BandLab Albums: A utopia for musicians’ digital publishing needs?
The next step in BandLab’s plan to democratize music making (and make it as fair to artists as possible) is quite logical – a marketplace. Straight from the get-go, BandLab Albums wants to be what Bandcamp and other rivals are, for better or worse, not.
100% for the artist
BandLab Albums is mainly distinguished by giving artists complete ownership of their material while paying off every last penny. It’s all as transparent as it can be – publish an album, set a price (it can be free) and monetize it. No cut for the service and no third parties involved, payment processor aside.
Some sensible limitations are in place, of course. An album can contain up to 50 songs and up to 10 files can be uploaded as downloadable bonus materials following an album’s purchase.
BandLab Albums is available as a web service, iOS and Android App. It’s also ties in nicely with BandLab, which is a free and fully-featured DAW built out of what was left from Cakewalk SONAR when the BandLab people bought it.
With artist-first music recording and distribution systems in place, I think the BandLab project could become a leading digital music marketplace. Alas, the masses will happily keep streaming from greedy Spotify out of convenience. But truly caring fans will certainly appreciate the opportunity to directly support their favorite acts by buying their music.
It’s unbelievable that this has become an actual privilege for both fans and artists at this point, but it’s just how the tides have turned. Let’s hope BandLab Albums makes a strong impact and changes things for the better!
Yeah! But…
Music downloads are delivered in a somewhat dodgy 96Kbps / 44.1kHz format, which is at the low end of digital audio quality in 2020. With unlimited storage and no upload restrictions already offered to artists, let’s hope BandLab clears some room for higher quality files.
Additionally, BandLab Albums does some great jabs at competing services’s ho-hum practices. For example, it offers artists immediate payouts, requires no sign-up fees, and features no adverts.
It all sounds like utopia, but BandLab Albums is already live at https://www.bandlab.com/features/albums If you have some music already, you can be a founding member!
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