# To website or not to website?



## Akarin (Aug 30, 2021)

Hey all,

For the past year or so, I made myself a quick landing page on Wix in order to be able to send a link when applying for scoring jobs. Here's the URL: https://nicolas-schuele.com

The thing is that most of the time, I'll write a quick custom demo to join with my application. This demo track, I'll post on SoundCloud as a private link and sometimes provide a downloadable high-quality WAV file through Dropbox. And also send a YouTube link to my demo reel video. That's a lot of links... 

...and I can't even track if they were opened.

So, I caved in and signed up for ReelCrafter. This thing is awesome and it lets me create custom pages with custom links for each potential client while having detailed analytics (was it opened? What part of the tracks were listened to? etc.)

But then I thought "do I really need my website anymore?" Instead, I made some kind of landing page using ReelCrafter only. It's here: https://rcrft.co/reel/nicoschuele/main-reel 

What do you think? Should I redirect my domain name to this? Do you see any reason why a proper website would be preferable? 

Thanks!


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## JohnG (Aug 30, 2021)

Who knows?

If I think there is a mistake to be made, out there it's having a super slick-looking website and weak "me too" music. 

On the one hand, people expect to be able to check you out before they bother contacting. On the other hand, one wants to put material on that is instantaneously arresting and sounds absolutely killer.

By "instantaneously" I think I mean exactly that: first thing up should grab the listener with something important about your music, whether it's action and excitement, or new age, or something else.

Preferably live, not samples, if it's orchestral.


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## Akarin (Aug 30, 2021)

JohnG said:


> Who knows?
> 
> If I think there is a mistake to be made, out there it's having a super slick-looking website and weak "me too" music.
> 
> ...


Thanks!

The question was not so much about the need to have a web presence but if anyone would consider a ReelCrafter page rather than a full-blown site.


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## mscp (Aug 30, 2021)

Yes. Reelcrafter is one of the most efficient way to showcase your material in the digital realm these days. I don't have it (I'm old school) but I've seen people using it, and I can truly see its value. A personal website is not an efficient form of self-marketing when starting out, but if you're an established composer, it can be a bit of nice thing to have so your fans can visit your site, and be part of your world.

Websites make more sense for studios that need to lure clients in with their top of the line gear and space (one of many examples), or if you have something to sell.


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## Akarin (Aug 30, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> Yes. Reelcrafter is one of the most efficient way to showcase your material in the digital realm these days. I don't have it (I'm old school) but I've seen people using it, and I can truly see its value. A personal website is not an efficient form of self-marketing when starting out, but if you're an established composer, it can be a bit of nice thing to have so your fans can visit your site, and be part of your world.
> 
> Websites make more sense for studios that need to lure clients in with their top of the line gear and space (one of many examples), or if you have something to sell.



Thanks for your feedback! My existing site is only one page so I think that I can safely move it to ReelCrafter


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## mscp (Aug 30, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Thanks for your feedback! My existing site is only one page so I think that I can safely move it to ReelCrafter


All the best to you, Nicholas. I hope you do well with it.


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## Soundbed (Aug 30, 2021)

You might have a good solution for your needs with Reelcrafter.

For balance, in case others read this and are looking for different options ...

I think there are services that let you manage and track links for audio to clients and prospects that can be separate from a website (or together).

Personally, I didn't love Reelcrafter's limitations. So I never got on board with their deal. Maybe it's better today? It was a couple years ago that I explored them.

~ 

For sharing audio files and tracking who listened, I prefer https://disco.ac/

You can make quick custom private (or public) "themes" for each client. For a recent game trailer pitch, I put their graphics on it (not all mine) and sent them the link. It helped to make it feel "personal" to them.

There's tons of features under the hood.

Here's an example using your background and a VSL logo that I whipped up: https://s.disco.ac/lzqoedsshnep 

As for a website, I already pay for web hosting for my LLC and manage several sites including my and my business partners' dance music record labels (digital and vinyl).


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## Akarin (Aug 30, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> You might have a good solution for your needs with Reelcrafter.
> 
> For balance, in case others read this and are looking for different options ...
> 
> ...



It looks really cool! But ReelCrafter lets you do the same. Custom banner, image, videos and link URLs per client. 

