Article Published in September 2024 in the Magazine Cyclical issue no 11
Embracing Physical Releases in the Digital Age
In today's digital streaming world, capturing and maintaining an audience is crucial. With listeners often skipping through automatic playlists and rarely pausing to explore new artists, the battle for attention is fierce. This makes it challenging to engage listeners with long-form content like a full music album. Short-form content tends to dominate our time, leaving little room for deep listening.
However, there are dedicated fans who are willing to invest time in listening to entire albums, owning a piece of the artist's work, and supporting them. Independent artists understand this intuitively, creating immersive experiences through concerts and physical music releases.
The Resurgence of Vinyl, Tapes and CDs
Vinyl, tapes, and CDs are making a comeback. While they may not generate as much revenue as streaming, they play a significant role in supporting artists. For instance, with some friends we did a Vinyl called Modular Alliance. Mastering and pressing 300 vinyl records can cost around $2,000 USD, which breaks down to about $7 per vinyl.
Marketing is essential to ensure people discover this music. Even with a following of 2,000 people, a 1% conversion rate means only about 20 vinyls will be sold, far from covering production costs. Therefore, promoting on social media and possibly running ads to reach beyond “followers” may be necessary.
Physical Releases as a Branding Tool
I consider physical releases as a branding tool rather than a direct sales strategy. They can serve as unique items to share with industry contacts, collaborators, promoters, long-time supporters, and Patreon subscribers. So making physical releases is more like a vanity project for me than anything else, besides people buying music are more than followers clicking like for free. It is an opportunity to build a solid fan base.
Exploring Spatial Audio
I create spatial music, including quadraphonic tracks with my Eurorack. I also do Dolby Atmos productions. My album "Thanks for the Invite" explores various music styles, similar to my first album "Binary Trees" but the tracks were conceived to be fully spatial from the beginning. As another example, I helped produce Doug Lynner's album "The Four-Sided Note". The music was transformed from a live quadraphonic performance (4.0) into a 4.1.4 album with additional subwoofer and height speakers.~~
In quadraphonic, I did a 5.1 DVD for the album “Symphoney”. I converted the 4.0 track into a 5.1 format where the center speaker and subwoofer are silent. I made it into a 5.1 movie, burnt it to DVD and sent it for duplication and printing. But what physical format to use for Dolby Atmos?
Choosing the Right physical format for Dolby Atmos
Movies in Dolby Atmos are typically released on Blu-Ray, which inspired me to explore this format for music. Dolby's processes can be complex and seem exclusive to professionals. It seems there are no consumer tools to create a Blu-Ray image. A few audio engineers that I know directed me towards a solution with Pure Audio in Germany (msm-studios GmbH & Co. KG). Pure Audio is a format compatible with Dolby Atmos TrueHD and playable on any Blu-Ray player.
If you check Peter Grabiel’s “I/O” album, it has been released with a Dolby Atmos mix. The physical version is of high production. A booklet includes the 2 stereos mixes and the Dolby Atmos mix as a Blu-Ray Pure Audio Dolby Atmos TrueHD. I consider this physical album a reference.
Creating the Dolby Atmos Blu-Ray master of my album cost me around €900 EURO. I provided stereo and ADMBWF Atmos masters, and after some revisions (for instance I wanted the Dolby Atmos version of the tracks to be the default selection), I had a master ready for duplication. I chose a 250-unit run, costing about $900 USD, including a UPC barcode. The company was very easy to deal with, and they even advised me which Blu-Ray writer (Verbatim External Slim Ray Blu-Ray writer) Model BIAA) and software to buy to go with my Mac (Toast 20 Pro from Roxio), so I could burn the master on the Blu-Ray disc and try it on my home theater before sending it for duplication. I choose Quick Turn duplication in the USA, but there are many to choose from. The cost per Blu-Ray is around $8.
Selling Physical Releases
Selling physical releases can be challenging. While Bandcamp is an option, I found Shopify more efficient for handling shipping and tracking. In fact my friends from “The Galaxy Electric” have just started a Shopify shop and I found the experience excellent when I ordered their double vinyl LP. Shopify integrates with USPS, UPS, and FedEx, making the checkout process seamless and providing access to cheaper shipping rates. With a printer, I can make the labels and just drop the padded envelopes to my local post office. The buyer knows at checkout all the costs, including shipping and Shopify notifies them at each step of the process: order placed, order shipped, tracking, delivery, post purchase feedback..
Unfortunately, shipping to Europe costs around $20 for an album I sell at $25. It is not really cost effective so I'm exploring fulfillment centers in Europe to reduce shipping costs for international buyers, but I’m not sure I have the volume to justify it. I still have much to learn about Shopify and its app marketplace but it integrates into Spotify, Instagram/Facebook, TikTok,.. and I can make credit card sales from my phone. It was also easy to brand the shop with my domain name and ensure emails sent from the shop come from me, and support DMARC email authentication to avoid spoofing. You can find the result at my shop at https://shop.peachymango.org/
Conclusion
Releasing spatial music in Dolby Atmos on physical formats requires a budget similar to vinyl production, with at least $2,000 needed upfront. While it may seem like a vanity project, it can be a valuable branding tool and a way to connect with dedicated fans who appreciate the art.