New Features Up!

Posted byEthan DiamondPosted inUncategorizedTags:

We’re launching lots of new stuff today, let’s get right to it:

New Album Editor
We’ve dramatically streamlined the album creation and editing process. You can now modify an entire album’s worth of tracks in a single UI, and save drafts of your albums as you work on them. We’ve also switched uploads to use HTML5, so you’ll no longer see that annoying Flash permissions dialog every time you add new music. And you can now specify any track in your album to be featured, meaning that track will be cued up first when fans visit or embed your album, and will also be the one that plays in the new Discoverinator. It all looks like this:

A sentence or two and a simple screenshot can’t convey all that’s improved here, so go edit your albums, set your featured tracks, and check it out for yourself!

Bandcamp Pro
We also now have a Pro option that includes batch upload, private streaming, Google Analytics, optional streaming and (coming soon) deeper customization features. Rather than tell you about all the goodness here, we’ve put together a dedicated page where you can learn more and sign up. Pricing is $10 USD/month, but if you’ve already got an account you get Pro for half off ($5 USD/month) for the first year.

Search
If you’ve ever searched for music on Bandcamp, you know that we’ve always just bailed out to Google for our results. Highly effective, but not the most elegant experience. So we now have our own integrated search, and it’s quickly paid off: since quietly rolling it out a few weeks back, there’s been a significant bump in sales generated from Bandcamp-initiated searches. You can try it out from the front page, the results look like this:

This is just the first of several big feature drops we have lined up for this summer, leading up to our fourth anniversary in September. We’re incredibly excited to show you guys what’s next, and thrilled to provide a service that in just a few weeks will hit $20 million earned by artists around the world. From all of us at Bandcamp, thanks for being a part of it!

52 thoughts on “New Features Up!”

  1. I’m always looking forward to announcements like this – and the developers at bandcamp never disappoint. AMAZING.

  2. Interesting, all of this is really cool except the “Optional streaming”. Bandcamp used to be a sure bet. If I saw a link to a Bandcamp page, I knew I could listen to the album in its entirety. This just compromised that. I remember this being something of a strong sticking point when Bandcamp was new, and disappoints me that you backed down on it.

    1. Hi Daniel, you’ve actually always been able to exclude certain tracks from streaming, just by setting them to hidden. The downside is that those tracks don’t show up in the tracklist, so plenty of artists were then using the liner notes to document the full tracklist. Optional streaming makes that workaround unnecessary. The result is a better fan experience (the tracklist is the tracklist), and a more intuitive flow for artists who want this level of control.

  3. Oh, thank you! Next time I get around to doing something on bandcamp I can finally stop cursing the slow individually-wrapped song archival process!

  4. With regard to the Pro option, what happens to the commission charges? Does that fact that I’d be paying a fixed monthly subscription alleviate these in any way, or would I still have to pay 15% as well?

  5. About the FAQ:

    “What happens to the various Pro features after my subscription expires?
    — […] If you’ve set up a custom domain it will stop working, and any streaming-disabled tracks will switch to streaming.”

    I don’t get that point; aren’t the custom domains available for everyone?

    1. Hi Polo, custom domains are a Pro feature for accounts created *after* April 11th, 2012. If you opened your account before April 11th, custom domains remain free, forever.

  6. Pro looks cool but we already pay you guys quite a lot of money via sales commissions and I don’t think I could justify paying more. Plus there are so many subscriptions and costs drawing on us every month – mailing list, Soundcloud, servers etc.

  7. I agree this does all look really good. Some more great steps taken by BC.

    Something I would like to see is the option to stream Pre-orders. At the moment I send fans to Soundcloud to stream and then BC to buy. It would be good, especially with the new search features, to give an option to stream your songs before they are released.

    Great job guys!

    1. Thanks James! You’re probably already on this, but there’s a checkbox in the track editor “give this track to fans when they pre-order the album (also allows fans to stream this track during the pre-order).” I’m guessing though that you’d prefer to have some tracks stream during the pre-order but *not* be downloadable until the release? It seemed to us that that would only encourage people to rip the stream, so you end up with a bunch of low-quality downloads of your tracks out there.

  8. After a 2 year experience here, I must say that full track streaming is not working for me at all. People chooses streaming over free download, so what’s the point about gorgeous PDF and videos included , or the charms of FLAC? They go, stream, and won’t even take a chance downloading the whole thing, even if it’s “You Name The Price”.
    I won’t continue using Bandcamp unless partial streaming (like 30 sec samples) is an option , at least for certain tracks.
    Still, Bandcamp is one of the best on line store for indies but I’ll rather go for a service with partial streaming of albums.

