Steve PMHWhat are your fans saying about your music? Do they like it? Do they want a particular sound from you? How will you know?
This is called feedback. As an artist, you have to be open to listening to what the fans are saying about your music. This is the only way you will grow and evolve your craft to meet the needs of your audience.
Whether good or bad, feedback is one of the best ways to develop your style as an artist. There are lots of great feedback services you can take advantage of to help you know what people think of your music.
This article is going to show you where you can get started to get honest reviews.
TuneCore fan reviews
Tunecore fan reviews gives reviews of songs generated directly from live consumer feedback.
So, how does it work? Well, when you submit a track, it is fed randomly and in real-time to reviewers. They are then asked to give objective and honest feedback with a rating.
The reviews and ratings are then automatically analyzed by semantic technologies. They are then compared against other tracks that have already been processed through TuneCore Fan Reviews to produce a detailed TuneCore Fan Reviews report.
Tunecore fan reviews has 3 packages you can choose from:
- Starter Package, which gives you 40 fan reviews, $15 per song, and 4 data points.
- Enhanced package, which gives you 100 fan reviews, $40 per song, and 10 data points.
- Pro package, which gives you 225 fan reviews, $115 per song, and 16 data points.
Pros
- The reviewers do not know they are conducting market research for TuneCore Fan Reviews. Consequently, you get honest and objective responses to your song.
- The reviewers come from a cross-section of fans and consumers. They come from different age groups, genre preferences, and locations. Hence, you will have diverse reviews of your music.
- From the consumer insight and market analysis of your song, you can use the feedback to help you make decisions around single releases and album choices, and devise marketing strategies for your brand and tracks.
Cons
- Tunecore fan reviews will discard your music if you don’t pay.
- They have delayed response times for answering questions. Their phone and email responses have been criticized as slow.
Drooble
Drooble calls itself the social network for musicians. It offers a revolutionary approach to networking and music promotion. The platform gives your music a ton of exposure, opportunity to collaborate with other musicians and get feedback for your music.
So, how does Drooble operate? For starters, they have a digital currency called karma. You get to earn it by contributing to the community by listening to other artists’ music and giving feedback, starting and joining discussions, sharing your experience, and answering questions.
The more active you are; the more karma points you will earn to promote your music.
Drooble discourages using the platform for self-promotion only, publishing things unrelated to music posts and being rude.
Once you earn karma points, you can spend them on promotion tools. You can also use the points to get featured as an artist of the week, make your best song heard by elevating it to tune of the week, put your video in the spotlight as video of the week, score additional radio plays, or get featured on their blog.
Drooble’s review service will also give you recommendations on how to improve your music. Additionally, you can also opt to review independent artists’ music and earn money.
Pros
- You get genuine feedback on your music from fellow musicians
- It creates a culture of support between musicians.
- It helps you gain the traction you need as an upcoming artist.
Cons
- Artists are not paid when they upload content to Drooble. The CEO, Melina Krumova, has been quoted in the past saying “I think making money off digital music is getting harder and harder but we are considering innovations in this area.”
- Drooble has relatively few people interacting despite marketing itself as having thousands of users.
- A great deal of the website doesn’t work properly and has bugs.
Audiu
Audiu is a portal in which artists and producers connect with other music industry professionals.
Their mission is to empower musicians and producers through feedback, support and other services provided by a trusted network of pros.
The Audiu Feedback is a 1-on-1 critique of your song from your choice of pro in their network. The feedback may be technical, creative or industry advice depending on the pro you choose.
The feedback comes in two categories: quick or full.
For quick, the pro listens to your track and gives their first impression in basic text format. On the other hand, for full, the pro gives a categorized, interactive report. The report includes first impressions, which outlines your strongest points, weakest points, and a suggested strategy. They may optionally also cover other areas such as credibility, groove, market appeal, mix, arrangement, originality, and sound choices.
So, how much do the services cost? Well, the prices vary depending on the pro. Each pro sets their prices for different services. You can see their prices on their profiles or on the browse pages.
Finally, the feedback you receive can be kept private. However, free services are kept public.
Other than the pro service there is the leave feedback and ratings to earn Rep Points. For this service you will earn 1 Rep Point for each track you rate and 10 Rep Points each time one of your comments is upvoted.
Thereafter, your tracks will appear in the Audiu Feedback Stream when you reach 10 Rep Points. The higher your Rep Score, the more your music will be played to other members. It is important to note that weekly Rep Scores are reset every Sunday.
Pros
- You have the option to cancel a feedback review at any time and ask for a full and immediate refund if your pro has not started a job before the deadline.
- According to their site, to become a verified pro, you must be ‘active and earning’ in the music industry, with either a Discogs, Beatport or AllMusic Page and 2+ high rated Audiu jobs. In avertedly, as an artist, you will get feedback from industry professionals who are in the business.
Cons
- Pros set their turnaround times ranging from 1-14 days. Therefore, there is no standard time on when you will receive feedback on your song.
- Full Feedback ranges from $15 – $150. This may be a little bit expensive for a new artist.
Reverbnation’s Audiokite
ReverbNation’s Audiokite has fans listening to your music and gives objective feedback. It is called crowd reviews.
You will receive a detailed report on people’s comments, what they love about your music, what is working and what is not. If your crowd review score is 7.5 or higher, you may be featured on the ReverbNation home page.
They also give a customized research report in the areas most important to you with advanced insights like songwriting analysis, production quality, audience identification, and commercial potential.
Audiokite Crowd Reviews start from $12.25 for a 25-listener report up to $245 for a 500-listener report. For this package, the price per listener is $0.49. To add “advanced insights” you will have to add $0.15 per listener.
Pros
- Audiokite offers detailed feedback about your song’s market appeal from listeners in your genre. Furthermore, it gives in-depth listener commentary and easy-to-understand statistics that help you make better-informed decisions about composition, production, and promotion.
- You can even get reports for songs that aren’t finished yet.
Cons
- Some comments from the listeners can sometimes be salty for no good reason. Just keep this in mind and try to ignore them whenever you can.
SynthShare calls itself a peer feedback for producers, musicians, and singers. The more you contribute, the more you receive.
In SynthShare feedback exchange you get 1 review in return for every 1 review you give. All feedback is rated and moderated to maintain a quality experience.
You are required to post unique and thoughtful comments when reviewing tracks. All comments must be at least 100 characters
Pros
- You have the option of grading the quality of feedback you receive through a karma score. You’re able to see how well your feedback is received and use that info to provide better feedback in the future
Cons
- It lacks consistency. People log in to give feedback when they have their music which they want to get feedback for also. So, once they get the feedback they do not engage in the site until they have another project to upload.
Verdict
Feedback from your friends and family may be good for your ego, but it is best to get authentic feedback if you want to grow as an artist.
The importance of feedback in your career is hard to overestimate. You will get to know what needs to be improved, optimize your creative process, and hopefully come up with a clear picture of where you want to go with your music.
Ultimately, it will help you adopt new knowledge sooner and avoid repeating any mistakes.
1 comment
Ari herstand mentioned a company called "fluenz?" In his book and audio x-ray? I can't find fluenz…that is a spanish learning site. Do u know what site he's talking about?