Does Disco allows for video and does it track play/pause within them as well?


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## Soundbed (Aug 30, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Does Disco allows for video and does it track play/pause within them as well?


I don't see either of those features, no. Seems like ReelCrafter has made some advancements (or I forgot).


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## Soundbed (Aug 30, 2021)

Akarin said:


> ReelCrafter lets you do the same


Question: does ReelCrafter basically host your entire catalog and all metadata? That's one of the things I like so much about Disco, it has all the metadata and tagging (important for media composers). It also offers to convert all your WAV to mp3 and allows potential downloaders to choose format etc. It was designed by a team for professionally sharing audio (but not video) so most of the feature set is geared toward music supervisors, libraries, composers, studios, mangers, etc. I'm beginning to see how it fulfills different needs from ReelCrafter.


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## Bman70 (Aug 30, 2021)

What is the cost of ReelCrafter vs Disco? As someone who codes this kind of stuff routinely, and can design and self-host a website for $5/mo, I'm a little leery about paying much more. But some of the features are attractive.


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## wunderflo (Aug 30, 2021)

Hi, I'm working in online marketing, so I thought I add my 2 cents. Looking at your ReelCraft I think it makes a perfect professional impression. No need for a dedicated website when looking at it from this perspective. 

However, I'd suggest adding a way to collect contact data in a GDPR-compliant way (newsletter signup or you keep track of contact requests manually). As you're relying on a third party service here, there's always the risk to lose it (same goes for your domain or Google search rankings). Then you need to have a way to redirect potential prospects to a different channel. Obviously, the risk is not that high for you, because you are already also present on YouTube where people can find and follow you (I'm one of them!).  

If your main concern is tracking links, I'd suggest to use UTM tags and track them in Google Analytics: https://ga-dev-tools.web.app/campaign-url-builder/ 
When using your own website, you could also use Google Tag Manager to track exactly how far people scroll down on your page, where they click, where they leave, etc. Might be overkill, though.

Wish you much success!


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## dunamisstudio (Aug 30, 2021)

Looks good.

I already have a website and my dad does website, web programming so if I need edits or changes, I just ask him.


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## Pier (Aug 30, 2021)

Bman70 said:


> and can design and self-host a website for $5/mo


These days there are tons of free static hosting services that include CDN and SSL.

Firebase, Netlify, Vercel, etc.


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## Bman70 (Aug 30, 2021)

Pier said:


> These days there are tons of free static hosting services that include CDN and SSL.
> 
> Firebase, Netlify, Vercel, etc.


But not with your own domain-based URL right? It would be something like "bman70.vercel.com" instead of "bman70.com."

Edit: It's true you can "point" your domain, if it's parked free with the registrar, to your free host. So as far as users are concerned, they only need type in your domain. This is probably a good solution for some. I'm hosting by running an actual server (nginx), which I like due to the control I have. I can also host multiple domains, currently I have 5 or so all on one server.


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## Pier (Aug 30, 2021)

Bman70 said:


> But not with your own domain-based URL right? It would be something like "bman70.vercel.com" instead of "bman70.com."
> 
> Edit: It's true you can "point" your domain, if it's parked free with the registrar, to your free host. So as far as users are concerned, they only need type in your domain. This is probably a good solution for some. I'm hosting by running an actual server (nginx), which I like due to the control I have. I can also host multiple domains, currently I have 5 or so all on one server.


Yeah you can use your own domain. Even multiple domains.

Most of these (if not all) also use Nginx and Let's Encrypt under the hood. I also manage servers but IMO it's much more convenient to use these static hosting services. Less headaches, you can deploy via the command line or GIT, and you get a zero config CDN.


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## Bman70 (Aug 30, 2021)

Pier said:


> Yeah you can use your own domain. Even multiple domains.
> 
> Most of these (if not all) also use Nginx and Let's Encrypt under the hood. I also manage servers but IMO it's much more convenient to use these static hosting services. Less headaches, you can deploy via the command line or GIT, and you get a zero config CDN.


That sounds pretty promising, I'll probably look into it out of curiosity. The last time I used free hosting I think it was only "tripod dot com" Lol.

