Author: Sonaris

Posted on

Getting plays: Electronic [EDM] Music SubReddits

I’ve been trying to find some new ways to get people to listen to my music; that is a big part of why I write it, after all.

I frequently get asked “How do I get more plays?” or “How do I get noticed by labels/people?” or “How do I get fans?”.

Get It Out There

The simple answer is, get your music out there, everywhere. But, time is money as they say, so it’s important to find places where you’ll actually get heard. YouTube is an awesome place to upload music, and I’ve been slacking on this lately, because people like to embed YT videos on their Facebook page, and with YouTube Repeat you can listen to your favorite song over and over, which I like to do sometimes.

But, even with SEO (search engine optimization – keywords, good description, etc…) it’s hard to get noticed in a sea of millions of other music videos. So, to get quality listeners (potential fans) you may have to dig a bit deeper. This is where a place like reddit really comes in handy.

reddit for electronic music

reddit is an aggregate of information, broken up into niche subreddits which people “follow”.

So, let’s say you produce progressive house and have a sweet track you want people to hear. You can post it on SoundCloud or YouTube first (you should be doing this anyway), and then submit it to the Progressive House subreddit. This is where you’ll likely find people who are interested in hearing what you’ve got. If they like what they hear, they will “upvote” it, making it easier for other subscribers of this subreddit to find your music.

Consistency is Key

If you are consistently putting out stuff people like, you will gain more followers (just like IRL!). This is a great tool to use to find people who may have not heard your music yet, and a cool way to connect directly to people who listen to the type of music you write.

To save you some time, because navigating Reddit can be tricky at first, I’ve found a resource which posts all of the music subreddits in one place, allowing you to go there directly.

Electronic Music Subreddits

I’ve taken the liberty of checking out which ones are the most active (over 1,000 subscribers at this time):

/r/DnB (13k subs)
/r/DubStep (50k subs)
/r/electrohouse (12k subs)
/r/ElectronicMusic (35k subs – haven’t had much luck posting here)
/r/Trance (14k subs)
/r/electronicdancemusic (~1k subs – seems pretty active)
/r/proghouse (~2k subs – active and friendly)

These are just a few highlights. To be honest, I think you may have better luck getting heard and interacting on the smaller subreddits, unless you’re posting a big name remix to one of the bigger subreddits.

Of course, it all depends on your style and how you connect with your listeners. Reddit can be a fun place to share your stuff, and meet some interesting people. So, with this new tool in hand, go forth and get play.

Posted on

Aiming to have new EP/LP done this Summer.

That’s right, with my album Afterlove out early 2012, I’m already knee deep in new projects. So far, I have four brand new tracks finished for a new, yet to be named EP, and I am working on a couple more.

I am looking for remixers with skill to remix one or a couple of the tracks on the album. If interested, drop me an email with a link to your SoundCloud.

Posted on

Addictive Vibe Records Live It Up, Play It Loud V1 is Available on CD!

Live It Up. Play It Loud. Vol 1 Sonaris Addictive Vibe Records Sonaris MusicOur latest, greatest and smoothest compilation of sounds, from some musically endowed artists, is now available on CD (if you even know what that is)!

Go old-school with new-school sounds from the lieks of Gerald the Genius, Sang Dinh, Marshal Arnold, Ray Guarano, Dan Veytia, Cough Drop, Nikola A. Putnik, Alex ‘Xander’ Biagi & Hot Sh1t!

Purchasing a physical copy of the album will assist our little label with getting on Pandora, which would be great exposure for our artists!

Thanks for your support!

Live It Up. Play It Loud. Vol 1 [Addictive Vibe Records] CD

Posted on

Paying Homage… Soulwig – “Parallel”

In my 10+ years of producing music, I’ve come across a lot of interesting people. Even though I credit myself as being self-taught in everything from the basics to more advanced techniques, I did get some (a lot) of help along the way, from my peers. Some of them went on to do amazing things, and some remain hidden secrets of the deep underground music world. (TL;DR)

One person, in particular, who taught me quite a bit about mixing sound, compression and how to derive quality out of my productions was a guy named Phoakis. He doesn’t go by this alias anymore, clearly he has closed that chapter (as I once did too, when I felt I had matured enough, musically). One day, hanging out on Internet DJ, like we used to “back in the day”, he posted an amazing track which I still have a hard time getting out of my head. Then, he disappeared… musically anyway, he was still around on MySpace and Facebook but decided to delete all of his projects, much to my dismay.

For several years I prodded him to keep writing music, come up with something new, release on our new label (AVR) which we were just starting to grow. He kept saying he is busy with this and that and I had all but thought he was done with music for good. Then, out of nowhere, two weeks ago I get a message in my inbox, it’s from Soulwig and it’s asking me to check out a new project he just finished, and “check on the mix”. I could barely believe it, so I rushed to check it out and–to say I was not disappointed would be quite an understatement.

What I found was a near perfect deep house track, much in the same vein as his previous projects but a more refined, mature version. From compression to atmosphere to vocal effect usage, this track is embodies the underground deep house vibe. Since I’d first listened to it, I have been totally addicted, playing it on repeat (if fact I listen to it now as I write this up), analyzing it trying to capture the secret of what it means to make a good dance track, what it takes to create something which inspires.

This track is not released anywhere, and you’d be hard-pressed to stumble upon it yourself, so I present it to you, as a gift. You  now have the chance to listen to this track for the first time. Savor the experience: turn off the lights, turn it up on your system or in your headphones, let your imagination take you where it will and… just enjoy.

TL;DR My friend and mentor writes amazing music and you should listen to it.


Posted on

Short Licensing Update

As you may or may not know, I’ve gotten into music licensing with my colleagues at Elite Sync Lab and have already had some tracks licensed for various things, a couple for ads and one for an upcoming indie film called “Wheels”. I’ve also got a few tracks out on various artist compilations and have just signed “Daily Afternoon Randomness” over to Ice Media for a compilation release. Licensing is a fun process and is vastly different than producing music for listening or club play. There are some exciting things happening behind the scenes and I’ll be announcing them as they become more concrete possibilities.

If you have some music which you’d like us to hear, and consider for licensing, leave it in our Elite Sync Lab dropbox.

Posted on

Addictive Vibe Records Compilation With 4 Tracks From Sonaris

My colleagues at Addictive Vibe Records, and I, have cooked up something addictive, indeed. Our brand new, label-wide compilation is now out on Beatport and a bunch of other online stores. After being released for just one day, it hit #42 on the Top 100 Progressive House releases chart, not bad for a bunch of underground producers with a dream.

Sonaris Addictive Vibe Records LIVE IT UP. PLAY IT LOUD. VOL 1 Album CoverThe compilation is technically a “2-disc” set with the first disc being progressive house and the second disc being electronica, dunbstep and drum & bass. There are some seriously awesome tracks on there from the likes of Gerald the Genius, Sang Dinh, Marshal Arnold, Ray Guarano, Dan Veytia, Cough Drop, Nikola A. Putnik, Alex ‘Xander’ Biagi & Hot Sh1t!

I’ve got 4 tracks on this compilation and 3 of them have not been released before. I definitely encourage you to check this compilation out and support our little-but-growing label in its quest to dominate the underground music scene.

P.S. I hear there may be limited addition copies of this compilation released as physical CDs. If you get one, I’d gladly sign it for you 🙂

Enjoy and thanks for the support!

P.P.S.  This is probably a good time to mention that we, at AVR, are looking for fresh, new talent and would love to hear your demo in our DropBox.