Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

Download on the App Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Have you bought music on Bandcamp?

Hey guys.

I love the Bandcamp platform. I find myself listening to indie artists there more often than using my paid Spotify subscription.

A few quick questions for those who buy/download music there.

  • Are you more likely to purchase music that has a "Name your price" or a fixed price?

  • Are you put off purchasing if a price is in a different currency? Say £GBP if you're in the US.

  • Who is your favourite Bandcamp artist?

  • Is there one thing you would love to change about Bandcamp?

Comments

    • fixed price
    • BC always recalculates to your currency, you are paying with currency of your paypal account ;
    • from AB users it's @MonzoPro :)
    • some for of message board and track rating (like on SC) for tracks
  • tjatja
    edited April 2019

    I bought 3 Albums from Bristol Manor: http://bristolmanor.bandcamp.com

    Name your price is nice, but always leaves me unsure.
    I am lazy and most of the time hear older albums on Spotify.
    I should hear more on Bandcamp.
    I don’t really care about prices in dollar, euro or pound.
    I just now noticed again, that the bandcamp website is quite slow for me (in Old Europe), but that will not change.

  • I don't mind if it's name your price or fixed price, if I really like an album I'll buy it at whatever price to support the artist.

    My favourite Bandcamp artists are The Comfortably Strange

  • Have purchased yes, have sold a few items, don’t mind conversions don’t have preference for fixed price or not.

    It’s my favorite platform. I feel it gives us the most control. Spotify and ITunes etc happen just because of the distributor I use, and I treat SoundCloud as a resume I guess. Always try to funnel people to BandCamp.

    1. Fixed price. I always feel embarrassed with name your price, whatever price I name; music is really hard to put a firm monetary value to, particularly if you haven't heard it yet, and I always feel simultaneously like a cheapskate and a spendthrift.

    2. Not an issue, for the reason @dendy noted. I wouldn't want to see the price automatically displayed in local currency, because then I'd see how much it was fluctuating as the £ goes through the sub-basement.

    3. Mathias Grassow. Especially this deal, which was on offer this week.

    4. Maybe reviews for merch. But I'm pretty happy with it as is.

  • Yes, I have bought a lot of music there as I am a DJ and I want to play only lossless music and support artists as much as I can and AFAIK bandcamp is asking for much lower fee than e.g. Beatport and generally they’re more artists-friendly. So I always search for the music primarily on bandcamp.
    Name your price - often that means “0 or whatever”, which generally means it’s for free but you can also support the artist if you want. If I would use the music for DJing, then I always pay for it, approximately as I would for other music (usually 1,5 euro per track, that’s the average from my observation). Otherwise, it depends if I really love that track/album and I know I would have it on repeat for a month, then I definitely pay for it, otherwise, if I just would like to have it in my library as “maybe I will be in mood for something like this some time”, then I rather find it on Apple Music which I am also subscribed to. If it’s not there, then I won’t have it, never mind. There’s a lot of music out there so you have to be picky ;)

    Currency is sometimes to be considered if I am not sure if I really want to buy it, mostly if I decide if to buy the whole single / album or just the tracks I like (and would play in DJ set). If it’s in $ you usually pay less for extra tracks and in GBP you pay more. This of course depends on how the artist set the pricing.

    What I would change:

    • Some sort of pro/subscription account for listening only (no download), but also for the music I didn’t purchase yet. There’s a lot of music that’s not available anywhere else and I would love to just “save it for later”. I have many tabs with bandcamp always opened in my browser to listen over the new music. If I like it, I either buy it or find it on Apple Music and add to library. If I don’t I just close the tab. It would be handy to have it all in one playlist (“listen later”) and be able to listen to it on a mobile device etc. Currently, you can do this only for the music you have already purchased.
    • Merchandise / records shipping costs. I believe this is mostly on the artists, but always if I want to support them by e.g. buying a t-shirt or a vinyl, the shipping costs to central europe are around 20 euro, which is a dealbreaker to me. I don’t understand it, as you can buy vinyl records from other sources with shipping around 5 euro, so I usually skip bandcamp here.
  • Price - don’t mind. Ditto currency. It all ends up the same after you pay for it.

