Comptroller
Offline
Edinburgh

It seems to me that one benefit of operating under the 'chiptune' label is that it's a niche area with (as chunter points out) an existing organised network of people behind it. The average rock band faces the dilemma of figuring out exactly who to present their music to; there's a good chance it will get lost in amongst the other 1000 guitar-band-style releases that month, unless they're applying a very specific label to themselves that allows people to find them more easily. I guess the same applies to any broad description, 'electronica' or what have you.

Also I find myself downloading & enjoying chip releases that, genre-wise, might come under a category I would normally avoid. Same applies to chip gigs - you see shows with 5 artists all playing arguably a different genre of music, but chip fans stay and enthusiastically enjoy all of them. Being open minded is part of it, I guess, but the chip source is the unifying factor.

Totally agree with 4mat & Decktonic about a required purchase (in whatever form) legitimizing a release. It doesn't even need to be money - alternatives like giving an email address for an album download, tweet for a song, etc. still require a commitment from the listener and give something back to the artist. I think it's worthwhile to have some stuff available at no cost & with no strings attached though.

Anyway, download stats:

Challenge! - 626 since December 2009
Comptroller - 381 since March 2010

smiletron
Offline
Nashville, Tennessee

its very, very interesting to see all of your numbers.

Sycamore Drive
Offline
East Kilbride, Scotland
Comptroller wrote:

It seems to me that one benefit of operating under the 'chiptune' label is that it's a niche area with (as chunter points out) an existing organised network of people behind it. The average rock band faces the dilemma of figuring out exactly who to present their music to; there's a good chance it will get lost in amongst the other 1000 guitar-band-style releases that month, unless they're applying a very specific label to themselves that allows people to find them more easily. I guess the same applies to any broad description, 'electronica' or what have you.

Also I find myself downloading & enjoying chip releases that, genre-wise, might come under a category I would normally avoid. Same applies to chip gigs - you see shows with 5 artists all playing arguably a different genre of music, but chip fans stay and enthusiastically enjoy all of them. Being open minded is part of it, I guess, but the chip source is the unifying factor.

Totally agree with 4mat & Decktonic about a required purchase (in whatever form) legitimizing a release. It doesn't even need to be money - alternatives like giving an email address for an album download, tweet for a song, etc. still require a commitment from the listener and give something back to the artist. I think it's worthwhile to have some stuff available at no cost & with no strings attached though.

Anyway, download stats:

Challenge! - 626 since December 2009
Comptroller - 381 since March 2010

How can the Comptroller album only have 381 downloads when it has 513 listeners on last.fm? :S
http://www.last.fm/music/Comptroller/Comptroller

Decktonic
Offline
Westfield, NJ
Sycamore Drive wrote:

How can the Comptroller album only have 381 downloads when it has 513 listeners on last.fm? :S
http://www.last.fm/music/Comptroller/Comptroller

AFAIK, If you press any of those little gray buttons on that page, that counts as a listen.

Decktonic
Offline
Westfield, NJ
Comptroller wrote:

It seems to me that one benefit of operating under the 'chiptune' label is that it's a niche area with (as chunter points out) an existing organised network of people behind it. The average rock band faces the dilemma of figuring out exactly who to present their music to; there's a good chance it will get lost in amongst the other 1000 guitar-band-style releases that month, unless they're applying a very specific label to themselves that allows people to find them more easily. I guess the same applies to any broad description, 'electronica' or what have you.

Yes but then you have the unfortunate side effect of it being a niche area: it's a very small audience. I mean, even the most successful acts on this thread have pretty dismal numbers.

Comptroller
Offline
Edinburgh

I can only go by Bandcamp download stats. It's available through other channels, so I guess that covers the remainder.

Edit: or Decktonic's solution. My reply was too slow.

Last edited by Comptroller (Feb 5, 2011 12:04 am)

BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON

I'd be really interested to know what the "top-selling" chiptune album is. I would assume that its something by anamanaguchi, but honestly I'm pretty damn impressed with Disasterpeace's Obsidian figures...  I've worked at a record label before, and sales numbers like that are good for well-funded college radio rock bands, not obscure electronic music sub-genre weirdos! But that album rules, so I'm really happy its being appreciated in a ca$h money $ense.


Now, I was initially thinking that posting download stats is kind of a weird, awkward thing, like hanging out in a gym locker room or something and no good could possibly come of it... but after reading through, its pretty cool and refreshing to be having this kind of honest discussion and I think everybody has something to gain from honest discourse about something we all wish for: our music to be heard and enjoyed by more damn people.

So chip-peen: BP is nearing 10k downloads total for the year (split between 2 EPs and a single), with about 400 "sales" (physical CDs + download cards + we sell some backcatalog EPs on bandcamp). Im not going to include youtube hits or lastfm plays or compilation tracks or anything like that. Im not saying that these methods are invalid, its just not something we focus on so including it seems disingenuous

tl;dr- this thread is going much better than I expected

Last edited by BR1GHT PR1MATE (Feb 5, 2011 3:48 am)

Battle Lava
Offline

^10k? Wow.  You guys must have worked hard on getting your stuff out there? Or is this mostly thx to your FOX television appearance? Can you tell?

