Bandcamp Updates

You can now dig through Bandcamp’s catalog of 1.4 million albums and 10.7 million tracks, right from the app. Search for artists and fans, too:

You can also now tap on any fan image in the new “supported by” section below the music in your collection, and then listen to that fan’s full collection (this is an awesome way to discover new music):

For items in your collection, you can pick your favorite track, and tell the artist and your followers why you love that record:

And finally, if you still haven’t set an image for yourself, you can now do that from the app too (it’s in Settings):

Do I need a fan account for all this? Yes, details here.

I already have a Bandcamp artist account, can I sign up for a fan account too? Yes. If you’d like your artist and fan account to be one and the same (e.g., you’re a solo artist and don’t want to maintain separate logins), make sure you’re logged in to your artist account, and then sign up here.

I’m an artist, is there anything I should do to improve my appearance in search? Yes, please visit Bandcamp from a desktop machine, go to your profile, and make sure you’ve set your bio image. We’ll show it in search results, your artist page, and the about section of your albums.

Mucho bueno el nuevo upgrade de la app de Bandcamp 👌

— The Real ƤℯℜℛⓄ ℬⅈℭℎℹ (@elchinix) June 24, 2014

“The album array on the home page is very cumbersome. When I add a new release, if I want it to appear on the top left, I have to manually shift all 15 of my other albums over. Huge hassle.” –Mark D.

Agreed. And fixed:

The new discography page automatically displays your releases from newest to oldest, and also lets you easily reorder them using drag and drop. The sidebar (which used to only show up on album and track pages) is also shown, so fans will always see your image, bio, links, shows, and so on.

By default, a fan visiting you.bandcamp.com will see your full discography. To instead take fans right to your latest release, go to your profile, and under Home Page, choose “When a fan visits my site: go to my latest release” (bonus: you also now have the option to go directly to your merch grid).

What happened to the index page? The discography replaces it.

The index page let me showcase just a few of my releases, and leave out everything else. Can I still do that? No. Most people used the index page as a full discography and were frustrated that it didn’t simply auto-fill, and this change is about fixing that problem. We’re considering adding a separate landing page option where you could feature a specific release, an image, a video, or a merch item, but no ETA just yet.

Hmm, I’m not seeing any of this, what gives? If you’re a label, you likely use the index page to link to individual Bandcamp artist sites. That is how-you-should-be-doing-it, so we haven’t touched your index page at all. However, we know you want the improvements mentioned here too, so stay tuned, a label solution is on the way.

The music feed is now in the Bandcamp app, and mmff, very exciting time!  For those who haven’t already experienced it on desktop, the feed is a great way to discover new music by following fans whose tastes overlap your own. It shows you the activity of all the fans and artists you follow, and lets you listen to their picks and new releases instantly. You’ll see when someone you follow buys an album, and you can listen to their favorite track and see what they had to say about it. We’ll show you when someone new starts following you and let you explore their collection. And we’ll even give you a heads up when someone you don’t follow buys one of your more niche records, because clearly that’s a person with exceptional taste whose collection you’ll want to check out too.

If you’ve already visited your feed on desktop, prepare to be stupefied all over again, for on mobile tracks play back to back, you can explore suggested fans’ collections right inline, and THE WHOLE THING NOW FITS IN YOUR POCKET AND/OR FANNY PACK.
It’s essentially a personalized radio station programmed exclusively by the people whose tastes you respect enough to follow.

Before you even ask:

Why aren’t there Buy buttons in the iOS version? Because Apple won’t allow it. However, you can tap the wishlist button instead, and we’ll periodically email you a digest of your recently wishlisted items, along with direct links to buy them. Android, for what it’s worth, has Buy buttons right in the app.

Do I need a fan account? Yes, details here.

If you’re a Bandcamp Pro subscriber, you can now view all your buyers on a map for at-a-glance insight into touring and regional promotion (or possibly just jollies). Head over to your stats page and click on Map to check it out!

(And if you’re not a Bandcamp Pro subscriber, you can still play around with the map — you’ll just see sample sales data.)

You can now send any album or track on Bandcamp as a gift. Just click “Send as Gift” (below the Buy Now link), enter the recipient’s email address, add an optional personal message, and then check out as always. Your friend will get an email containing a link to the high-quality download, as well as instant, unlimited mobile access to the music via the free Bandcamp app.

