Posted on - February 16, 2007 [at] 8:48 am by Brad
Tagged in - tech
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Hooray, I have a digital music store now! You can buy DRM-free Brad Sucks tracks in high quality 192k MP3, OGG or FLAC formats. You can also buy my entire album in whichever format you like with the album art and lyrics included. Buy buy buy!
I still feel strongly that people sharing my songs is vital to me as a musician, so I have no plans to stop giving my music away for free. But it’s clear that many people want to pay for high quality versions of my songs and I’d like to avoid the middle-man and DRM and offer that directly if I can.
formats
Do people really care about audio file quality? I’m skeptical. But maybe digital purchases will act as a donation “with benefits”.
I’m also not sure if anyone really cares about OGG or FLAC formats. I get emails asking for them, but we’ll see. I could add other formats as well (WAV?) if there’s any demand. I’ll give it some time and see what’s what.
the nerdy stuff
I wrote the store myself. It runs off Amazon S3 (for cheap and healthy bandwidth) and the Paypal shopping cart. A bunch of PHP and MySQL later and kapow. I stole the play button layout from Scott Andrew’s store because everything he makes is pretty.
There are probably bugs, so please forgive me. I will fix them as soon as I hear about them.
I’m also considering packaging this whole sucker up so other artists can use it to inexpensively host and manage their own digital stores. Any kind of file would fit in there, not just music.
If you’ve got any feedback or ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Comments are closed on this post.
11 Comments on this post
aharden on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 16, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Anyone who’s smart will buy the FLACs, like I just did. Thanks!
Mo on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 16, 2007 at 8:35 pm
“so I have no plans to stop giving my music away for free.”
Bravo. Not that I won’t pay for the next album, but keeping the stuff free is a nice move.
scottandrew on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 16, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Oh, I am jealous of your dropdowns. I made several half-assed attempts but eventually took the lazy hyperlink approach.
I also used S3!
Brad on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 16, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Really? I thought all the storage was done on payloadz?
Brad on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 16, 2007 at 9:33 pm
“Bravo. Not that I won’t pay for the next album, but keeping the stuff free is a nice move.”
It’s pretty much all self-interest. The music doesn’t sell if nobody can hear it. It’s weird but true.
BMcC on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 17, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Awesome awesome awesome!
“I’m also considering packaging this whole sucker up so other artists can use it to inexpensively host and manage their own digital stores.”
Oh my gosh, please do. It’d give me yet another reason to thank you. :)
Brad on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 18, 2007 at 8:44 am
I’ve decided to go ahead with releasing it. Hopefully this week.
dreamspin on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 18, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Brad, your store looks great. You and Scott completely rule. If I ever get around to finishing any friggin’ music, your code will be such a savior. I’d be very interested to know what formats are selected more often…
Hey, one random question — are you tracking the number of times your songs are played somehow? I tried to do it with Google Urchin, but wasn’t sure if it was tracking the file download or del.icio.us player “play”…
Anyway, congrats on the launch!
BMcC on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 18, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Excellent.
Brad on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 18, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I’m not tracking the plays. It wouldn’t be too hard to do with a redirect — and I guess I could backtrack through my logs if I wanted to — but at this point with the number of places my songs are mirrored it seems kinda pointless. Any number you come up with seems like it’d be phony in some way and the only people that ever ask me are the media. “How many times has your song been listened to???” Uhhh.
dreamspin on Brad Sucks digital downloads
February 20, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Gotcha, good point. Plays aren’t as important as downloads, sure. Again, thanks.