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I just need to state that I stand behind Low-Gain 100% on this. It's not negativity as much as it is both being from the upper-Midwest were the attitude is much different than other regions and just being burnt-out on the same old shit. I cannot speak for him however.
Expect less, demand more.
@low-gain - awesome post.
I made a "chip" Christmas album and *sold* around 2,000 digital copies and around 500 physical copies from a self-hosted site; at the time I was naive and didn't know how uncool it was to SELL music, LOL. I am sure few of these people had ever heard the term "chiptune."
I would say chip artists are selling themselves short. Some of us will pay for something if we like it. I would gladly pay for a digital release if I liked the music, and if offered, I'd buy a (professional) CD. I hope more chip artists take the risk and put forth the effort to make cohesive long-play albums and to print CDs. At least give the option of buying, like Smiletron's Control did.
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Last edited by RushCoil (Jun 23, 2010 6:22 pm)
I just need to state that I stand behind Low-Gain 100% on this. It's not negativity as much as it is both being from the upper-Midwest were the attitude is much different than other regions and just being burnt-out on the same old shit. I cannot speak for him however.
Expect less, demand more.
*two thumbs up*
RG wrote:I just need to state that I stand behind Low-Gain 100% on this. It's not negativity as much as it is both being from the upper-Midwest were the attitude is much different than other regions and just being burnt-out on the same old shit. I cannot speak for him however.
Expect less, demand more.
*two thumbs up*
I bet it's because you fuckers are OLD, not from the midwest. 
Yeah, this has a *lot* to do with it too I'm sure.
totally. hahaha
Meh, I get paid in cigarettes and snickers bars so I wouldn't know 0.0
Well said Logan.
Giving away music for free and getting 1000 DL's is gr8. However getting 1000 people to purchase your work says more about an artist in my book. No offense to the Freebies.
About gear: Some people like the creative limitations of their favorite device, some don’t...Just do what you enjoy, because ultimately what does it matter?
Last edited by 8bitweapon (Jun 23, 2010 6:57 pm)
And most of the time we're just selling music to fellow musicians.. never the masses that have no clue what 8bc or cm.org are.
Even since I started hanging around 8bc or cm.org, this has been my thoughts exactly. A bunch of starving artists selling music to fellow artists that have to sell their own equipment just to pay the bills. Of course they all think music should be free... they're poor! If I had no money, I wouldn't pay for music either.
My promo EP, which I self-released, has 41 downloads, and that's considering that I require email addresses for downloads... I guess that brings me close to popular, but I have a web business with a lot of traffic and have used that somewhat to my advantage. I'm not a popular musician at all. I do want to get to the point where my music can move on its own (be that sales or free downloads), and that would definitely require taking the same route any other artist takes to get popular; exploiting social sites people actually use (myspace, facebook, youtube), sending out demos, doing shows, constantly bugging friends for support, etc. I don't want to depend on the chip community to gain popularity, currently I just see it as a way to get feedback on my work from other artists and hear what others are doing. Anyway, I am actually working on a complete album and I'm constantly thinking about things like artwork, physical packaging, release dates, promotion, etc.
tl;dr Music that sells is 50% quality, 50% marketing.
How about this for a solution to the crazy amount of releases?
As many chiplabels as possible get together and agree not to release anything for a year. When that year is up, they can only release the best two releases that have been submitted over that year.
It means we will have less "backed" and "official" releases, and artists have to work harder to get onto a label.
low-gain wrote:And most of the time we're just selling music to fellow musicians.. never the masses that have no clue what 8bc or cm.org are.
tl;dr Music that sells is 50% quality, 50% marketing.
Marketing is as important as the music for the artist. The music can be amazing but if no one knows about it, it gets lost in the sea of chipmusic (even more so for music in general!) Even established artists need to promote new works otherwise they get lost too. The public's attention span is growing shorter and shorter. I notice when an artist from 2 years ago releases something its sometimes a "comeback" album lol
Last edited by 8bitweapon (Jun 23, 2010 6:37 pm)
i'd settle for net labels to have a little back bone and be willing to tell an artist that it's not to their standards. instead of releasing it just because they have the server space and bandwidth.
it's too easy to release an ep or an album. simple as that. anyone can do it, and most people are impatient and want instant gratification/satisfaction...
"i just finished a song, i should release it"
maybe it's not finished, and you should sit on it, and work on it some more. 
I don't want to depend on the chip community to gain popularity, currently I just see it as a way to get feedback on my work from other artists and hear what others are doing.
While this sounds kinda harsh it's a good method, if you get stuck trying to get the chip scene to love your music, you might become popular in here, but what i'm sensing is that once you're here, it's kinda hard to get out anywhere else.
Decktonic wrote:I don't want to depend on the chip community to gain popularity, currently I just see it as a way to get feedback on my work from other artists and hear what others are doing.
While this sounds kinda harsh it's a good method, if you get stuck trying to get the chip scene to love your music, you might become popular in here, but what i'm sensing is that once you're here, it's kinda hard to get out anywhere else.
Music is music, if its good people will dig it anywhere, not just in chiptopia.
maybe it's not finished, and you should sit on it, and work on it some more.
though counter-point would be to say that it's not that helpful to spend an extra 4 months sitting on a release fine tuning a kick drum sound or just continuously reworking the tracks
i prefer working on things in a condensed time-span, as i feel it helps keep a release feeling focused...but that's me, and i've learned that if i take too logn on an album or ep, pretty soon ive dumped everything i had and started over when i get to a certain point