Just wondering what everyone thinks about giving their music away on the likes of soundcloud. Do most of you do it? Do you only make one or two track available for free download? etc.

why not? if you've got good tunes, and give them away free, they will certainly spread your name around.

Yeah, I think most of us do it. I haven't had any finished music out there much, but thanks to this thread I just made my one "finished" track downloadable. Wasn't sure about it as I think I might work some more on it, some day. Butt fuck it. I get so much free music direct from the artists through soundcloud that it would be a shame not to at least give some back.
As stated above, it's a great way to spread your name and some lurv around. It will come back to you.

1-2 two free tunes a month is generally my schedule.

I usually try and put a few tracks out a month on general purpose but I'm really running ragged with a few projects and a new move to a city, trying to get financially stable, blah blah blah, etc.. But yes, I think free tracks are great. It's huge promo and more likely that people will hear your music from a friend, over facebook, whatever right?

I've always kind of seen the producers that are strictly 'buy me' and 'exclusive' have a lot less to offer me especially considering how saturated the music scene is. Obviously if you're making fire, you should have a few unreleased tracks to showcase during your live performance but it always seemed a shame to me if a producer made 50 tracks and all were listen only. EDM is a community and as a community we should be fostering sharing and support for everyone who has paid, is paying their dues or is showing the love for the music. Every side up from the listener to the dancer to MC's, Dj's, VJ's, Producers, Sound/Mastering Techs and beyond. The good old days of hoarding in that sense came to an end when the major labels declared war on their customers and the customers responded by pirating, making their own indie labels and making music accessible for all cheaply or free.

Yeah man, I tend to put a couple up for free DL and if anyone shows great appreciation for any other tracks or asks for em I'll make it available for them while they're online.

They way I see it, I owe every other producer who has given me free music hahaha

Thanks all, question answered.

People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their own music.

Yea, i like to give away free tunes.

usually at least one a month is a general goal, turns into 2 or 3 per month if i was really ambitious.

when i release an album, maybe offer it for free but make it 'pay what you want,' it kinda sucks in a way from the artists' pov, but then again, its not so bad in a way cuz ideally, if you give away music and build up a relationship with the audience, down the line they might be willing to pay you a few bucks for some music.

my two cents. all of it was probably mentioned already.

As a counter-argument i think a lot of tunes get more eyeballs (listens?) if its comes for a price and it charts at Addictech / Beatport / wherever than if you released it for free on Soundcloud.

A lot of these listens will be from new ears, rather than the same 20 who comment on everything you put out Soundcloud.

**I am a big fan of releasing music for free, just throwing the other argument out there**

on another note, personally, I'd rather keep those people who regularly comment & support on SC happy, than gain a few extra fans

/ramble

I agree!
Besides, if you don't you will be competing with A LOT of people that do it.

A good analogy is to think of this as a DJ career, you usually start doing it for free, for a few friends, and as you progress and build a fan base you start charging more right? Or even an internship at a studio/ agency, most of the time the first couple of months you do it for free too, after you've proven yourself to the company you get paid.

Why not apply this same concept to music?

On a side note, I remember iLL Gates talking on his workshop about different kind of fans, there are very different levels on an audience, from the casual "I listen to whatever as long as its good" to the "I will tattoo your logo on my forehead and make you a knitted beanie out of my own back hair" fan.

These people value your music very differently, some will buy whatever you put out, some will never spend a dime on you and will torrent anything, as an artist you need to reach all of them on different levels right?

So a couple of free tracks here and there is all good.

Also, I'm talking about those that are established. I'm not one of them so I would never consider making people pay for music at my stage because no one knows who I am, you need an established fan base in order to charge money (I think)

now THATS dedication.

gah.. i always hate it when my groupies do that shit, make me ANY kind of hand-done product from their back hair.. cuz then they expect you to go hang out with them and let them buy your dairy-free mocciato, and then you HAVE to let them volunteer to give you a ton of decent blowjobs in THEIR house, while they play YOUR music and talk about how they never want you to wear underwear when you're around them so that things can happen quicker. AHH! It's a nightmare.. no one understands the plight of the artist. It's like, HEY, ya know, maybe i wanna buy my own carne asada burrito from qdoba and go masturbate to aggressive german porn BY MYSELF. And they're all like, I can do it to you and leave in ten minutes. AH! THE ENSUING HEADACHES!!!

hahahahaha, maybe...
JUST maybe, I exaggerated a bit

I finally got to the point where I'm starting to consider how I want to distribute my work. I think the best way to do it is to put it up for free for a limited time. That way people feel like they need to get it while it's hot. Then you can take it off and release it later on when you have a bigger market. That seems to make sense to me at least. Not that anyone really downloads my tracks haha!

Artists who do not give at least a few stuff for free are commercial artists ... IMHO ...

My plan when I am at the level of releasing quality EPs is to put a small price tag on my first one to offset equipment costs and hopefully start a tour fund. Once I can get touring i plan to try and keep my music free and have shows be my only income musically. Free tunes are the shit and I feel like they definitely spread like viruses.

My feelings on this are kind of different from most people's here... giving away free tunes is definitely an essential promotional tool. I 100% agree about that. But I personally think it's more important than ever to SELL music. We're all passionate about music because we're DJs and producers, but with the general public, music is losing its value. Everything is so widely available that people don't actually care enough about music to spend a dollar per song, or even less than that if they're buying albums. I think that's pretty disgusting, so I think it's important to actually limit availability (limited-time free downloads) or at least make people have to give something up in order to have the music. It's all well and good to thank your fans for supporting you, but at the end of the day it is the producers who sit down and spend hours writing music and mixing down tunes so that other people can listen and enjoy them. Charging somebody a dollar for a song is a really effective way to acknowledge that they give a fuck about your music. Obviously we're in debt to other DJs and producers in a more personal way, because they get our tunes played for audiences and teach us how to make the tunes better. That's why we have promo lists where those people get tracks for free.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you work hard on your music, it's not greedy or wrong to want someone to part with something (a measly dollar!) so they can have it. People expect recorded music for free, and I really, really, really don't think that's fair to the artists or to the music itself. There are plenty of ways to do ruthless promotion besides putting tons of free music out in the hopes that people will spread it. Obviously neither way is morally wrong--maybe you're not concerned about what relationship people have to your music/you, and that's cool--but I think it's important to at least consider why you're giving tons of music away for free. Part of this is a practical concern, too. If I wanted to make an LP but felt like I had to put out 3 free tunes every month I would probably never finish the LP. Just an alternate perspective...

And a good one that also makes a lot of sense too. Thanks for that.