  9. Bandcamp Pro should be standard to all users, free of charge. If it’s *really* going to increase sales, Bandcamp will benefit from its standard commission fee.

  10. Always exciting when bandcamp rolls out new features!! Purchased a pro account right away! Looking forward to what you guys will bring further this summer, thanks for making out lives a little easier!

  13. can I make a suggestion? I’d love to see a way to make headers in between the columns and rows on one’s bandcamp homepage. I have a ton of different albums in different genres, i’d love to be able to put in small headers to indicate that somehow. I’ve though about making fake albums to place as markers….

  14. This feels a bit awkward. Google Analytics is a free service, any blogger will use it of course. It’s only depending on Google’s resources. To charge money for it, is simply wrong in my opinion.

  17. What about batch editing prices and other details? (i.e. “apply this change to all tracks”) Is this possible yet?

    Thanks for the awesome updates!

    1. Hey Sam, the new album editor makes it a lot quicker to edit all of an album’s tracks, but it does not (yet) have “apply this change to all tracks.” Until then, there’s an admittedly ridiculous trick you can use to batch edit your prices: go to your profile, change your transaction currency, save, and then immediately change your transaction currency back. At that point you’ll see fields that allow you to change the price of all your tracks and albums at once.

  18. All sounds great! However, what would actually be really nice is an option to control the streaming time per song (in batch control). For example, I know plenty of people that don’t buy my album because they simply listen to it in its entirety all the time on my page. If my songs had only a 30 second preview time like on iTunes, I think that would encourage people to buy my album a bit more. Thanks!

  19. I think something to consider for a future update is the ability to enable some sort of limited streaming option… where 1 minute snippets can be streamed instead of the complete song. I have heard many fans of my client (hip-hop/jazz/funk ensemble ArtOfficial) tell me that they love their music but haven’t bought anything because they just go to our bandcamp page and listen to them whenever they want. I definitely don’t want to completely disable streaming as that would be ridiculously stupid, but perhaps if fans can only listen to half of the song it may increase sales for many artists on bandcamp

    artofficial.bandcamp.com

  21. Great stuff! thanks! And thanks for a great service!

    I’m finding that on my Samsung Galaxy S Smartphone, the tracks don’t play. no sound, no animation of the track playing… as Smartphones are the way of the future (60% of readers of my last newsletter read it on a smartphone!) i am wondering whether this is why people are visiting my page.. but not playing anything! (yes i know it could just be that my album art/music sucks…!) I wonder whether you could check into how bandcamp is playing on smartphones? love what you do, thanks Jelila 🙂

  22. I like Bandcamps’s interface and business model. Its “pro” features aren’t practically compulsory, as other sites’ are, and its flexible role in a musician’s retail scheme is part of its desirability. Another thing I like is the pages’ simplicity (and no advertising; thank you ever so much).

    Just to let you in on an open secret: streams from Bandcamp pages are readily downloadable (as .mpeg files, with That Browser Extension, for example). It is, however, otherwise possible to stream audio without its being so readily accessible – such as with MySpace’s music player, which takes some concerted work-around to rip.

    In my case, it’s, “What the heck – let it fly – at least they’ll hear it; hope they like it.” I have only a fraction of my own music posted on Bandcamp, though I plan to keep adding more over time.

  23. I just miss three features and if you include them into PRO, I’ll additionally sign up for the PRO-option:

    1.) The purchase process must be in several languages. I have a lot of potential german customers, who don’t know english very well. You don’t need to translate everything, but the purchase-process must be in at least the most common languages…would be great.

    2.)I need the option to share the income with other artists. When I do a feature with another artist, I’d love to give him/her/them right away their part of the revenue, without having to do it by hand.
    Just a field with “PayPal-Mailadress” and “Percentage/fixed amount to go to the other artist” added to the paymentoptions fields (individual for every track/album) would be sufficient.

    3.) The option for people to subscribe to releases, means: they subscribe and they get automatically new releases.