Downstate
Offline
shanghai

i put my shit up for free on bandcamp pretty much exactly 1 yr ago. there have been 672 downloads. i dont know what that figure would be if id sold them. but i guess about 50 haha. the release i had out on physical on awkward silence hasnt sold out yet. its been 2 years, last i heard there were 50 ish left out of 300. thats taking into account however, most peops probably checked it out cos it was a split with porn sword tobacco, who is pretty established and has many releases out in the past. for me now i just offer it for 0p if you want, or pay what you like. i did this 1 month ago.........50 people have dl'ed for free since that but 3 have paid between 5 and 10 quid for one album cos they nabbed all 3 for free and felt bad.  i dont know where i stand on music should be free thing. i disagree i guess. but i have a job that keeps my food on the table and my mental normality so music making is just for personnel enjoyment, playing gigs and if people want to download and listen in their home, their car when they're on the train then thats just wicked. the money i dont give a shit about, the money to my paypal went straight back out to beatport for some nice new squelchy drum n bass. That was nice, to me these were essentially free tunes anyway cos i bought them all with someone elses money !

Downstate
Offline
shanghai

intersting to read 4mats views on how chipmusic is portrayed as not serious music etc. i agree. also if you google chiptune, you are confronted with lots of gay gameboy fan art and 'i love my dmg' t-shirts or something. Which does kinda make the scene look a bit lame.  I often tell my music friends, people i play with what i use and stuff. Usually after i play, i guess people have noticed those standout arps and blips and stuff and always ask me 'whoa ive never heard anything with like these computer games sounds and pianos with proper electronica beat'. People normally think it dope that i use trackers, gameboys and old casio's etc alongside reaktor 5 and max/msp. I guess though i would never describe myself as a chipmusician or chiptuner. i always go with what decktonic was pointing out, i just say "er i make kinda humble electronica/glitchy/breaky/8 bit stuff"....i think its always gonna be different if your a straight up chip hardware kinda dude. its a proper niche community i guess, most just dont get it, or just dont like it. i love game music and the influences it gives me but im never really into much raw lsdj stuff. The sound just doesnt float my boat, sure there are some 'Peer, Mobb beep, Deer' and a few others but on the whole i dont really want to sit and listen to VGM. The main thing that got me into 8 bit stuff, or mainly just trackers, was learning that alot of them beans on M3rck records were using trackers. People like Ilkae,Proswell, etc etc. Now that was taken seriously, and it is chipmusic in a sense, all the old tracker effects are what makes it so dope. It just was never promoted as computer game influenced music, it was just trip hop, electronica. Hell some of them i got 10 years ago wouldnt have known what a tracker was until about 2005. But even if it had an atari st on the front cover, it wouldnt have made me taake it any less seriously. i dont know what the point im trying to make is, mostly like i said to a guy the other day. 'ah i love 8 bit sounds and using old trackers,gameboys' his response was 'uh yeah, to be honest im not really into all that cheesey gameboy techno shit, its a bit gay isnt it? ' . His words, not mine. I guess his impression is formed by the chinese chip artists, Sulumi, Amu etc.... I think the biggest problem with the chipmusic scene being dismissed is that most people just think chipmusic is euro trance cak made on a painted gameboy by a kid in multi coloured trainers...... which obviously it isnt. im gonna stop now and make some proper real 8 bitmusic, peace out. Bidding for this new track im working on starts at 100 GBP okay ?

calmdownkidder
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Liverpool, UK

tldr! Split your posts into paragraphs, Downstate - jeez

Downstate
Offline
shanghai

wats a paragraph. is it like a parachite for words. to stop them falling.sorry.my punctuation is very bad,infact my grammar and english language skills in general are bad.its why i only teach 4 yr old chinese kids, cos i'll get caught out by any kid in high scholl.serious.anyway see my bad worting in one blob as a sfegaurd to save you reading til the end.
thinking - where's he goin' with this ? what his point ?
well
i normally dont make a point
just babble
so it wiuld save you that minute of your life reading my stoned brain in text form. you'll never get tthose sixty seconds back once they're gone.

Battle Lava
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Downstate, we don't mind loosing the 60 secs.  Just use the return or enter button on your keyboard once in a while. for real.

Zomvor
Offline

.

Last edited by Zomvor (Apr 2, 2016 2:36 pm)

BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON
Battle Lava wrote:

^10k? Wow.  You guys must have worked hard on getting your stuff out there? Or is this mostly thx to your FOX television appearance? Can you tell?

good question! surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly?) the fox news thing doesn't seem to be a factor in downloads beyond an initial 120-something download spike on that day... and to be honest, i get the impression that it was mostly from people in the chip scene checking it out. Also, the EP that was available then (leather daddies) was our least successful "actual release", so other than some pretty crazy experiences and some elevated visibility, nothing crazy (to my knowledge) has come from as a direct result of the appearance.

I have some observations and advice on marketing that sort of detail how we went about getting stuff that I'd be happy to share with people if they want to PM me, but i don't want to make a huge post about it!

[edited to remove a bunch of numbers]

Last edited by BR1GHT PR1MATE (Feb 7, 2011 12:05 am)

mk
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No idea how many people download the Metrodub stuff.

Guess once I can fund the rehired I can quote some numbers!