March has definitely kept us on our toes here at Lipcrack, with plenty of action happening behind the scenes on the website. I thought it might be a good idea to break it all down so everyone can get a sense of what working on the web can really be like.
Now I’m not sure how many people realize this, but music streaming is big business — big enough that it can create a few unexpected headaches along the way. I certainly ran into a couple this month. The first popped up when I discovered that the new software MP3 player on the website was allowing free downloads of the tracks. Now at first you might think, what’s the big deal? Free downloads sound great for people who want a copy of the music. The problem is, when I release a track, the hope is that it helps support the band — and that wasn’t exactly happening under those circumstances.
You might be wondering, “Surely you knew people could download it?” Honestly… no! I checked everything carefully in the preview browser and there was no download button visible at all. As you can see in the images below, it simply didn’t appear. The download option only showed up once the tracks were live on the service, which seems to be partly related to browser functionality.
That discovery kicked off a serious search for an MP3 player that could run on the site without enabling free downloads. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, not quite.
After digging around for a while, I realized there really wasn’t anything out there that would do the job properly. Yes, there’s an MP3 player on the catalogue page, but running multiple copies of that player across the site creates some fairly major coding issues — I checked. It didn’t take long to think, wow… there’s actually a serious gap here between what musicians need and what’s available. Once again it felt like a small number of big players are shaping the industry exactly how they want it — mainly through streaming platforms that require sign ups to access the services. I wanted things a little easier than that.
So given the situation — and the fact that I can’t exactly give away every track I make — I decided the best solution would be to bring a programmer on board and develop Lipcrack’s own MP3 player. And I’m pleased to say – mission accomplished. But there’s also a little surprise.
In fact, there are two MP3 players available for blog readers this month.
The first one can be found here: https://www.lipcrack.com/audiolip1.html
This is essentially an app that could easily sell for around $25, so it’s a bit of a treat. And here’s why. A lot of people miss having their own MP3 player on their computer, something simple that just plays their music without all the streaming complications.
Using this one is easy and only takes two steps:
• You can leave the page on the website and upload any tracks you like to it, and it will play them instantly.
• Or you can save the entire page to your desktop, open it locally, and drag your favourite tracks into it, you don’t need to be on the internet for it to work.
What I really like about it is that you don’t have to open a new player every time you want to hear a different song. So consider that a little March surprise from Lipcrack.
The New Album Player
Now for the part some people might not like quite as much: no more free downloads of Lipcrack tracks. To be fair, I never minded giving away the occasional copy when someone really enjoys the music — it’s just that this time it was happening under some rather unintended circumstances. The good news is that the Off The Edge album now has a brand-new player page, and actually there are two versions to choose from.
Steel Grey with lyrics: https://www.lipcrack.com/audiolip.html
Toxic Green with wave monitor: https://www.lipcrack.com/audiolip4.html
Both will be updated as new tracks arrive, but for now the Steel Grey version will be the long-term player with major links on the site. So overall, Problem solved.
The Next Challenge – Of course, the story didn’t quite end there. As Lipcrack continues to grow, mailouts to new lists have been going very well. But we did hit a small brick wall with the new track “Fucked Up My Life”. To be honest, I suspected the title might raise a few eyebrows. The funny thing is, the track itself is actually quite different from what people might expect. Unfortunately, YouTube decided to give it a “no kids allowed” rating, which was a bit of a surprise. When I tried running ads to promote the release, the system declined it. Because of that, I switched the campaign to Demolition Man, and we are currently seeing how things go with that. I did mention that the plan was to grow the site audience and ad’s are one way to do this.
Interestingly, anyone checking out Demolition Man has also been giving the new track a listen — so in a way the audience is still finding it without needing extra mailouts.
The whole process is surprisingly complex, and there’s no need to dive too deeply into the mechanics of it here. I will say though, considering some of the things you can see on YouTube these days, “Fucked Up My Life” is actually fairly tame. For now we’ve decided not to file a dispute request. But there is a plan next month to run the video through the blog so that viewers don’t need to log into YouTube for it.
Mad March
So that’s the latest update from Lipcrack.
They call it Mad March in Adelaide because of all the festivals and events happening around the city. It might be a little disappointing that the new track isn’t exactly being celebrated by the powers that be in the same festive spirit — but the people discovering the music through the mailouts are definitely getting their money’s worth.
And that’s what matters most. See you all next month with any further developments.
Lipcrack — we keep the good vibes coming.