Band Asks Fans To 'Donate Sounds' For Next Album

from the connect-with-fans... dept

Mon, Jul 2nd 2012 11:14pm — Mike Masnick

We've written about the band Uniform Motion a few times. It's an excellent band that has done some very interesting things to connect with fans, including being incredibly transparent and focusing on the importance of the relationship over the value of the MP3 file. And like all smart content creators, they're continuing to innovate and try new things. For example, they recently announced a plan to have fans "donate a sound". Fans can go to the band's Soundcloud page, where they can upload sounds which Uniform Motion will incorporate into their next album. This is cool on a variety of levels.

First, it's just a neat way to connect with fans in general, and actually make them feel truly engaged with the upcoming album. Second, it's a neat way of showing how some new technologies are making things that used to be difficult quite easy today. Soundcloud is a relatively new service, but the simple ability for an artist to quickly and easily get sounds from their fans, used creatively, allows Uniform Motion to offer something really cool. I'm excited to see what they end up coming out with in the end.

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Filed Under: connect with fans, reason to buy, uniform motion
Companies: soundcloud

20 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jul 2012 @ 12:42am

Cool, but copyright is not, the ways this could go wrong just boggles the mind, this is why copyright must die.
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Anonymous Coward of Esteemed Trolling (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 12:52am

Am going to donate, they say they will definitely use it...
Hmmm... this could be fun.
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- drew (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 2:08am
  
  Re:
  Yep, me too.
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  - Anonymous Coward of Esteemed Trolling [OUT/About], 3 Jul 2012 @ 2:33am
    
    it's a question of what to send.
    What kinda music do you make drew ?
    I make electro/house.
    Always up for remixing and playing around....hint...hint
    
    I will post a track for you to remix too, if you fancy messing about with it.
    I do understand btw.... sometimes you can't see anything to remix from, or your hours spent creating end up with shit that no one cares about(especially yourself), even when it's a great original track, so there is no pressure to finish the remix or even to start it. Expect that as my attitude, it's how I make my own stuff too. #ScrapTheCrap #WhyDidIWasteMyTimeMakingThatShit #NotGoodEnough #IAmFail
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    - drew (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 6:51am
      
      Re: it's a question of what to send.
      Singer-songwriter stuff myself, probably the opposite end of the pop music spectrum really but feel free to click on my profile and take it from there.
      All the stuff on my bandcamp site is CC-BA so go wild if you fancy anything.
      I'm in the process of getting hold of all the multi-tracks and making them available as well - prompted by the open source music article a while back. I'll be sticking something up on Step 2 when I've got that sorted.
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      - E. Zachary Knight (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 7:30am
        
        Re: Re: it's a question of what to send.
        Your website gives a 404 error "The requested URL /drewmusic/index_white.html was not found on this server."
        
        Also your profile is blank.
        
        Just letting you know.
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        drew (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 10:44am
        
        Re: Re: Re: it's a question of what to send.
        How odd, if i click on my name it works fine. www.drewstephenson.com.
        Hmm, it would appear that my profile is indeed blank. How odd, I wonder if I ever saved the information in the first place. How peculiar.
        Should now be fixed
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        indieThing, 4 Jul 2012 @ 4:12am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: it's a question of what to send.
        I'm also getting a similar error on both of the links in your comment:
        
        Not Found
        
        The requested URL /drewmusic/index_white.html was not found on this server.
        
        Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
        
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        drew (profile), 4 Jul 2012 @ 9:37am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: it's a question of what to send.
        arse. there's a dot in the web address in the comment above.
        should be www.drewstephenson.com
        But I am now slightly concerned that my website appears to be dead. Ho hum, I guess that's my homework...
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        drew (profile), 5 Jul 2012 @ 12:15am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: it's a question of what to send.
        Sorted now! Thanks folks. Turns out the chap who looked after these things for the label had been tidying up the files on his server and had inadvertently moved something he shouldn't.
        Thanks for the heads up.
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Liz (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 1:24am

If I had to guess, I'd say that their next album will consist of a lot of flatulence.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Jul 2012 @ 2:19am
  
  Re:
  I'd buy that :)
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  - Dick Jones, 3 Jul 2012 @ 2:36am
    
    Not a robocop fan then ?
    *I'd buy that for a dollar
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jul 2012 @ 1:40am

Great idea
But I know what the Copyright supporters would say

"The band want you to donate sounds because they are starving and can't create for themselves".
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- The Groove Tiger (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 7:43am
  
  Re: Great idea
  "Spare a sound, guvnor?"
  
  Begging! Begging for sounds!
  
  BEGGIIIING!
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Prashanth (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 4:52am

TFS
I remember when Team Four Star (the group behind an amazingly popular parody of the anime Dragonball Z) did a similar, though less extensive, thing with one of their parody episodes; that episode was supposed to be like an arena with spectators, so they asked fans to donate sounds of cheers and boos. I didn't personally donate (because I wasn't actually sure what they meant at the time), but I still think it's amazingly cool.
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moomoocow, 3 Jul 2012 @ 5:08am

wearing shades
Pretty soon, bands will have their fans write and record their music for them, eliminating the need to have any talent at all.

The Techdirt future looks bright!
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- drew (profile), 3 Jul 2012 @ 5:24am
  
  Re: wearing shades
  Pretty soon, bands will be able to completely open up their music process (if they want to), from writing and recording to marketing and promoting, including as many talented people as they want to.
  The Techdirt future looks friggin' amazing!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Eric, 3 Jul 2012 @ 5:56am

how dare this band assume art has no value by asking people to just submit samples for free :)
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Dave Trader, 3 Jul 2012 @ 2:25pm

test
tset
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