digital music distributor

[grinder]

Anyone out there have an opinion on the best
digital music distributor out there?
Cost
efficiency
etc etc

Much appreciated if you have any idea on these things
If you could reply.
I was looking at Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Ditto.
So many reviews not all happy any one with two solid feet on the ground who
has real knowledge?

Many thanks

Grinder

[RobU]

It's complicated.

For pure distribution and streaming/sales royalties collection, DistoKid is hard to beat for cost (about 25$ a year, unlimited uploads per artist), all profits are yours.

But there are other royalties (film & tv, adverts, covers, that sort of thing), which DistroKid will not collect, and for which you'd need to join another collection agency.

This blog is a good read if you want a little more in depth info - http://aristake.com/

[grinder]

DistoKid
never heard of this will swot it up thank you RobU
I do belong to APRA so collection would not be a problem I would think
as long as I sold I guess sales and royalty monies may.

Thanks again

Grinder

[rasputin]

ROBU remarked "It's complicated" (NO LIE!) and also recommended this blog:

http://aristake.com/

Well...an hour later of combing through this site I am basically a gibbering pile of goo. Ari has been running it for at least 4 years and has exhaustively reviewed countless music distribution services -- some new, some older, some now defunct; and there are literally thousands of comments from people all over the world giving their experiences with them.

As noted; the answer comes down largely to: "it depends". CDs, streaming only or both? What are you willing to pay? How many services do you want to be on? How much accounting detail do you need? How many releases, and how many tracks per release are you talking about?

And on top of that are the intangibles about: customer service stories, speed of paying royalties, upload bugs, speed of getting music on sites, etc. etc.

Basically all I'm going to say is: check out this guy's site and if you have the patience to trawl through megabytes of data you should be able to find an answer that works for you.