Some things you may be wondering:

Can I send physical items as gifts?
Sure can.

What about gift cards?
We may add them in the future.

So if the gift recipient doesn’t have a Bandcamp fan account, they can use the gift to create one, no purchase needed?
Correct.

I’m a fan. How can I insure that I only receive gifts I actually want?
Easy: send your friends a link to your Bandcamp wishlist (it looks a little something like this: bandcamp.com/yourfanname#wishlist). Don’t have a fan account yet? Get yours here.

I’m an artist. Do I use “Send as Gift” to give some of my fans my music for free?
No, continue to use download codes for that. “Send as Gift” is for your fans to give your music as a gift to other people.

I’m an artist. Should I tell all my fans about this?
Yes please. Your fans would love to support you by giving your music to their friends. Please let them know that there’s now an easy way to do so!

Selling merch on Bandcamp? You now have the option to automatically email the buyer when you ship out their item. Just head over to your /merch_orders page, check “Email buyer when item is marked as shipped,” and that’s that. There’s also an option to add a custom message, in case you’d like to include a tracking number, or just send a little love back the fan’s way.

Man once Bandcamp makes a phone app where you can download straight to your mobile its OVER

— Mtume Gant (@SirCoreGant) June 20, 2013

Woo hoo! The Bandcamp app for iOS and Android has arrived. This first version gives anyone with a fan account instant, unlimited mobile access to their Bandcamp music collection. No more download-and-sync two-step to get tunes onto the iPhone, and no more advanced fiddling on Android. Just make a purchase, and it immediately appears in the app. And when an album pre-order is released? Ta-da, it just shows up, ready to be enjoyed. All of this sits side-by-side with Bandcamp’s existing high-quality download functionality, providing fans with additional incentive to make a purchase:

Is the Bandcamp app free?
Yes.

Should I bother installing it?
That depends. If you’re among the millions of people who have bought music from an artist on Bandcamp, then yes (but go claim your fan account first). If, however, you have never purchased one of the 1.1 million albums or 8.4 million tracks from any of the hundreds of thousands of artists on the site, then no — the app is not yet about browsing that catalog (but you could of course go buy something on Bandcamp, get your fan account, and then install the app).

Where do I get it again?
It’s in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

What about free music I’ve downloaded?
Bandcamp’s #1 objective is to help artists succeed, and we mean that in the old-fashioned make-money-get-money sense. The vast majority of music offered on the site is for sale, and of the music that’s offered for free, almost all of it has the “let fans pay if they want” option enabled. The app is about giving fans yet another reason to do so.

What else does it do, and what’s next?
The app also lets you listen to the Bandcamp Weekly (currently on iOS, coming shortly to Android), and will soon incorporate more discovery features, starting with the new music feed.

If you’ve got a fan account on Bandcamp, we’ve got a great new way for you to discover music. Your music feed shows you the activity of all the fans and artists you follow, and lets you listen to their picks and new releases instantly. You’ll see when someone you follow buys an album, and you can listen to their favorite track and see what they had to say about it. We’ll show you when someone new starts following you and let you explore their collection. And we’ll even give you a heads up when someone you don’t follow buys one of your more niche records, because clearly that’s a person with exceptional taste whose collection you’ll want to check out too.

You get to your feed by clicking “music feed” in the menubar (or by just going to bandcamp.com/yourfanname/feed). And if you don’t have a fan account yet, you can learn more about the history here, and then get on it.

Minor aside before you gaze upon the majesty of the screenshot below: if you prefer the feed over the email digest, you can now disable the digest from your settings page.

You can now easily switch between all your artists on Bandcamp without the hassle of repeatedly logging in and out. First, make sure you’re in whichever account you plan on logging in with from now on. Then open up your artist menu and select  “add more artists”:

 

Enter the name and password of the artist(s) you want to add:

Those bands are added to the artists pane of your settings page, above, where you can quickly jump between their sites (and profile, tools and stats pages).

 

You can also navigate between them from the artists menu:

 

A couple of notes:

The new gear icon in the upper right is how you get back to your settings page, where you manage your artists, change your email and password, and do other account-level things.

If you’re running a small label where you manage all your artists, but the artists themselves have access to their individual accounts, that will continue to work just fine. Add the artists to your account as described above — the individual logins will not be affected.

This is only the first step in making it easier to work with multiple artists on Bandcamp. You can probably guess steps two through five. We’re working on them!