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I have 404,772 users. Now what?

pud.com

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Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#131

Post by waterlesscloud »

jyothi wrote: post #115

most of the ideas posted by you are revenue models through advertising (where the real value of the user base is not extracted) or with more cumbersome product ecommerce tied with shipping which you don't want to do. I bet you have these other ideas too - just wanted to point out that if it is an expensive hobby why not keep it as close to heart while making money too: 1. Sell amateur music and published albums of ar…

The idea of crowdsourcing venue info for mini-tour assembly is an interesting one.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#132

Post by yoshamano »

I'm not a musician, but I have some friends who dabble with music. I've seen them hunt for guitar tabs online to learn new songs, and it always looks like a sad night of romance with Notepad. Is there a better system for sharing tabs than a basic text file?

Either way, how about a more elegant system of recording tabs that can also be sync'd to streaming tracks (like SoundCloud, except with scrolling tabs instead of the spectrum graph) or sync'd to YouTube videos.

All this talk of monetizing and better user connections is great, but what about better technical tools that make the actual creation of music easier? Build a garage of well-loved tools and they'll finish the rest of the house for you.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#133

Post by satyajit »

Very interesting post. First of all, congrats on making Fandalism such a success. I am a musician too, and 10+yrs back, I used to browse Harmony Central for all kinds of gears. Read reviews, read NAMM report, check out used gears classifieds.

One idea would be, just like you have artists and people give thembs up to artist, you could create profiles for gears. Then connect artists to those gears, as in artists recommending, endorsing those gears. If Fandalism is all about fans, if I am big fan of Pud the drummer, would love to know what sticks he uses and what kit he endorses.

Again, extending the fan aspect, sell used gears by the artists themselves to their fans. Fans will be happy to pay a premium for the used gears of the artists they follow.

Artist profile can be paid too. Basic profile is free to create. You can add, maybe upto 10 tracks. And to reduce your server bandwidth, stream those at lowres (low BPM encoded) for the free users. Subscribed users get hires versions. No artist wants to sound bad. That'll push many guys to be paid subscribers.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#134

Post by yoshamano »

I'm not a musician, but I have some friends who dabble with music. I've seen them hunt for guitar tabs online to learn new songs, and it always looks like a sad night of romance with Notepad. Is there a better system for sharing tabs than a basic text file?

Either way, how about a more elegant system of recording tabs that can also be sync'd to streaming tracks (like SoundCloud, except with scrolling tabs instead of the spectrum graph) or sync'd to YouTube videos.

All this talk of monetizing and better user connections is great, but what about better technical tools that make the actual creation of music easier? Build a garage of well-loved tools and they'll finish the rest of the house for you.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#135

Post by JonnieCache »

te_chris wrote: post #80
pud wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good idea. There are people on Fandalism who are unbelievably good musicians, better than pros. I should ask them to do online lessons or whatnot. (of course, just because they're a good musician doesn't mean they're a good teacher. but i could come up with guidelines to help them teach..)

This could be very cool. I'm quite a good musician myself (varsity educated and all that), but lately I've really been wanting to learn some more solo production techniques (basically I want to make music that sounds like purity ring: http://soundcloud.com/purity-ring ) as, despite all my education and experience, I don't really know squat about how to produce a good dance track. I would be really interested in somew…

OT but anyway... consider it a validation of the idea.

>"I want to make a beat that sounds like the one from Belispeak"

The type of beat (and the melodic structure) they're using there is lifted wholesale from a subgenre of southern hiphop called "trap music," which takes its name from its preoccupation with methamphetamine retail.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5hJIuo3_g

The key is to take the classic 808 and 909 drum machines (ableton has emulations built in or you can get samples from anywhere) and put the right kind of rolls on the percussion sounds, you could try triggering them in some more unusual ways, perhaps with an arpeggiator. The "pop" sound stems from the layers of vocal processing. Tbh there's nothing terribly complicated going on production wise in their tracks, unfortunately that sound comes from having good musical ideas and the ability to execute them without fuss. That's not something you can really get from tutorial videos, but I guess your formal education will help.

BTW you will also enjoy the music of kuedo:

http://www.factmag.com/2011/10/03/fact-mix-288-kuedo/

And perhaps the more juke-oriented style of Sully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7ODqfXKWI

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#136

Post by dasil003 »

phzbOx wrote: post #94
pm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for finding the "best musicians in the world", but what really shits me about Idol and similar shows is that they find technically brilliant singers, but they can't write a song if their life depended on it. The same with many brilliant musicians I know - they have the technical chops, but have no basic idea how to structure a song other than chorus-verse or maybe AABA. There's got to be a market for musician…

Look, watch that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_hHc7TZjyY That beauty transformed into this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY-vXcmpZIw Please, don't blame the musicians.

She wanted to be a pop star and she became one of the greatest of all time—decades after the height of the pop star era when labels actually had the capability to manufacture them.

Frank Zappa made a career of playing rock music instead of jazz or classical which many people consider a greater art form. It never was really "pop" music but still there are many that criticize him for it.

I'd be very careful to avoid derision on the basis of popularity. That fact that you have distaste for Lady Gaga's genre doesn't mean she's not a valid artist. There's a difference between relying on autotune because you're a talentless hack and an artistic decision.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#137

Post by _b8r0 »

pud wrote: post #110
dools wrote: post #86

A few months ago I did a post[1] where I promoted a page I made for my dad Nick Dooley[2] which was basically to test whether a simple "online busking" model has legs. The results were that about 4000 people downloaded the 1st track, about half that the second and roughly 350 each for the last two (I didn't do enough analysis to know if those last 350 or so people were the same ones or not). Out of those, about 20 pe…

Cool concept -- I remember your original post on HN. I definitely think a site where musicians could ask for donations would be cool and I'd put my music there. I'm apprehensive to do this on Fandalism though. If I promise money to my users I'd be setting them up for disappointment since the vast majority wouldn't make any. In other words I'd probably rather the message be "Use Fandalism because it's fun and cool!" r…

How about you let musicians sell either through you directly (a la itunes or amazon) on their sites or post itunes links? You could take a cut for the former (less than itunes) and get them to release unencumbered music.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#139

Post by alexhektor »

Figure out the music industry and find your place in it. There should be more than a handful of possible buyers.

Don't forget the value of the data you sit on / will be sitting on. It might feed up to managers/labels etc. Especially talk to the guys from BigChampagne about that.

Go talk to Ian Rogers from Topspin (although I'm not sure if he has a competing product), Eric Garland from LiveNation/BigChampagne, Matt Sandler from Chromatik .. find someone that can navigate you through the industry.

Who's on your platform more? Fans or Bands? Both groups can be catered to. Figure out which one holds more value.

Make it easy for artists to sell music. And try to find people who have enough from mainstream music and want to support local/smaller bands/artists. Take transaction fees?

Hooking up smaller venues with talent?

Let me know if you need an intro to someone.. Music tech should be fun :) Enjoy!

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#140

Post by uptown »

You could follow the Dribbble model, and offer "Pro" accounts where artists could list themselves as available for hire. For bands that don't want to be hired, but just want to let their fans know where they'll be performing, give them access to MailChimp-like features to send email-blasts to their fans.
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