    I’ve been buying more recently, to get FLACs of my favorites to record to tape.

  • edited April 2019

    Thanks all. There's some really great feedback/insight here.

    For those whom preferred a Fixed Price.... has 'Name your price' ever put you off purchasing?

    @Skrat thanks for such detailed response. Yeah, would love a playlist feature in Bandcamp. The shipping to Europe is pretty hefty so has put me off most times.

  • I buy a lot of stuff on Bandcamp but only physical media.

  • edited April 2019

    I buy stuff on Bandcamp that I can't find on streaming services and then upload the MP3s to my Google Music account. Haven't done this in about a year, so hope they haven't removed the upload option. But stuff I uploaded before is still there. This makes it convenient to listen to music in one place.

    I bought some of Legowelt's more rare / weirder stuff amongst other things.

  • I’ve bought some albums on Bandcamp. I’d be happy to buy more but some artists charge too much. Artists ought to recognise the options available to consumers and price accordingly. A £10 album just won’t fly with the masses anymore .

  • I've tried many pricing models over the last few years and find that a nominal fixed price in US$ works best. Euro and AU$ failed miserably. This seems to put off US customers, probably due to conversion worries. $1 as a minimum and a large discography discount have been far better than I expected tbh. I also find around 60% of customers are more than happy to pay around $5 for an album. This is particularly satisfying to me and when I buy albums I tend to lean that way too.

  • Interesting stuff. Thanks all.

  • Ah:

    The Bandcamp App is not usable on an iPad!
    It has only iPhone resolution and does not even rotate.

  • edited April 2019

    @tja said:
    Ah:

    The Bandcamp App is not usable on an iPad!
    It has only iPhone resolution and does not even rotate.

    Yeah, this is one of my only gripes. Customers have been asking for a better iPad app for the past 4 or 5 years. Check out the app store reviews. Bandcamp support always come back with the same answer....

    Bandcamp Support: "As for the iPad app, that's something that our team's still thinking about for future updates, but there aren't any concrete plans for that at the moment. Stay tuned for future updates on that front down the line."

    Even when you inform them that the 2x button on the iPad to increase the iPhone sizing, doesn't work and that the screen is 'cutoff'. They'll often release updates without fixing this. It's been broken for at least 18 months.

    They do so many other things right, it actually leaves me a bit baffled as to how they can leave the iPad app in such a bad state.

  • I buy loads and I sell my stuff there too.

    Interestingly based on feedback I'd read elsewhere I've switched to fixed price on my last release & it sold more than others - I still have a subscription to Apple Match (although I'm sure it will go away one day) so I shove all my stuff in there so I can stream it.

  • @pagefall said:
    I buy loads and I sell my stuff there too.

    Interestingly based on feedback I'd read elsewhere I've switched to fixed price on my last release & it sold more than others.

    Cool. Thanks for feedback.

    Is that in number of items, $amount or both?

  • Is that in number of items, $amount or both?

    both (I don't make much money from my music but it's nice when people are prepared to pay for it)

  • I prefer name-your-price, but most of the artists I listen to have fixed-price. I'll buy the music I want to own, doesn't really matter how they market it.

  • I love Bandcamp. Always feel a much more direct connection with the artist I’m buying music from. Bought lots on there. $1 a track, $7 for an album seems reasonable to me.

    The iPad app is a disgrace. Very odd that they won’t update it.

  • hmm, i just use the website on my ipads (9.7" & 10.5"). don't see the reason for an app.

  • @dendy said:

    • fixed price
    • BC always recalculates to your currency, you are paying with currency of your paypal account ;
    • from AB users it's @MonzoPro :)
    • some for of message board and track rating (like on SC) for tracks

    Much appreciated Mr D!

    • I don't care, but if you list a variable price, I will likely choose the lowest option
    • Currency doesn't matter to me, my credit card converts and does not charge a fee
    • I can't say I have a single favorite, but I love buying cassette releases on BC
    • I like it a lot, but it's not a website I visit every day (unlike Qobuz), not sure why
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