100 Resources for DIY Musicians from Label 2.0

Posted on 06. Jan, 2010 by refe in STRATEGY

100 Resources for DIY Musicians

100 Resources for DIY Musicians

Greg Rollett of Gen-Y Rock Stars and Label 2.0 sent me an email this morning letting me know that he had just published a new report called 100 Resources for DIY Musicians, and that he had been kind enough to include Creative Deconstruction as one of those resources.

The report is a follow-up to last year’s much downloaded ‘100 Social Media Resources for Musicians.’ Greg has expanded the focus a bit to include the full range of platforms, services and information sources that an independent band can utilize to build their careers.

I spent some time with the report this afternoon and from what I’ve gotten through so far it looks to be a pretty complete list. The resources Greg has included range from the obvious (hopefully, anyway) – MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, CDBaby etc. – to the more advanced such as tools for email marketing, online collaboration, building online communities and mobile apps. I found services that I hadn’t come across before, like WishList which allows you to turn your Wordpress site into a membership community.

New artists or bands that have yet to fully explore the range of online options that are available to them will benefit from spending some time with ‘100 Resources.’ It can take a lot of time to research the tools your band should be using – time better spent actually writing, performing and promoting your music. Greg has done the hard work of sifting through the multitude of different sites and services and narrowed it down to a few solid options in about 16 categories.

My Picks

I’ve selected a few notable resources from the report that I strongly suggest you check out:

1. Indaba Music – Very cool site that allows musicians to collaborate and make music, remix it and showcase the finished product. This has the potential to open up great possibilities for producing music with other artists at a distance.

2. TubeMogul – It’s sort of like a beefed up ArtistData or Ping.fm, but for videos. When you upload your videos TubeMogul will aggregate them to all the important places, like YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, etc.

3. Mobile Roadie – Allows bands to create custom iPhone with social and mulit-media content.

4. Live Music Machine - This service gives bands a widget that can be placed just about anywhere online that allows fans and venues to book them with a single click. Also includes a full tour schedule, availability calender and a map of the different stops on the band’s tour. I’ve been working with Live Music Machine for a few months now and I can tell you that this tool has the potential to change the way bands are booked.

5. Plugo.la – Run by a fellow Chicagoan named Erik Peterson, Plugo.la is a music community and marketplace with a cool twist. It allows fans to ‘plug’ their favorite tracks and earn affiliate fees when those tracks are sold.

You can download the full report here. You have to sign up, but it’s free. If you do, you can find the blurb on Creative Deconstruction on page 15.

What do you think of the report? Is it helpful to you, or do you feel like you knew all this stuff already? Let me know in the comments.

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14 Responses to “100 Resources for DIY Musicians from Label 2.0”

  1. Tweets that mention 100 Resources for DIY Musicians from Label 2.0 | creative deconstruction -- Topsy.com

    06. Jan, 2010

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Refe Tuma, Brian. Brian said: RT @refeup: 100 important resources for DIY musicians http://bit.ly/6QnoZi [...]

  2. Eric Fontaine

    07. Jan, 2010

    Hi, I am the Marketing Director at HeySpread.
    Thanks for this good article.
    That is true, Tubemogul is a good service.

    But you should really have a look at HeySpread for Professional Video Analytics and Video Distribution – http://bit.ly/5mD1CL. Far cheaper, with exclusive features such as YouClone (copy/paste your YouTube videos to any other platform automatically and in one shot), powerful and user-friendly interface, REST API for an easy and fast white label integration.

  3. Brian Franke

    07. Jan, 2010

    First time commenting on your blog, which I started reading a month ago. This is a very helpful resource because Greg’s done a lot of legwork for artists like myself that hear about the “new ____” (fill in the blank), but are never 100% sure it is the best tool for us.

    One thing I heard at a conference once was, what if any of these companies that are storing your data goes under–can it be recovered? It’s something to consider. I’ve always researched the technology first or see who else is using it and get an opinion.

    Btw, here’s an article I found on 2009 digital music start ups that I found helpful.

    Brian Franke
    Singer/Songwriter, Washington, DC
    http://www.brianfranke.com
    Twitter: @bfrankemusic

  4. Brian Franke

    07. Jan, 2010

    Forgot to paste it!

    http://musically.com/blog/2009/12/16/the-a-to-z-of-digital-music-startups-in-2009/

    • refe

      07. Jan, 2010

      Hey Brian thanks for commenting, and thanks for the link. That is a huge list – pretty cool to see it all in one place.

      With regard to companies going under, your right. That’s why you should never rely exclusively on third party services. Have your own domain and your own hard drive and your own system for backing everything up.

      Companies go under all the time, sometimes gracefully and sometimes not so gracefully. SnoCap is a perfect example of the latter – they still owes hundreds of artists money.

      On the other hand, these resources can be useful components in your strategy right now. You need to be putting out videos, and you need a way to manage them. You need to play gigs so you need a way for people to book you online. Some of these tools can make your life much easier.

  5. Brian

    07. Jan, 2010

    Posterous also does a fantastic job of video syndication to other social media sites. Very quick and easy, and all done via email.

    This list is a fantastic resource though that every indie artist should pay attention to…

    Cheers!
    Brian

    Thorny Bleeder Records
    http://www.thornybleeder.com

  6. James

    08. Jan, 2010

    Some good resources in there. Thanks for sharing.

  7. Greg Rollett

    09. Jan, 2010

    Hey Eric, thanks for the link to Hey!Spread. Going to check it out now.

    Brian – great point on the fact that some of these companies may go under. While all of these are great tools and sites, they should be extensions of your home base (youtband.com). You should own your own mailing list, have a dedicated hosting company with a strong reputation and use that to fuel your long term growth.

    Thanks for the comments on the report, it was fun making it and glad to include Create Deconstruction in there, as Refe is a grat writer with some dope insight!

  8. Rand

    09. Jan, 2010

    Hey Ref, thanks for providing DIY resources, indie musicians need as much free help as possible. We at MusicNomad are a musicians advocate org that reviews and ranks thousands of resources to help indie musicians produce, sell and support their music. We give hundreds of tips and articles for them to explore and it’s all free for them. We also created a free tool called virtual band manager that gives the power to the DIY musician for getting quotes on band merch and cd duplication by entering one request for quote and it goes out to 10 plus companies to bid on it. Thanks, Rand http://www.musicnomad.com

  9. Music business en vrac #12 | Spotify, MOG, piratage et 100 ressources pour musiciens 2.0 | B comme BoxSons

    11. Jan, 2010

    [...] 100 ressources pour musiciens et labels 2.0. Gratos dans un ebook à télécharger. Y-en a pour tous les gouts et si je trouve le temps et l’envie, j’en ferai une sélection. [...]

  10. Plugola Inc. » Blog Archive » 100 Resources for DIY Musicians

    11. Jan, 2010

    [...] you would like to read more about it, our friends over at Creative Deconstruction goes a bit more in-depth and even picks a few of their [...]

  11. Studio Manifesto|100 Resources for DIY Musicians

    13. Jan, 2010

    [...] out Creative Destruction’s write up on it for a few of their favourites to get started, then head over to the source to pick up the list [...]

  12. wesbnkkmuzik

    10. Mar, 2010

    The list is just great help to indie artist, thanks also for sharing

  13. John Lowe

    21. Mar, 2010

    Hi, I am finding this blog very interesting.
    Any Independent Artists reading this
    should definitly check out Grind Stop http://www.grindstop.com
    have really useful tools for promoting your music. that will make your music grind life so much easier.