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How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

stevebenjamins.com

91–100 of 162 posts

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#91
post #73

This is a great counterpoint to people complaining about how little they make from Spotify. One thing that stuck out to me: > Because you can only submit one song, it’s best to space out releases. That way you can have ten singles considered by Spotify editors— rather than one single from an album for an entire year. I've wondered why so many artists were releasing a ton of singles on Spotify. This seems like a gamea…

Is it though? The author makes $400 a month, that's not even close to being a living. Mis metrics and revenue match up with my own experience with Spotify and they are very difficult to achieve. Now imagine that your musical project has 4 people instead of 1, now it's $100 a month per person. Except just kidding, because you'll need to pump all that money (and personal money from members) back into the band to keep t…

It's a success because he considers it to be one. Also he's earning more money from his music on Spotify than he was through other means.

He explicitly says he's not trying to earn a living from it.

> Of course that’s not enough to support a full-time artist but that’s not what I’m trying to be. I don't tour, I don't sell merch and I'm not on a label. I just want to make music and Spotify is making that possible.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#92
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with streaming is I don't want to have to pay for more mobile data (primary use for me is in the car - can any of these services cache 2 hours worth of stuff for offline use?) and a lot of what I listen to isn't going to be on a streaming service like spotify - fandom music, soundcloud remixes, video game soundtracks (probably some on those services but not all), vaporwaves from youtube. I also still find FM…

Yes, Spotify allows you to download 10,000 tracks offline per device. No limit on the expiration.

You used to have to go online every 30 days (or something) else they would expire. Is that no longer the case?

Also, it used to be 10,000 across 3 devices and bizarrely only 333 on each device (even if you only used one device)! I think they have since fixed that.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#93
post #88
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh theres places to get all the shows streamed for free, and getting even the pirating the most obscure music is easier than ever piracy is currently the most convenient way to consume content now that all the streaming services/labels want to fragment their libraries

I don't think we're quite there yet. Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient. I guess for someone starting from scratch, "what streaming service(s) should I should I subscribe to?" might be a difficult and paralyzing question to the point that the answer might be, "who knows, screw it, I'll just pirate everything".

Oh but it is, if not more so because there are no dark patterns, no screeching autoplay trailers within seconds of opening the app, no 2 second pauses until the next episode, just a very user friendly streaming interface that gets straight to the point. But I won't divulge the name here.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#94

The insight to upload a single every 4 weeks is quite valuable. My songs are all done with pocket operators/an op-1/tone.js, theres a small soundcloud community that follows this type of dawless production but possible longer form ambient tracks would do well on spotify.

I'm curious to know how you use tone.js in a creative way, as I have seen it as a framework for developing musical apps, not a creative tool in itself. Also, do you sync the hardware devices with js stuff, if so how?

I have been at it for a very short period of time but I mainly think in terms of what cycles can i make that will rarely repeat themselves and result in interesting compositions.

Typically I start by defining a main loop, and then have a synth of my choosing randomly select notes and timings. I listen to this randomness until I realize what I don't like about it, then I change the parameter.

Something that helps is every time I instantiate a Tone object I make sure to copy paste the entire params from the Tone API, that way the code itself is the "knobs and buttons" I am used to fiddling with on a real synth.

This is a brian eno tip but I listen to the track at x2-x4 the bpm of what I actually want the track to end up being, it makes protoyping faster while still allowing complex composition.

I keep adding loops and chaining effects until I find something 'almost' complete that needs a human nonrandom touch.

Then I connect my PC output to my OP-1, record the output onto a track, and finish the song on my OP-1.

I plan on recording the midi output of my op-1 and feeding that into Tone so that I can record some more complicated key movements without having to literally program each key press and release. The path is OP-1 MIDI->MIDItoJSON->Tone.js

If you do know of a programming language/library/software like Tone.js but more suited to generative audio I am 100% interested in this field. I am looking to pursue creative coding once I am out of undergrad. I see it as an easy way to stay away from RDBMS which make me feel a sense of corporate dread.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#95

The insight to upload a single every 4 weeks is quite valuable. My songs are all done with pocket operators/an op-1/tone.js, theres a small soundcloud community that follows this type of dawless production but possible longer form ambient tracks would do well on spotify.

I've got spotify premium but end up listening to tons of Red Means Recording style videos on youtube almost as much as I use Spotify.

RMR and Cuckoo music were pretty much all I watched while waiting for my op-1 to ship, the format is so pleasurable.

I feel I have run out of brian eno to listen to and I would like to make some of my own.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#96
post #64
post #58

I used to love the Discover Weekly, but now that I use Spotify most days when going to the gym any of my auto generated playlists like discover weekly kinda suck. I usually put on random gym playlists like the popular "Beast Mode" one. While I like this music for working out, I definitely don't normally enjoy listening to rap, hip hop, and EDM music however this is what most workout music consists of. I wish I could…

This is the main reason why recommended content just doesn’t work for me. Youtube, spotify, and many other services try to be clever but are just really dumb.

It falls on its face when you are just outside the typical use case. Sometimes I'll throw on an album and listen to it all the way through, or just really listen to one particular artist for a few weeks. Then the recommended content falls on its face as it doesn't know how to handle someone binging Grateful Dead one week and Kendrick Lamar the next.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#97
post #88
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh theres places to get all the shows streamed for free, and getting even the pirating the most obscure music is easier than ever piracy is currently the most convenient way to consume content now that all the streaming services/labels want to fragment their libraries

I don't think we're quite there yet. Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient. I guess for someone starting from scratch, "what streaming service(s) should I should I subscribe to?" might be a difficult and paralyzing question to the point that the answer might be, "who knows, screw it, I'll just pirate everything".

> Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient.

I'm not sure. A friend watches shows on a pirate streaming site, even though they are available for free (but add supported, not that this matters with addblock) on a legal streaming site. It's just easier to always first check the site that always has the desired content available for that particular target audience than some try and error or even an additional google search.

But context matters. If you pay for a subscription, wanting to get the most "value" out of that makes sense psychologically (just like the other mindset... "already payed for that, who cares where i watch"). Also if you already got the necessary subscriptions and google always directly leads you to the latest weekly episode, starting there doesn't make a difference. One that's not the case (e.g. you can only watch ever other show an the high sea)... well, having to repeat the search on more than one site would certainly be more effort.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#99
post #58

I used to love the Discover Weekly, but now that I use Spotify most days when going to the gym any of my auto generated playlists like discover weekly kinda suck. I usually put on random gym playlists like the popular "Beast Mode" one. While I like this music for working out, I definitely don't normally enjoy listening to rap, hip hop, and EDM music however this is what most workout music consists of. I wish I could…

I have kinda the same problem. Others random playlist are much better then mine. I only get the same old boring stuff, while others get new and exiting music I've never heard... I was an early adopter then paused my subscription for about 6 years because i couldn't find new music. Now when i try again i still cant find any new stuff. I also have the same problem with the Youtube algorithms. Same songs over and over.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#100
I make about $200/month thanks to Spotify listing my podcast. Their partnership with Anchor.fm has really helped push my pod forward because the new features on anchor, since the acquisition, have helped me pinpoint an audience.

https://open.spotify.com/show/0jW7nOHQNi1Xlr3v7UMi2p

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