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...but of course I only see the article after it's "old news", and my post will probably remain unseen by the hordes.

Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.

How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:

• Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
• Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
• MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
• CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
• Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
• Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.

It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.

My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.

...but of course I only see the article after it's "old news", and my post will probably remain unseen by the hordes.

Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.

How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:

• Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
• Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
• MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
• CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
• Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
• Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.

It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.

My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.

...but of course I only see the article after it's "old news", and my post will probably remain unseen by the hordes.

Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.

How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:

• Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
• Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
• MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
• CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
• Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
• Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.

It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.

My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.

...but of course I only see the article after it's "old news", and my post will probably remain unseen by the hordes.

Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.

How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:

• Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
• Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
• MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
• CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
• Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
• Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.

It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.

My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.

...but of course I only see the article after it's "old news", and my post will probably remain unseen by the hordes.

Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.

How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:

• Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
• Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
• MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
• CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
• Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
• Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.

It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.

My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.

Oh, and bad form to reply to my own post, but that really has annoyed me quite a lot.

How dare you question whether I love music? I've been making it for about 18 years so far and never yet earned any money from it. Sure, I've been paid - but set against the money I've spent on instruments, tuition, equipment, travel, rehearshal room hire, etc, etc, I can guarantee that overall, I've subsidised my music making heavily from my own pocket.

For the past four and half years I've been in a semi-professional band called keirestu. We get paid up to £800 for an hours set. Cushy money? Well, no. There are ten of us, so if we were to split it, that's £80 each. But we don't split it - we can't afford to. Every penny goes back into the band fund to keep the show on the road. We tour with pushing £20,000 worth of kit. Every gig we play in London costs us about £450 in travel costs alone, and last gig in London we were paid £15. YES, FIFTEEN POUND. In other words, we subsidised the missing £435 FROM OUR OWN POCKETS.

So, once again, how dare you?

Now, we happen to think we're pretty damn good. That's why keep on doing it. Plenty of other people think we're pretty damn good, too. ;)

But let me tell you. After this many years trying to do the band in our spare time, outside a convential 40-hour working week, it's getting harder and harder. It won't last forever... Unless we can turn pro, sooner or later one or more of us will have to call it a day, the band will split and that'll be that. No more music from us. Ever.

Now, if you happen to be one of the thousands of people who have enjoyed our gigs or CDs over the past few years, you'll probably think that's quite a shame. Because we haven't even made 1% of the music we have in us, yet - quantity OR quality. If we could earn a living from this band, we could practice, songwrite and record material EVERY DAY -- as opposed to our current situation, with 10 people juggling different jobs and fitting the band in whenever they can blag a few days off work -- which has given us the mighty total of three practice/songwriting sessions in the last year.

Are you any closer to grasping my point yet?

Oh, and bad form to reply to my own post, but that really has annoyed me quite a lot.

How dare you question whether I love music? I've been making it for about 18 years so far and never yet earned any money from it. Sure, I've been paid - but set against the money I've spent on instruments, tuition, equipment, travel, rehearshal room hire, etc, etc, I can guarantee that overall, I've subsidised my music making heavily from my own pocket.

For the past four and half years I've been in a semi-professional band called keirestu. We get paid up to £800 for an hours set. Cushy money? Well, no. There are ten of us, so if we were to split it, that's £80 each. But we don't split it - we can't afford to. Every penny goes back into the band fund to keep the show on the road. We tour with pushing £20,000 worth of kit. Every gig we play in London costs us about £450 in travel costs alone, and last gig in London we were paid £15. YES, FIFTEEN POUND. In other words, we subsidised the missing £435 FROM OUR OWN POCKETS.

So, once again, how dare you?

Now, we happen to think we're pretty damn good. That's why keep on doing it. Plenty of other people think we're pretty damn good, too. ;)

But let me tell you. After this many years trying to do the band in our spare time, outside a convential 40-hour working week, it's getting harder and harder. It won't last forever... Unless we can turn pro, sooner or later one or more of us will have to call it a day, the band will split and that'll be that. No more music from us. Ever.

Now, if you happen to be one of the thousands of people who have enjoyed our gigs or CDs over the past few years, you'll probably think that's quite a shame. Because we haven't even made 1% of the music we have in us, yet - quantity OR quality. If we could earn a living from this band, we could practice, songwrite and record material EVERY DAY -- as opposed to our current situation, with 10 people juggling different jobs and fitting the band in whenever they can blag a few days off work -- which has given us the mighty total of three practice/songwriting sessions in the last year.

Are you any closer to grasping my point yet?

Why local, that's what the internet was for! You can support a "garage band" from anywhere in the world, based purely on how much you like them, nothing else.

The difficulty of course is finding the ones you like from the masses (from the listener's perspective) / promoting your band to stand out from those masses (from the artists' perspective).

On which note... plug. MP3 clips of all the tunes on the CD, one complete track free, the CD was 100% written, recorded, engineered, produced, mixed, mastered by the band, we also did the photography and design ourselves (er... myself)... and all your money will support a hard working, very original unsigned band. Need convincing? Check some reviews.

Why local, that's what the internet was for! You can support a "garage band" from anywhere in the world, based purely on how much you like them, nothing else.

The difficulty of course is finding the ones you like from the masses (from the listener's perspective) / promoting your band to stand out from those masses (from the artists' perspective).

On which note... plug. MP3 clips of all the tunes on the CD, one complete track free, the CD was 100% written, recorded, engineered, produced, mixed, mastered by the band, we also did the photography and design ourselves (er... myself)... and all your money will support a hard working, very original unsigned band. Need convincing? Check some reviews.

Thanks for clarifying. I have to say I didn't realise this was possible in Linux yet.

From a musician/producer's perspective, I have to say I will never, ever switch to Linux for my DAW work as long as I see things like this: "None of these VST solutions is currently at all easy to configure and build..." (+5 post a little up the page). I find it very hard to find time to write music these days, what with the hated full-time job and the large amount of time I spend organising not-directly-musical things like online sales of my band's album. There's no way I'm going to eat into that using anything requiring conf file editing, compilation, finding obscure libraries and dependencies, or whatever.

If it's not easier and more solid than my current setup, I won't switch. Realistically, if it cant run 90% of my current preferred tools smoothly, I won't switch either ("as good as" doesn't really cut it in this game). I suspect most others would say the same.

Nevertheless I follow Linux audio with interest. I can't wait to jump the Windows ship because the DRM-enabled future Microsoft envisages is somewhere I never, ever want to tread. My only real hope is that Linux becomes a 100% realistic proposition for me before my current XP box needs replacing, because Longhorn looks like something I wouldn't touch with someone else's ;)