We’re looking forward to meeting many friends, clients and colleagues in Cannes over the next couple of days. We’re ready to introduce you to an amazing year of upcoming music. We’ve got hot releases due from artists like Sébastien Tellier, Die Ärtze, Ólafur Arnalds, Rocketjuice and the Moon and Theo Parrish, to name just a few.

Come find us at the VUT and a2im areas in the Palais Des Festivales, or drop us an email if you’d like to request a meeting. Representing finetunes are Oke Göttlich, Janine Lubas, Tom Günther, Ray Farrell and David Balfour. Until we meet, we wish you a happy and successful Midem.

Eurosonic is widely respected as one of the best live music showcase events in the world. We’re looking forward to blowing away those January blues by watching some of Europe’s hottest breaking new acts, as well as some more established names who are looking to break into new territories.

If you’d like to meet up with finetunes in Groningen, you may contact us on twitter @finetunes. Or email finetunes managing director Oke Göttlich, who’s keen to meet up with current or potential partners in the Netherlands.

We’ve created a little puzzle for you to enjoy and to help you meditate and come down to earth. Download the file and start:

finetunes_xmas2011_1

If you sing a song, create a video or just send in your nice hand-crafted Tannenbaum (Christmas Tree), we will surprise you with a nice present in the New Year 2012.

Thanks everyone for sharing our vision to empower independent artists and labels in the digital music world. With your support we are getting stronger and better able to strive for the thing in which we believe: to create an outstanding independent service fitting to your needs.

Stay strong, peace and now get your scissors and glue out, ladies and gentlemen.

Your finetuners

On the 3rd November 2011 and as integral part of the a2n camp conference, the first ever German Unconvention Factory took place in Berlin. The idea: Flanked by respective workshops to explain each step, an entire album is planned, recorded, produced and mastered. All within less than 24 hours.

Participants are thereby not only shown all aspects of a record production, they actually get their own hands dirty doing it. From recording techniques and cover design to production and mastering to digital distribution. finetunes was right in the middle of it all, explaining and handling the digital side of the project. In detail, this involved:

• Encoding of the tracks for digital delivery
• Set up an E-Shop where people can buy the downloads
• Physical Music Services to produce a limited edition of CDs
• Delivery of the tracks into the iTunes system together with a booklet
• Streaming Edition of the release on Simfy with lottery of a special prize
• Promo Campaign to push the news about the release to journalists, DJs and bloggers
• Retailer Newsletter to inform finetunes’ retail partners about the release
• Pay Per Tweet to promote the release via Twitter and Facebook
• Booster Code to allow free downloads to all participants
• Banner Campaign to promote the release visually on a range of German websites

More than 300 people took part in the day, with 30 who had qualified to take part in the actual production. The recording of the nine songs was split into half an hour recording and half an hour workshop. There was obviously a lot to go through. A team of designers created and printed the posters and CD covers, each one unique, on a traditional printing press. Web-designers put together a site and created the graphics for the banner ad campaign, which was set live the same night.

Overall, the plan worked out and a fully fledged release was dreamt up, done and explained. A big endeavour, in particular as, for example, digital releases usually have a run-up time of about six to eight weeks before release. However, all participants and workshop hosts were happy to have taken part in such an ambitious project.

Freshmilk.tv have filmed a couple of impressions from the event, as you can see here:

–

The decision of high profile artists such as Coldplay and Adele to withhold their albums from streaming services has led other artists and labels to question whether they shouldn’t be following a similar policy.

The concerns are not new: some have long been worried about the payouts they’re receiving from streaming services. However, the idea that streaming services could actually be damaging to artists’ careers was recently boosted by the recent release of some US-based research from NPD Group and NARM, which claimed that access to streaming music services leads people to reduce their spending on other forms of music. Following the release of this research, UK-based distributor ST Holdings announced a decision to withdraw its releases from all streaming services, quoting “poor revenues and the detrimental affect on sales.”

Is the tide now turning against streaming services? It’s hard to say. But we would like to offer some advice to artists and labels grappling with the important questions, such as:

• Does streaming music availability really damage download sales?
• Is the per-stream payout from such services too low to be acceptable?
• Should artists seek to abandon streaming services and focus their efforts on the à la carte download market?

These are valid questions which artists are right to be asking. In order to find satisfactory answers however, it’s vitally important to question everything you read and hear deeply. Many of the figures published in the media during the debate about streaming music income have been wildly inaccurate or misleading. Even some of the research, which on the surface appears to ‘fact’, has been distorted or spun to suit a particular agenda.

It seems rational that the availability of a new album on free streaming services could lead to a decrease in download sales. finetunes believes however that whilst a small amount of cannibalisation is likely, the risk is greatly outweighed by additional income generated.