There are some considerations with free, such as the upsell incentive. A brief check shows Firebase gives 10GB of free bandwidth per month. For $5 on DigitalOcean, I get 1TB/mo bandwidth. So significantly more and you do want more with reasonable traffic. Not sure how much Firebase would charge for 1TB but that's where it requires comparisons. Great options I didn't know about though, so thanks!


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## Soundbed (Aug 30, 2021)

I’m legacy unlimited Dreamhost and can spin up as many Wordpress (or other CDN) sites as I want. (We also use Lets Encrypt.)

Agreed it’s a good thing to be able to “funnel” traffic to a mailing list that is GDPR and do other little housekeeping things like GA and SEO stuff under your control. Those were some of the “limitations” I was thinking of, glad others brought them up.


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## Akarin (Aug 30, 2021)

I've read all of your answers, thanks a lot for these. To answer a few questions:

I've spent two decades in programming, a great chunk of that in web programming (been a contributor to frameworks like Rails and such.) Today, music takes all of my time and time spent coding or having to maintain a website is time not spent on music. Been there, done that, don't want to do it anymore 

Regarding collecting contacts, I don't do this through a website nor through SEO. This is not how I get contracts and I'm not even sure that would work for our particular craft. Most of it is word of mouth but when I apply for a project, I want to have something to show. At this point, I already have the contact detail and all relevant info regarding the potential client.

There's also this website I made called composingtips.com. It's not intended at people looking to buy my music but at other composers. Tips, tricks, reviews, etc. There are a few thousands members and I collect their email and usernames in a GDPR compliant way.

All of this is not the point of ReelCrafter. I really want a one-stop shop where I can quickly showcase my stuff and put together a custom reel. So far, ReelCrafter fills this need.

As Nathan pointed out, Disco is not for the same goal. It's intended at library music composers. For storing metadata, alt mixes, stems, etc, I use an app that I built (and a Google Sheet as well :-p). For communicating with a director and working together, it's a mix of frame.io (movie people love it for working remotely) and cuedb.com.

The idea here is really to have a "digital business card" that I can tweak depending on who I give it to. And that's what ReelCrafter is about. My idea was more to go full ReelCrafter and do a general page that I can use as my landing page.

Someone also mentionned Google Analytics. I'm very familiar with that, the different frameworks and all... but again, I don't want to code. Also, I don't believe that Google Analytics can tell me if a track was played entirely, where did the user stop, what part of the track did the user listen to multiple times, etc. That, ReelCrafter does it.

So far, I'm really liking it. Bonus point: I've had it for less than 24h and already sent a custom reel to a potential client. I've seen what they listened to and we later had a Zoom call. Seems that I'll be the one doing the music on their feature


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## Soundbed (Aug 30, 2021)

Akarin said:


> For storing metadata, alt mixes, stems, etc, I use an app that I built





Akarin said:


> For communicating with a director and working together, it's a mix of frame.io (movie people love it for working remotely) and cuedb.com.


Awesome. I love that you built an app for that. 

Congrats on (probably) landing the gig!

I am really appreciative tonight. Lots of great responses, for your specific question and also (I assume) for others who might encounter this thread later and have a similar question but not your “technical skilks”. 😉

This is a pretty cool community. I’ll miss it when I get busy again and cannot read / post as often.


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## Bman70 (Aug 30, 2021)

OK so ReelCrafter is $17/month (at least for the good metrics). Disco is $15 for comparable plan.


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## Pier (Aug 31, 2021)

Bman70 said:


> A brief check shows Firebase gives 10GB of free bandwidth per month. For $5 on DigitalOcean, I get 1TB/mo bandwidth.


Honestly 10GB (per project) should be plenty for most projects. Using it for a couple of projects and never got above that.

If you require more, Netlify gives you 15GB, and Vercel up to 1TB for free.


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## Darrell (Aug 31, 2021)

There is also Cloudflare Pages with unlimited bandwidth, CDN, SSL, your own domain and Git integration, so you can use a Static Site Generator (SSG) and Cloudflare will build and deploy the site for you. It's free.

More info: https://pages.cloudflare.com/

Netlify right now gives 100GB /month: https://www.netlify.com/pricing/


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## Pier (Aug 31, 2021)

Darrell said:


> Netlify right now gives 100GB /month


Oh they've increased it!


