Best Sites for Djs to Upload Mixes
Once you've produced a DJ mix (or "mixtape") y'all're proud of, it'south just natural you'll want to share it. But how?
Really the commencement question you should be asking yourself is "why?", because the answer to this volition dictate the best style – or combination of means – for you to get your mix out to the world.
In this article, we'll expect at how DJs today share their mixes,. It should requite you lots of ideas most how to brand that mixtape – the 1 you've worked so difficult to go right – work for you out there.
5 Places To Share Your DJ Mixes
i. Mixcloud
Mixcloud is the king of online mixtape sharing. It is a website where you can upload a mix, add artwork and a clarification, add a timestamped list of tracks, and then get a link to your mix to share with others.
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Listeners tin play the mix from their browsers, but also from dedicated mobile apps. They can also follow yous as an artist on the platform, and "subscribe" to what you do via a scheme called Mixcloud Select, where you tin actually earn money from people who savour your mixes on the platform.
The nigh important thing is that information technology is legal – everyone gets paid, including the artists. Mixcloud is reliable, works pretty well, and there are many DJs on at that place who actually brand quite a fleck of money from it.
Read this next: How To Chief Your DJ Mixes (And Why Yous Need To Do It)
That said, it does have a monthly subscription fee that you'll take to pay when you lot start using the platform seriously, and the majority of DJs would never make back in subscription payouts what they pay to employ the platform – and then don't approach it as a coin-making scheme. Instead, think of information technology as a safe, respected place to host your mixes online.
two. SoundCloud
A similar system to Mixcloud, although it is designed for producers to host individual tracks, not for DJs to host whole mixes, and information technology is confronting their terms and conditions to do so (assuming you're sharing copyrighted material, which you will be of course).
That said, despite the ups and downs DJs and SoundCloud have had in their human relationship over the years, there are still many DJs who apply this platform to host their DJ mixes, and many of them never encounter any issues with copyright takedowns.
Again, you lot pay for the more advanced features, but in this case, none of that coin goes to the artists, so do remember the ethics of doing this. Information technology may make sense to post your mixes to both Mixcloud AND SoundCloud – Mixcloud for posterity (they ought to stay upwardly in that location forever) and to do good the artists, and SoundCloud for its undoubted wider reach.
How mixtapes used to be shared…
In the "old days", we mixed to cassette (metal or chrome if we were feeling posh – those who know, know!), then used a tape-to-tape player to make duplicate cassettes, to give out to promoters, sell to fans for a bit of pocket money, to take with us to gigs, and and then on.
Later, information technology was DAT, then straight to CD-R, but essentially nosotros'd notwithstanding exist giving out hard copies of our mixes i way or another. And then, of form, the internet arrived, and more chiefly, the MP3. This, coupled with fast upload and download speeds, inverse everything…
3. Online cloud services
If you lot merely want to be able to permit people access your mixes for professional purposes, information technology may exist as easy as just uploading them to an online cloud file-sharing service.
If you lot already use Dropbox (most DJs do), you're practiced to get – but equally iCloud, Google Drive and all the others have like characteristic sets. You upload the mix, then do whatever your organisation requires to go far "public" or "shared". Y'all'll so be able to grab a link and so that anyone can click the link to listen to or download the mix.
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It's nowhere well-nigh every bit flash or consumer-friendly equally the dedicated services above, and should exist idea of more equally a way of getting a re-create of the mix out to people who want it, rather than emailing information technology, considering your mix will almost certainly be as well big to send as an email zipper.
1 dainty idea is to take some artwork every bit a JPG, a track listing every bit a TXT file, and your mix MP3, popular them all in a folder, and ZIP the binder up, and so that it is the compressed Nada file that you share – that way, people accept something to "open", then read and wait at, while they're listening to your mix.
4. USB drives
You could hand out actual concrete USB drives, with a copy of your mix on them – even better if you lot accept my advice from above and include artwork and track listing, and better still if yous include an "electronic printing kit" with more info almost you and your DJing.
Nowadays information technology is much cheaper than you might call up to get a pile of relatively low capacity USB drives to re-create your mix onto, and indeed, if you enquiry business promotional catalogues, you lot will find companies that can provide you with, say, 100 branded USB drives for pennies apiece, which tin can be actually cool to give out.
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While sometimes it'due south nice to requite something physical out, do remember that ultimately, people will have to plug it into a computer to hear it, which perchance is a bulwark you don't want to put upward. The combined press kit/mixtape idea is probably the best one if you want to go down this road.
5. CDs or cassettes
Yup, the quondam ways take still got legs. How many cars do y'all think are nonetheless out at that place with a forlorn CD slot in the dashboard? If you give out your mix as a CD, it may end up being the only CD that always gets played in that motorcar from today until the day the automobile is retired!
You'll need to edit it downward to 70-80 minutes, buy a CD burner (they're cheap), and figure out how to add track markers (you lot can exercise it in Audacity, the free sound editor for Mac, PC and Linux). It is probably too worth trying to find printable CD labels, to make your CDs look nice, too.
I wouldn't ever advise making this your primary way of giving out mixtapes, but for when promoters are giving y'all a elevator in their cars, and you lot spot that CD slot, having a CD to manus to them from your handbag will certainly go you remembered.
Read this next: Mixtapes: 5 Questions To Ask Yourself Earlier Striking Tape
Nosotros've even heard of DJs transferring their mixes to cassette tape, and handing them out with a cassette player – obviously expense dictates that this is a tactic you'll desire to reserve for the odd very special occasions, and the whole idea won't fit the artful of nearly DJs at all, but for some, it could be just perfect.
Our Recommendations
I'd recommend you put your mixes onto Mixcloud, and promote each one every bit well as you tin can, and additionally, accept a SoundCloud backup. Here are some ideas for how to promote your mixes once you've done this:
- Share them with the accounts of every unmarried creative person featured on social media
- Share the link in your e-mail signature, on your website, in your social bios
- Put playlists of the music yous used on Spotify or other streaming services, to build sensation of the mixtapes
- Make sure all your fans know when you release new mixtapes – it'due south a good thought to build an email list of subscribers for this, and for other purposes
- Have your concern cards characteristic your mix URL
- Consider "performing your complete mix as a livestream, and telling people where they can find the "mixtape" version (ie without y'all talking over it)
- Offering them to online radio stations to add to their programming – yous may want to add DJ idents to your mix, for some extra branding in this example
Making DJ mixes won't automatically become you lot gigs any more, but they are finer an "audio business card" for you lot, and for all kinds of reasons – helping yous to amend equally a DJ, documenting your journeying as a DJ, forcing you to practise, and more – they are well worth doing.
Read this next: How To Turn Your Mixtapes Into A DJ/Producer Podcast
Hopefully this article has given you some new ideas about what to do when you've got a mix to promote – and remember, if you want to know how pro DJs actually make their mixes, apace, hands and without having to start over again every time they make a fault, practice check out our Pro Mixtape Formula course.
Source: https://www.digitaldjtips.com/2021/10/how-where-to-share-your-dj-mixes/
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