Where is this additional income coming from? It’s coming from the fact that a great number of the people using free-to-access streaming services were never going to buy the album anyway, yet are now being monetised either through advertising or subscription. Without the streaming services, these users would by accessing your music via bit-torrent, or streaming on YouTube, and you as an artist would get nothing. Bring these people into legitimate streaming however, and you’re getting paid for plays which were previously lost to piracy.

finetunes has been an early supporter of the streaming model and we haven’t seen any sudden decline in download revenues which is being claimed by some other distributors. In fact, our experience has been overwhelmingly positive: download sales have for the most part continued to grow and streaming income has been additional to download income, not instead of.

Those who obsess about the pre-stream rate paid out by such services are asking the wrong question. Comparing a download royalty to a stream rate is pointless. One commentator on Digital Music News summarised it better than we can: “How can you compare a one time purchase to monetizing a lifetime of plays? It’s incredibly short-sighted. I’d rather have someone pay me every time they listened to my song FOREVER (even if its at a much lower rate), rather than pay me $1.29 for it one time.”

Streaming services also have a strong role to play in providing promotion for your music. They enable casual listeners to access, sample and share your music at any time, without the barriers posed by purchasing. And all of this casual use is monetised and tracked. With free users typically listening at low bit-rates, with advertising, this use will never provide a satisfactory replacement for the ‘real’ experience of paid download or full subscription. But it provides an excellent way for labels to spread interest in their music, and to ensure that any potential fan who decides to check out your artist can listen to their music.

Labels who feel that streaming should be ‘cut off’ also need to understand that they have limited control of what they can actually stop. They may choose not to supply Spotify, Deezer or Simfy, yet they cannot stop their music appearing for free streaming on user-uploaded sites such as YouTube or Grooveshark. These outlets cannot be turned off, yet they offer a lower quality experience with far worse monetisation. Cutting off the ‘legitimate’ outlets is to play into the hands of those which have minimal respect for the value of your music.

Whilst we’re generally supportive of the streaming services, we’re not here to dictate to labels how they should feel, or how they should react. We think there’s value however in viewing streaming services not as an alternative to downloads, but as a new format to be used in a different way. Even those labels who feel opposed to the streaming model could benefit from servicing these services. Techniques which we believe can work well include:

Releasing an ‘album sampler’ format on streaming services (example on Deezer). Making a limited number of tracks available on streaming services enables more casual users to sample, recommend and share, attracting interest in the product, whilst not undermining the ‘deluxe’ download product. This technique may even drive additional download sales.

Holding back new releases from streaming services for a set period of time. It’s understandable that you may not want your hottest new release available for free streaming. But once the first release window has passed, does this still make sense? We’d recommend that after a certain delay it clearly makes sense to harness the long-tail potential of these services by supplying your full albums to streaming services.

Creating artist and label playlists (example on Spotify). Every one loves a good mixtape. By mixing tracks from your artists with classics from similar genres, it’s possible to drive traffic and interest towards your artist, and hopefully win them new fans.

We believe that any move to starve or shut off streaming services is short sighted. Yes, there are unanswered questions and maybe even deeper problems with the model. However, these services are giving users something that they want, recognising that music use does not stand still, and that users previously lost to piracy can in future contribute to artists’ income. It’s not perfect, but we’d rather be with them than without them. We hope that artists can look beyond some of the hysterical debate currently taking place on the internet, and resist the urge to make any knee-jerk and emotional response. Ultimately artists and labels will benefit most from reaching their own, well-informed and carefully considered policies on streaming music.

Update: We’re not the only ones thinking like this. These two great articles on the subject are must-reads:

Spotify – what the labels are doing right (here.org.uk)

Streaming Services (yet again). (Kudos Distribution)

Further Reading:

200+ labels withdraw their music from Spotify: are its fortunes unravelling? (Wired)

Mercury nominee says ‘f*ck Spotify’; UK industry voices opinion. (Music Week)

Study: Spotify Is Detrimental to Music Purchasing… (Digital Music News)

It’s Time For Transparency On Music Streaming Rates. (paidContent)

US survey finds streaming services are making a dent in piracy. (The American Assembly / Columbia University)

Hamburg has about 39,000 apprentices at about 6,500 companies, all of whom were invited to enter their apprentices into the competition. When Michael made it into the Top 20, he was already happily surprised. Imagine his surprise when he took the top prize!

In June 2010, Michael Bock started a work  placement at finetunes GmbH – which soon became formalised as an apprenticeship in the “Audio Visual Media Business” in September of that year. Michi’s passion for music combined with his keen interest in the workings of the digital music business saw him learning very quickly and before long taking on responsible tasks.

As part of the Client & Label Care Team, Michael helps labels with metadata entries and quality, as well as writing the weekly e-mail newsletter going out to customers of the finetunes shop.

Michael feels very much at home at finetunes: “I am grateful for the in-depth insight I’m getting into the workings of digital music,” he says. “Also, I have projects which I am responsible for and that experience will surely help me in my future career.”

Michael helps the entire team with their daily jobs: in issues like research, data entry and baking. In fact, the entire company is constantly on the lookout for an excuse to find a celebration which can be honoured with with one of Michael’s fantastic cheese cakes. He will make a woman very happy one day. But until then he will continue to be an invaluable help to the finetunes team.

Congratulations Michael!