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## Akarin (Sep 1, 2021)

Asking you all web devs, from one to another... How much time would you reasonably take to make a clone (at least in features) of ReelCrafter and deploy it? Including the stats that let you check who played what, for how long, where did they pause, scrubbed back, etc?


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## Pier (Sep 1, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Asking you all web devs, from one to another... How much time would you reasonably take to make a clone (at least in features) of ReelCrafter and deploy it? Including the stats that let you check who played what, for how long, where did they pause, scrubbed back, etc?


To give you an idea, I'm working on an audio hosting service.

I've been working full time for about 4 months now and I still need a couple more months to launch the first beta.

It's taking so long because I want to offer a very competitive pricing so I'm solving a lot of stuff myself instead of relying on third party services like ReelCrafter probably does.

Also, if I was making this for a single client it would be very different that making a service publicly available. It would be way simpler.


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## Bman70 (Sep 1, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Asking you all web devs, from one to another... How much time would you reasonably take to make a clone (at least in features) of ReelCrafter and deploy it? Including the stats that let you check who played what, for how long, where did they pause, scrubbed back, etc?



Everyone has different needs, so just speaking personally, those aren't features I would use as a composer. I have no need to check who scrubbed back where, or see where they paused. That would waste time I could spend being creative. If the client likes it, I'm pretty sure I'll know when they email or call (or leave a comment in a form). It might be useful to see if they played it at all; but even then I'd prefer to hear that from the client instead of trying to analyze their behavior in secrecy. 

Since my requirements are simpler, it would be fairly trivial to build myself a suitable portfolio site, with a private section for each prospective client to view, play, and comment on a work. Then I'd self-host it for free or $5.


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## Nico5 (Sep 1, 2021)

The Reelcrafter service looks really cool to me as well - primarily because the more unique value proposition seems to be around the detailed analytics. However, for me that raises two kinds of issues: One practical value related and the other one maybe more philosophical. i.e.

For an artist (or any business) who may be gaining a dozen or two customers per year (or less?), I think there's limited value in that data. And the collection of such detail seems quite privacy hostile.

*Limited Data Value *

I think analytics only becomes very interesting at higher traffic numbers (like all statistics).

I'm a very big fan of following the numbers, but only when the sample sizes get pretty large. Not sure, if getting dozen or two customers a year is ever a large enough sample size for such detailed analytics.

With small data-sets, one easily jumps to entirely false conclusions and potentially makes big mistakes acting on them.

For example, how much of a portfolio piece was watched or listened to by a specific visitor doesn't say anything about why they stopped early or listened all the way through.

A short listen may be, because somebody is pressed for time and just wanted to be sure, that the material was of reasonably professional quality and they were impressed enough after a few seconds to check that box.

A long listen might be, because the listener was suddenly interrupted by their screaming infant in the other room, and jumped away from the computer without hitting the stop playback button. They may or may not have liked the piece.

So in the case of a small target audience website, I would probably want to know, if someone even bothered to look at my portfolio - and that's pretty much achievable via a simple visitor count on a custom url per potential client.

*Privacy Issues*
In addition, deeper analytics is inherently somewhat privacy hostile (only important for people who care about the privacy topic). In person, we would generally not intently stare over the potential client's shoulder while they go through our portfolio, while taking detailed notes on how long they spent on each item.

And the privacy hostility gets worse when using 3rd party analytics providers, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and their ilk. But even any cloud service is that extra bit of a privacy violation, since they get to view all of their customers' analytics.

As a privacy conscious customer, I'm generally ok if the website I visit does some basic tracking of my visit and that data stays with them, but I really dislike when the tracking is done by the big aggregators who can follow you all over the web. Fortunately there's uBlock Origin.


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## Pier (Sep 2, 2021)

Nico5 said:


> *Privacy Issues*
> In addition, deeper analytics is inherently somewhat privacy hostile (only important for people who care about the privacy topic). In person, we would generally not intently stare over the potential client's shoulder while they go through our portfolio, while taking detailed notes on how long they spent on each item.
> 
> And the privacy hostility gets worse when using 3rd party analytics providers, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and their ilk. But even any cloud service is that extra bit of a privacy violation, since they get to view all of their customers' analytics.
> ...


