold physically, put on your shelf, whatever. Be it stickers, cassettes, t shirts. Like this album cycle im on for instance, there will be CDs available and im working on Cassettes and t shirts as well cause I like the art for once. lol

And that will be a way for my fans to pay me but get something out of it as well.

So TL;DR: pay for download=essentially tipping the artist, but merch is better. Wearable stuff especially.

On the flipside, as a fan of music I have this process when I find a band I like (lets use lightning bolt as an example)

1. like a song, stream the album. (Used to pirate but lol SpOtIfY!)
2. Like the album, listen to everything. (Often will get my favorite on vinyl/CD)
3. Listen to everything, see a show (This is the final step. Ill buy merch, enjoy myself and meet the band if I can.)

I feel like that cycle really helps me as a listener not only get the full experience but allows for me to support the band as much as I can.

But yea, sorry for rambling.

[chrisdermo]

I will never pay for a lossy format digital file, same way as I will never pay for streaming services, because they sound like ass to me. When a label has a full quality wav file at their disposal, with the download speeds and hard drive capacities of today there is no reason whatsoever to be providing lossy formats, if you need to cram as much as possible on your mp3 player you can do the conversions yourself!

[moid]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, sorry I didn't contribute, this week has been horrible at work...it seems like it might be worth me making some CD-Rs for our next release, I'll start small and see if people like that.

[waltdogg]

here's a thought:

make 7" sized record sleeves.

make stickers.

put your record on bandcamp. and print out all your free download codes.

put a sticker and download code in every dummy 7" sleeve.

give those out for free. but make the album not available for purchase or download to anyone without the code.

[Ugly Nora]

Be sure the boy is doing his part by hyping it on the playground too.

[moid]

My son never goes anywhere near a playground; we home educate him (he has a total hatred of mainstream education) ... but none of his home education friends are interested in music like he is (they are too young really). I just keep spamming my students with it; some of them claim to like it (and told me after I finished grading them!) but they never have any money poor things. I will just have to think of better marketing (thanks waltdog!)

[Blackened Soul]

My son never goes anywhere near a playground; we home educate him (he has a total hatred of mainstream education) ..

[moid]

Thanks It was his choice (although we agreed with him), we aren't anti-vaxxer flat-earther creationists before anyone gets any ideas... we still believe in education as being very important so he gets a strange mixture of stuff that everyone should know (maths, English, history, geography etc) mixed with lots of odd fun stuff they never get to do at school (archery, woodcraft, blacksmithing, pottery...) Whether this experiment works or not is something for the future, I just want it to work so my wife and I can prove to everyone in my family who believe he will be unemployable or never amount to anything that they are wrong, and he can be different to most kids and still achieve things.

[GardenoftheDead]

I buy stuff I care about on vinyl because CDs are pointless now and cassettes were shitty when they were new. Vinyl is at least resistant to the loudness war even if it is no better than lossless audio files.

But in terms of the statistics, something tells me most bands lose money on their physical media by virtue of it not selling. It's the harsh reality that only hipster douchebags like me give a fuck about physical media anymore.