Watch his application video here:

However, by using a combined strategy of digital retail marketing, online promotion and targeted online advertising, finetunes and Grand Hotel van Cleef have managed to power the digital share upwards, resulting in one of the digital success stories of 2011. This high digital sales mix was achieved by working closely with digital retailers on the album release and involving them throughout the life of the project.

Additionally, finetunes concentrated not only on direct sales activities, but on boosting the profile and visibility of the album via techniques such as SEO and SEM, digital promotion, ads on YouTube and Google, as well as voucher code actions.

The interaction of traditional promotion and internet activities worked extremely well, according to Rainer G. Ott, product manager at Grand Hotel van Cleef: “This result is amazing! We’re accustomed to working with traditional label tools: national tours, radio and TV appearances, press relations, direct to fan activities, etc. In the digital realm we are extremely thankful for the help of finetunes, who planned and put into action a comprehensive online strategy with a lot of enthusiasm.”

Mitra Kassai, finetunes label care manager for Grand Hotel van Cleef, is more than satisfied with the campaign, commenting: “Supporting an artist like Thees Uhlmann was a lot of fun and for an album of that magnitude it is well worth pulling all the strings. It is fantastic to have reached the ambitious goal of entering the German charts within the top 5. Here is proof positive that a well-planned online strategy can really deliver enhanced sales results for artists.”

Oke Göttlich, Managing Director of finetunes, commented: “To reach such a fantastic sales result with a true artist album makes us extremely happy.”

You are hereby cordially invited to meet, talk and party with us at ADE on Friday, 21st October 2011. We’ve got some great new business developments to announce, and we’re of course eager to hear the latest news from our label and business partners.

Supporting ADE in the 5th year…
Doing it again …

Click play…

What:
Meet finetunes, party with us and ask us about

• Physical Music Solutions – New physical distribution opportunities through finetunes
• YouTube – Opportunities, functions, strategies
• Promotion – Advice and strategies for digital promotion campaigns

Where:
Bloc23
Reguliersdwarsstraat 23,
1017 BJ Amsterdam

When:
Friday, 21st October 2011
from 18.00 till late

Music by:
Dairmount / Room With A View
Kid-E / Phat Elephant Recordings
Hasan Mogol / Phat Elephant Recordings

Feel free to arrange a personal meeting with us by writing to labelteam@finetunes.net. Attending will be Oke, Phil, Rodja and David.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The new Physical Music Solutions are centred around an on-demand CD production service, which enables labels to fulfil orders from major online and mail order outlets with minimal investment required. Finished CD products, including a full range of artwork and packaging options, are produced on a bespoke basis when customer orders are made, allowing finetunes’ labels to offer their entire catalogues as high quality physical products for sale in key distribution territories including Germany, the UK and North America.

In addition to the new on-demand offering, finetunes now also offers in-house replication services, enabling labels to sell physical items at gigs, or via their own websites. Furthermore, labels will also be able to offer fans on-demand ‘live bootleg’ recordings, enabling fans to have a copy of ‘their’ unique show experience delivered direct to their doors.

“In a world where physical music products remain hugely important for musicians and fans alike, we’re helping labels effectively service this demand, but with a greatly reduced investment required by labels,” says finetunes ceo Oke Göttlich. “By intelligently combining digital and physical business models, finetunes can help labels to enable the monetisation of back catalogues on an international basis, whilst minimising costs associated with producing and storing CD stock,” Göttlich adds.

Benefits of on-demand physical distribution for labels and artists:

• Secure a physical sales presence on key retailers including Amazon DE, UK, USA.
• Satisfy international demand without needing to strike local physical distribution deals.
• Reach up to 70 per cent of currently existing physical consumer music markets.
• Offer physical music products without needing to manufacture set quantities up-front.
• Satisfy current demand without harming labels’ ability to strike future physical distribution deals.
• Meet digital and physical manufacturing needs with one metadata and audio upload.
• Replicate quantities to suit demand, not manufacturers’ minimums.
• Reduced pressure on label cashflow.

Explaining finetunes’ motivation for launching Physical Music Services, Göttlich comments: “Several of our labels would like to extend their business to key markets such as the UK, France or the USA but until now the risks of investing in stock and the possibility of high return shipments were simply to high for many labels and distributors to bear. finetunes’ Physical Music Solutions allow labels to offer high quality CDs in these and other countries – without the blue look of manually-copied disks. Entering new physical distribution markets and extending international fan communities has become practically possible and worthwhile again.”

• YouTube
  Opportunities, functions, strategies
• Music on Demand
  New physical distribution opportunities through finetunes
• Promotion
  Advice and strategies for digital promotion campaigns

These workshops will be short and snappy, introducing the vital points. Of course, we will be available afterwards for more in-depth discussions.

When and where?

Thursday, 22 September 2011, 3.30 pm in the finetunes Blogger Lounge, which can be found inside the Reeperbahn Campus Lounge.

Should you NOT have a ticket for the Reeperbahn Campus, please let us know ASAP, so that we can place you on the guest list.

We look forward to seeing you!