Yeah with GDPR laws it's even more strict now for users in the EU.

On my audio hosting service I'm struggling to find a way to tell our users from which country their plays come from in a privacy conscious manner. Obviously we will not track users, but we also don't want to be showing an annoying popup opting in to location collection on every embedded player.


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## Akarin (Sep 2, 2021)

Pier said:


> I've been working full time for about 4 months now and I still need a couple more months to launch the first beta.



This is why I gave up a 20 years coding career... In 4 months, I scored a movie, 2 shorts and made a hefty load of library tracks 😬 

Looking forward to your product though. Anything that can make SoundCloud die has my attention. 



Nico5 said:


> For an artist (or any business) who may be gaining a dozen or two customers per year (or less?), I think there's limited value in that data.



Found myself in situations where I received feedback only to discover later that the cue was not even opened or only the intro was listened to. It's not about stats, it's about knowing what's what as far as I'm concerned.


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## Pier (Sep 2, 2021)

Akarin said:


> This is why I gave up a 20 years coding career... In 4 months, I scored a movie, 2 shorts and made a hefty load of library tracks 😬
> 
> Looking forward to your product though. Anything that can make SoundCloud die has my attention.


These kind of projects can be overwhelming... hopefully it will be worth the effort.

I'll let you know once I launch the beta!


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## Brian Cho (Nov 24, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Hey all,
> 
> For the past year or so, I made myself a quick landing page on Wix in order to be able to send a link when applying for scoring jobs. Here's the URL: https://nicolas-schuele.com
> 
> ...





Akarin said:


> Hey all,
> 
> For the past year or so, I made myself a quick landing page on Wix in order to be able to send a link when applying for scoring jobs. Here's the URL: https://nicolas-schuele.com
> 
> ...


Hi Nico! I'm thinking of going a similar route with using reelcrafter as a kind of landing page for my website. I feel it has everything I need for now. Just curious, would the url to your reelcrafter be what you're using to direct clients? And is there a way to change that url to just your name only, like you would on a website? Or is it not changeable? Hope this makes sense lol. Thanks!


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## Akarin (Nov 24, 2021)

Brian Cho said:


> Hi Nico! I'm thinking of going a similar route with using reelcrafter as a kind of landing page for my website. I feel it has everything I need for now. Just curious, would the url to your reelcrafter be what you're using to direct clients? And is there a way to change that url to just your name only, like you would on a website? Or is it not changeable? Hope this makes sense lol. Thanks!



Hey! You definitely can. I forwarded the URL in my DNS manager. Check this out: www.nicoschuele.com


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## RAdkins (Nov 24, 2021)

As a fellow web developer, I think both of your sites look presentable for potential clients. Personall, I am a lazy coder, so I would probably just go with the reelcrafter site. My time is worth more in the long run vs reinventing the wheel.


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## Brian Cho (Nov 24, 2021)

Akarin said:


> Hey! You definitely can. I forwarded the URL in my DNS manager. Check this out: www.nicoschuele.com


Wow that's awesome! Thanks for sharing and for your help!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Nov 25, 2021)

Tit for tat I guess, but I have success by having my actual websites (two). I use both GoDaddy and Wix, which cost me a grand total of about $250 USD per year including email, hosting, tracking data, and domains. The best part is, a total hoser like myself can easily create and mange them.


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## pinki (Feb 10, 2022)

Just to add that songspace.com should be in the running for anyone wanting to create fabulous client playlists and a lot less expensive than others.


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## Akarin (Feb 11, 2022)

pinki said:


> Just to add that songspace.com should be in the running for anyone wanting to create fabulous client playlists and a lot less expensive than others.



Thanks for that. Didn't know about it. Will check out the trial and see what the analytics look like, how feasible would it be to make a homepage with it, etc.


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## pinki (Feb 12, 2022)

It’s a different approach than the others. On the one hand it makes creating client playlists incredibly intuitive and on the other it’s a space for music makers to manage their output and store information and then a SaaS for music publishers:

_Songspace is the only platform designed to manage music publishing copyrights and master sound recordings - while streamlining everyday creative and administrative workflows for any size company_.

It’s quite unique with excellent support and a really well written backend. Ive only been using it a week but it’s really proved to be invaluable already.


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