Anyone tried Sonicbids? Taxi?

[brandondrury]

it takes about a 1,000 songs or so (paraphrasing) to dig out a hit song.

That seems WAY low. It would seem to me that if you took the best 2 or 3 songs by every serious songwriter who really wants to succeed at this gig you may end up with th 1,000:1 ratio.

Brandon

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

That seems WAY low. It would seem to me that if you took the best 2 or 3 songs by every serious songwriter who really wants to succeed at this gig you may end up with th 1,000:1 ratio.

Brandon

Isn't that what I was saying "one hit out of every 1000?" I may have heard 3,000, but I was in the middle of a very nasty head cold at the time and wasn't hearing too well.

In any case, those can be some daunting numbers to go up against, which requires persistence, persistence, and more persistence. Mariah Carey did it. Jon Bon Jovi did it! etc etc etc

[jpeek345]

Originally Posted by TonyB

Isn't that what I was saying "one hit out of every 1000?" I may have heard 3,000, but I was in the middle of a very nasty head cold at the time and wasn't hearing too well.

In any case, those can be some daunting numbers to go up against, which requires persistence, persistence, and more persistence. Mariah Carey did it. Jon Bon Jovi did it! etc etc etc

Hey check out this article 09-2001.



It was a young concept then, it's defacto now.

"Don't compare, relate."

There a very few people/bands that know how to promote their band "right"- not just with profit (and there's profit) but with a savvy/prowess that can set your other arm- the touring side of your public awareness, balls out.


It's always the same- if you want a loan for a small business (any starting biz is a small biz) the loaners are going to help you talk in their language.
They'll give you materials to articulate just what you want in cash but you gotta plot it out.
Ever done an outline in school?
For those that have successfully you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, learn how to gently, with yourself just sketch the reality of your wants on paper, then put it down for the day and come back to it.
Everyone knows this "come back to it" part- you're not allowed to criticize what you yourself wrote.
You can only sit with it in the same kind of acceptance and tolerance that was there when you first wrote and then if something clicks, continue the sensibility.
Maximize the sensibility,
maximize your reality.

"Relate, don't compare".

much love,

Jay

[johnjm22]

I've been pretty happy with Sonicbids thus far. I'd say my band gets selected on about 20% of our submissions. We've got a song featured on an upcoming Wii video game, and Clothing Endorsement using Sonicbids.

I havent' tried TAXI yet, but I've been looking into it.

I also recently tried BroadJam. I submitted to two opportunities and got selected once (Music for the X-Games). Overall though, Broajam seems kind of "sketchy." I'm gonna try out the service more and see what happens.

[rockerdude]

I tried Taxi three years ago when I first started recording and got some favorable response from them.None of my songs got picked up though.After 6 months of chasing the Taxi carrot I asked for my money back and they refunded my 300.00.That was cool of them.Looking back I know my recordings back then were not up to par with radio standard material.I have gotten much better at recording and writing and I am thinking of trying taxi again.They set the bar very high so your recordings have to be good to go and the writing has to be very good.Think of them as the stores in the gold rush days that sold supplys to the miners.They make all the cash from your hard work and someday if your lucky enough you will find your golden nugget.

[jpeek345]

Originally Posted by rockerdude

I tried Taxi three years ago when I first started recording and got some favorable response from them.None of my songs got picked up though.After 6 months of chasing the Taxi carrot I asked for my money back and they refunded my 300.00.That was cool of them.Looking back I know my recordings back then were not up to par with radio standard material.I have gotten much better at recording and writing and I am thinking of trying taxi again.They set the bar very high so your recordings have to be good to go and the writing has to be very good.Think of them as the stores in the gold rush days that sold supplys to the miners.They make all the cash from your hard work and someday if your lucky enough you will find your golden nugget.

Thanks for sharing this rockerdude. Hardwon experience imparted for free is always primo.

[brandondrury]

After 6 months of chasing the Taxi carrot I asked for my money back and they refunded my 300.00.

This is extremely impressive! I would have figured them to be a non-money back kind of deal. That's good to know.

Brandon

[shackman]

First off, it's a minefield!

We made the Independent Music Network Charts last year, and Tunecore was part of our strategy. But it transpired that the only useful function it fulfilled was placing the songs on Naopster/ITunes etc. For the large part, I never visit my Tunecore site it is merely a vehicle to get music into major online stores.

Sonicbids is another we used but some seriously strange goings on there have prompted us to dump it when the subscription expires. One of their own forums (members only) started questioning how much of the stuff folks pay to get "pushed" to promotors, labels etc actually gets pushed at all.

Sonicbids started spiking (killing) those posts and a kind of internal guerilla war began with anti-sonic bids posts cropping up on unlikely forums about things like (how do I tune my guitar" etc.

I got into a serious e-mail conversation with a long time Sonicbids member who had become disillusioned and it was that conversation which led to my decision to pull out.

In my humble view, NONE of these guys (Taxi, Tunecore, Sonicbids, Nimbit etc etc) do it because they're your friend or want to help. They're all chasing greenbacks and that's thir sole motivation.

The more they can get us to pay them for as little work as possible, the better.

Fact is that a little hard work on the Internet and a decent player plug in for web sites takes you a lot further. It took us to the top ten and we plan on doing it again.

[jpeek345]

Originally Posted by shackman

Fact is that a little hard work on the Internet and a decent player plug in for web sites takes you a lot further. It took us to the top ten and we plan on doing it again.

It IS better to DIY. Then you know where you've been.
The web is shifty. You wonder if the link you had or the text you saw yesterday even existed.
But thats the personality of the web. The alternative is fascist regulation.

To contradict myself, check out this new media co and their pitch at vator.tv:

Vator.tv - Baeble Media company profile

and just for fodder,

I watch this guy among others:

YouTube - Gerd Leonhard Tech Talk at Google London


paz,

Jay

[adorian]

I've had Sonicbids for about a year as we signed up for the last year's South by Southwest Festival which was accepting submissions only through them. It hasn't benefitted me a signle iota and we've lost a few $$$ on these paid submissions.
One was the Metal Edge submission "Does your band suck?" which would feature you in the magazine. It turns out their daughter publication Metal Maniacs, which is geared more towards thrash/death/black metal as opposed to Metal Edge which is traditional metal, hard rock and glam and overall more trendy popular bands, ran a similar thing at about hte same time but it was a pay-to-play. You send $750 and get included in their CD insert if your tune is decent. If any of you have bought a copy of the last one with Ihsahn on the CD, you'd notice that there are some really subpar bands out there that got on because of the $$$. Anyway - they were running a different schtick.
I've also caught Sonicbids promoting some bogus festivals that I've crosschecked with the clubs listed and they hadn't even heard of them. I wrote in their forums and they took them off, but it looks seriously fishy to me. Long story short - we 're definitely canceling as they hadn't generated a single usable lead and are just a dent in our pockets. I much rather buy that new mic or guitar processor.