Not yet, but serious progress has been made toward this. For now, hereās the process:
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Forgive me if Iām wrongā¦ and @Hakanto is definitely correct aboveā¦ but on upload you can enter a different artist name.
Such an upload would still be added to your Kallie Marie account, profile etc. (theyād show up here - Resonate) the album and track ownership would still be your existing account but theyād display the different artist name in the player etc.
If you needed account/profile separation this wouldnāt be any use. But if the other artist name was happy as a pseudonym under Kallie Marie, it should work.
Now there might be other reasons Iām not thinking of as to why we donāt want to encourage this though.
Yes absolutely. For an example, see how @CPacaudās solo releases appear with his name, yet are on the artist page for Contemplator.
Thatās one solution. But if folks want multiple artist profiles/pages, they should use the process linked above.
Ok, in that case I will just have to hold off on uploading more because its going to get insane having duplicate resonate emails and different accounts. Its too much. Please keep us updated when this feature roles out. Cant wait for it!
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I wouldnāt encourage this because if there were splits on the royalties then that could be confusing. I assume the royalties would all go to one place? In my case it wouldnāt really matter for now, the last two EPs for my band are all credit back to me as Iāve worked out arrangements with my collaborators. However I cant speak to what the next EP would be like, and by doing so I would have painted myself into a corner for future releases. Aka prob bad look. This should definitely be high up there on the list, I would think, as I imagine its a similar infrastructure for sayā¦ labels? But I am not sureā¦
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@Uploaders Letās no longer accept FLAC files in submissions, starting Feb 14.
Iāve updated:
- the Submitting music guide
- the Updated audio needed email template
After conversations with @auggod, it seems that accepting only WAV and AIFF will put us in a better position to offer downloads in the future. If anyone else has thoughts on this, feel free to jump in.
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I hear this!!! I have 5 artist accounts, one label account, and an uploader account. Itās madness.
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I like uploading flacās. Theyāre smaller files so upload quicker (nice when itās a full album). They tend to come with embedded track metadata so track titles etc. are correct automatically. I can think of one specific example where they come from a label and so I wonder if metadataād flacs are common within the industry or not? Might be worth thinking about in terms of working with more label catalogues in the future.
Having said all of that though, I think downloads are more important so if this helps it sounds good to me.
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Are there technical challenges with transcoding FLACs to other formats? The āLā in FLAC stands for āLosslessā, so transcoding to MP3 for download should have no impact on sound quality versus using a WAV or AIFF file as a source.
If that isnāt the problem, Iād like to learn why WAV and AIFF have been determined to be better than FLAC for downloads in the future.
100% agree with all this.
Iād like we postpone this decision to stop accepting FLAC.
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Sounds good to me.
@Uploaders, letās keep accepting FLAC. Iāve updated the guide and email template.
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My late two cents (sorry) -
Iām assuming this is related to eventually providing downloads in multiple formats, hence requiring an uncompressed source file from which other formats would be encoded/generated automatically (Ć la Bandcamp).
FLAC is a lossless format, so theoretically identical in terms of sound produced to an uncompressed WAV file, meaning there is no quality loss in producing WAV files from them āafter the factā if we want to provide the option for listeners to download WAV files for their music.
For me, itās more of an ethcial question: is it okay to say: here, you can download this in uncompressed WAV, when in some cases the files would be converted from a FLAC source (even though again, theoretically, no quality loss occurs)?
Also, I realize this imposes some more work on the backend of things to support all the additional transcoding cases, so that might be a factor to consider as well.
And Iām re-reading what @remst8 wrote, and I pretty much wrote the exact same thing in a lot more wordsā¦ Weee 
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Uhhh, audio engineer chiming in hereā¦ Transcoding to MP3 for download does have an impact on sound quality. Thats why some people like FLAC. Lossless encoding matters for audio quality, and just incase anyone wasnāt clear, we should keep in mind that once something has been made to a lossy file, like an MP3 you cant go backwards to lossless. Once that cake is baked, its done. So you cant put the removed portions back.
Just wanted to make sure that this was clarified incase there was some understanding, but yes if the quote I posted meant there was no loss in quality from WAV AIFF to FLAC then for the most part no. To MP3 YES. Even AIFC is lossy, but to a lesser degree and is an Apple format. IF anyone has audio quandaries please feel free to hit me with them.
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To clarify, my quoted statement meant:
Transcoding from FLAC to MP3 should not result in a āworseā MP3 than transcoding from WAV to MP3 or AIFF to MP3.
No arguments from me that MP3 is lossy and should not be used as the source for transcoding to other formats (which is why we no longer accept MP3 files for submissions).
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hello! when we put our legal name on the metadata spreadsheet, is there any chance that people would see it i.e. when downloading the track?
