Saturday, October 06, 2007

CD Baby Gets It Right

Our good friends at CD Baby are now in the business of selling mp3 downloads of our (and thousands of other) CDs. They have already been making our music available for download from most of the major vendors (iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster, etc.) for a few years but now they are offering full CD downloads direct from the CD Baby site.

Why buy direct from CD Baby? Let me count the ways. First, we get to set the price. So for now we are asking $9 each for Smitten and Hands Four and only $6 for Ballroom Echoes. Since CD Baby only keeps 9% of the sale price most of the money goes directly to us to pay for things like strings, instrument repair and shoes for the kids. Not for the Mercedes or shopping sprees in Paris. OK, sometimes we buy chocolate or maybe a pizza.

More important than price is the quality of what CD Baby is selling. You can go here to read the details but, basically, you will receive high-quality DRM-free mp3s, a JPG of the CD cover and a text file with info about the recording.

CD Baby is only selling complete CDs and not individual tracks so you will still need to visit our friends at iTunes, etc. if you really want to download a single set of tunes or a waltz.

By the way, we love it when our listeners buy our recordings in any format and I personally think that DRM is a bad, bad idea. You will definitely never be sued by us for enjoying our music!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Curiously....I just purchased both Ballroom Echos and Hands Four from the very same CD Baby! Thank goodness for recommendation engines. I was getting 3 CDs from KGB and your group showed up as a recommendation.

Wonderful material! I am part of an active waltz community in the San Francisco Bay Area and will be submitting several tracks to our DJs. Also, I am the host on the internet radio station, CelticMelt, and have added a number of tracks to that as well.

Go to:

http://www.live365.com/stations/celticmelt1

John said...

KGB is a great band! I'm glad you found Contratopia through that route. I certainly hope that you find some tracks that you and your DJ friends can use.

One of the waltzes on Ballroom Echoes, "January Waltz", has also been recorded by my friends in the Montana Mandolin Society on their CD, Mosaic. It's a lovely arrangement of the tune and you can also hear a sample of it at CD Baby.

Thanks much for your comment.