    I’ll sign up immediately if you add them 🙂 ( and if you need a bigger convincing smile including cute manga-eyes… 8D )

    Méô

  24. I’m a bit worried about you seeming to follow other websites down the “pro account” road… Like providing a free service, then, once it’s successful, make it paying. Yes, I understand only the “pro account” is not free, but so many websites have choosen to go down that road, ending up being providers of a decent service FOR A FEE, with dissatisfying “free accounts” only designed to entice newcomers to get the more expensive version… I have opted out of several sites (that first were completely free, and then…) because of that. I thought I had found the ultimate service here –

    1. Hi Fred, our attitude is that the free version of Bandcamp is the flagship product. Pro, like download codes, is just another premium option that you can take us up on if you need the extra features, but which you’re otherwise free to ignore. I understand your concern, but think it’ll be further alleviated when you see what rolls out this summer. 🙂

  26. Great work guys, you never cease to amaze! Best website out there for independent musicians, hands down!

  27. Good point, Ethan. Speak of changes, any ambitions to convert the widgets to HTML5?

  28. I have to second the request (again) for sharing income with mutiple artists… please plaease please let us split the income by track or at least artist between mutiple paypal accounts! This will be so much better for my band relationships. No more distrust factor between bandmates!!!
    Pleeeeeease!!!!

  29. If Pro comes with unlimited free downloads for fans, then I’d say it’s worth the money. If not, then I can’t justify paying you more to take more of my own sales. Still got love for the BC platform, though.

  33. Bandcamp, thank you for your continued sterling service on every level. You guys have provided everything I need to make this work for me! My new album had over 3000 plays in the first few weeks, which is mind-blowing. Thanks for the new features, keep on keeping on!
    Warm regards!
    Nate Maingard
    http://natemaingard.bandcamp.com

  34. I tried the new integrated search, but if I type a few different tags, they don’t seem to be searched as “tag-x AND tag-y”, which would be great to narrow down some particular mix of styles that bands usually put in their tags.

    Nevertheless, thanks for the great work on the update!

  35. Thanks for the reply (to #5) Ethan. I’m a huge Bandcamp fan, and have invested a lot of time in switching the vast majority of my music to BC. Like several commenters, I’m a little uneasy with this new two-tier idea – especially if it involves disabling features that were formerly part of free accounts (i.e. Custom Domains) in order to make them part of a subscription package. Also, I’m quite happy paying either a subscription or commission, but both?
    I like the new album interface very much, but with this ‘Pro account’ idea, BC just got a little less special. [Nevertheless, I’ll probably go Pro at some point because I like BC so much – but just a tiny bit less now than I did before…]

  37. These features look interesting and they also should reflect what most artists and labels need. Although like mentioned before by another user: I’m happy to pay a monthly fee when it affects the commission rate.
    I personally feel that the rate is high already, comparable to the big digital stores – but minus the traffic stores like amazon or itunes have.

  38. all the new browsing features are great, they make a massive difference.

    I would still really like to see a subscribe function, like Soundcloud, so I get informed when artists upload new material. For me that is significant feature that would bring everyone benefits.

  39. Just passed by to back up Méô’s suggestions, especially #3! Some sort of subscription – it could be some sort of mailing list, RSS feed integration or something along those lines.

    I’d also suggest lowering the revenue share to 10% for those who pay for the subscription, but if that was financially appealing for you, you would’ve done that already 🙂

    And thanks for the new stuff. Just got my subscription!

  41. Just wanted to say that I’m really excited for these improvements! I’ve been long hoping for a way to feature songs on albums, and have even e-mailed you guys about it. Thanks for the improvements! I may even do the pro option….

  42. I love bandcamp. I have a start up label that is in developmental stages and bandcamp and all its developments allows me to get a ton of music out there for little to no cost. In the next couple of months im definitely going to upgrade to pro but in the mean time all the upgrades they have done to their site have made my life a lot easier

  43. hi folks,
    first thanks again for your great work, bandcamp is great and still better
    then here’s what i just think :
    the bandcamp pro features are honestly exactly what was missing to regular version ; you see them, you think : amazing, this is gonna increase 50 per cent the quality and comfort of it

    then, you make these features not free, that’s fair : bc is a deal between your work for our professional convenience, and us, musicians
    now i have just * one * thing to say about the price :

    mainly we are poor
    and eventhough we have an account already, once the first year is done, we go to full price
    so here is what we think, or let’s say, what I think and I’m sure we are many seeing it the same :

    – 5 USD a month ? yes sure, this is cheap price, i will not even feel it and it’s so useful > I take it > Many of us take it

    – 10 USD a month ? one more thing to pay and still no money, we’ll see later > Some take it > many don’t

    in short words, i think eventhough it doesn’t look like changing much, keeping it 5 USD a month as the regular price would make it easier for US and much more lucrative for YOU cause many much more would subscribe it in a second

    and then, why not make a pro + version for 10 USD, that would provide other services again, like “if you really want it better, you still can add some options” ; like, why not, allowing 192 or 320 kbps streaming, of bigger max size of files (291 is a lot but still can be a limit, i can tell you), this kind of things…

    ?

    many thanks, much love
    +++

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