Social music platform BandLab has announced the launch of the self-publishing tool BandLab Albums, empowering musicians to release and sell unlimited singles, EPs and albums freely and on their own terms.
Artists on BandLab have complete ownership of their creative output, and control their own pricing, allowing them to independently monetize their work. There are no hidden terms and conditions, or cuts taken from artists.
Since launching in 2015, BandLab’s mission has been to democratize and power the next-generation of music creation, and Albums stays true to this ethos. Its user-friendly and intuitive interface coupled with the delivery of a high quality service puts control into the hands of creators. Albums caters to a broad spectrum of creators, allowing anyone to publish an album in three easy steps. Creators can choose to upload original tracks made in BandLab, or import tracks from another program or source.
Customizable features include the design of the album, and the option to attach bonus content in a wide variety of formats, such as lyric sheets, images, videos, or behind-the-scenes content.
Creators decide what they want to charge for their album; BandLab doesn’t charge for this feature, nor take a cut. Creators can choose to set a fee to download their album or release it free. There are no hidden fees or subscription charges for listeners or creators, beyond payment gateway fees, powered by Stripe.
CEO of BandLab, Meng Ru Kuok said:
“Our users are at the heart of our product. Beyond the continued development of our next-generation solution for the music creation process, we’re incredibly committed to supporting our growing base of creators at each stage of their creative journey. We want that journey to last a lifetime, and releasing Albums is an important step in allowing our artists and independent labels to create sustainable revenue streams for themselves whilst keeping them completely in control and ownership of their own content.
We’re really looking forward to seeing what artistic statements our users will make with Albums, and hope that the ability to earn from creating will empower more people to make music.”
BandLab’s cloud-based music production platform integrates music making, mastering and collaboration tools, and with this release, now offers professional tools to help artists sell their music as well. BandLab is available as a web version, iOS, and Android app. As of May 2020, BandLab has over 20 million registered users from over 180 countries. BandLab has been experiencing significant growth in 2020, averaging 1 million monthly downloads, and 10 million tracks saved on the platform monthly.
Albums features
- Albums can be published by signing up to BandLab, and uploading tracks via web (Chrome web browser recommended).
- BandLab supports music file formats wav, mp3, m4a, ogg, and aac for uploading.
- Up to 50 songs can be uploaded as an album.
- Up to 10 files (10MB each) can be uploaded as bonus materials for fans to download once they purchase an album. Most image and video formats are supported.
- Listeners can listen or download Albums via web at bandlab.com, or via the BandLab app for iOS or Android.
- Downloads are delivered as M4As (96Kbps, 44.1 kHz).
Publishing to Albums is currently only available via web, and will be available on the iOS and Android versions of the BandLab app in the near future.
Music released via BandLab Albums can be Downloaded or listened to via BandLab on the web, as well as via BandLab’s iOS and Android apps.
More information: BandLab