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This is a great question, I would love to know the answer as well, and need this information kept private.
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My understanding here isā¦ not at present. Maybe in the future and that some kinds of privacy respecting opt-in/opt-out will likely be offered.
Where it gets complex is with our likely arrangements with PROs/collections agencies etc. for various royalty payments and how album/track credits might be displayed in the future. This doesnāt specifically address track downloads but Iāll return to that at the end.
Everything Iāve seen/heard so far btw shows that people at resonate recognise and value respecting privacy on this, but there are a couple of competing demands that will need addressing.
First, legal name for composers/performers is a requirement in relation to the PROs etc. Itās part of the metadata that connects various industry processes together to make sure people get credited and paid properly. However, if youāre registered with a PRO you can also register pseudonyms which help preserve a degree of anonymity. For example, Bono is credited as Bono and not his real name.
If youāre registered (e.g. you have a label/publisher, youāve released stuff to streaming platforms via e.g. CD Baby, Amuse etc., or youāve registered your works independently) then you will probably either be credited to your releases under your legal name or a registered pseudonym.
If youāre not registered (and have no plans to) then it doesnāt really make any difference to you and should be able to use any name/pseudonym you like. I think thereās an update to the uploader guidance happening to help clarify this too.
Soā¦ you may already know all of thatā¦ for resonate, where this matters, to the best of my knowledge, is when we connect to metadata services tied to collections agencies etc. This is entirely necessary to be able to provide music catalogues by more established labels/artists and attention to making sure metadata is accurate and works properly will be necessary.
In this future world I expect we will want to (and I personally would encourage) publicly crediting contributions to a recording (writers, performers, studio engineers, etc.) such as tidal is currently doing.
The names entered in metadata (especially writers and performers) would form part of this and I expect would therefore become public. Itās likely that some form of opt-out or opt-in may be offered. Again, everything Iāve heard points to people here understanding and respecting privacy.
So hopefully thatās a bit of background on if/where/why things like legal names might be (or not) required and how this metadata might be made public (presuming a reasonable opt-in/opt-out procedure is also in place) in the future.
What I donāt know (and havenāt seen any discussion of previously) is how metadata might be processed for track downloads.
Personally Iād encourage us to add as much metadata to track downloads as possible so that credits and details are preserved. I also recognise doing this in a privacy respecting way but whether we presume this is covered by artists providing names/pseudonyms theyāre happy to be made public or by another opt-in/opt-out option I have no real thoughts or suggestions.
Audio files can have embedded metadata and Iām unsure how the upload process works in relation to this. I know it can pull metadata out as we sometimes see it when uploading in title/artist/etc fields but I donāt know if/how this is stripped or preserved in the files we store on our servers. e.g., does this get overwritten by the values entered on the upload forms etc?
As the download facility is currently being specified and we hope will be reimplemented soon it will be useful to think about if/how metadata will be handled for file downloads.
Soā¦ at present, there is no track download facility, butā¦ in the future, privacy respecting metadata will need thinking about.
Certainly not a complete answer but hope that helps somewhat. Also, as some of this is work in progress, itās very open to contribution and further thought/discussion.
Thereās no reason a listener needs so much metadata. If a listener/user etc downloads my music they donāt need to know my PRO. Also PRO, will have two splits, for most self maintained artists, which Iām sure are in majority here. IE writer share and publisher share. I donāt recall giving Resonate that info. I havenāt given that info to any other streaming service that I have my music on, and that would seem incredibly strange to me- and stranger still if a user/fan got that info.
Itās strange enough that if I had seen that on the way in I would likely have bolted! It raises lots of alarm bells in my mind, for a variety of reasons. Reasons both privacy based and business related.
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Sorry, not sure I follow you here. I fear Iāve made something sound different to how I intended.
The original question was if legal name, on the metadata spreadsheet, would be revealed when downloading a track (which I also extended to e.g. track credits on the web player).
I never intended to suggest e.g. royalty splits are collected/shared. Thereās a point where resonate might work with a label catalogue and I donāt have the industry experience or knowledge to know how such integrations would operate.
What I did feel like I had rough handle on was the legal name aspect. If you put your legal name on the metadata spreadsheet, under writer and/or performer credits, I suspect thereād be a process where that might be revealed in the future butā¦ probably with some kind of opt-in/opt-out. If youāre with a PRO and the name doesnāt match then the royalties system breaks. If youāre not with a PRO then you could put anything without consequence.
Iām only talking about names on writer/performer credits.
Also, personally, I quite like the tidal system where e.g. studio engineer credits are also available. I think that crediting as many forms of labour that went into a musical work would align with coop values but obviously not if people didnāt want to share/be public. When I talked about embedding metadata in track downloads, it was this sort of stuff I was thinking of, again, not e.g. royalty splits.
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