Comments on: Why Sonicbids sucks for indie artists

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:33:49 +0000

I have been a sonicbids member for several years now, while its true I have gotten a few gigs and radio airplay with the service, I have to agree that they are 90% a scam..they view musicians as someone to fund thier little capitalistic scheme and treat promoters (who in my opinion are opportunistic and greed-driven for using this Payola service…who the hell ever decided a talent of any kind should pay to simply audition is a crackpot at best).. I have had a 80% booking sucess when CALLING venues myself..and much lower ratio with using the Sonicbids “service”…you can simply see for yourself what a lot of artists are dealing with when reading the reviews of so-called promoters on their site..make no mistake they are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars from people they have no intention of even listening to…Sonicbids was invented by a bunch of money grubbing lawyers in Boston..they RIP OFF MUSICIANS…and If I had no success with Sonicbids and also no success with booking my act tradionally, then I would readily admit that maybe it was my music that wasnt in demand…but like other rip off organizations like Tonos (which closed in 2002 without notice to their members and no refunds of any fees..thank Carole Baer Sager, Baby Face Edmunds for that scam), TAXI which asks for membership fees of 300 bucks a year PLUS 5 dollars a submission just to have flunkie “screeners” tell people that thier song isnt Broadcast Quality ( even though all mine were recorded in a top studio that even Willie Nelson records at )..and their “opportunity” listings dont ask for Broadcast quality many times…plus they refuse to respond to any emails…SO UNPROFESSIONAL..and other rip off companies…they are destroying many small artists abilities to tour or get ahead because they offer FRAUD instead of opportunities..there is no consumer advocate that can even verify if these companies are legitimate or not.. in my humble opinion: NOT
Dont waste your money on Sharks.. they prey on the unsuspecting and become unprofessional when questioned.. also steer clear of BMI, they routinely steal songs from up and coming songwriters..I have known several that have had to file lawsuits against this Performing Rights Organization just to get out of their contract..BMI executives are rude and do nothing for anyone except already established artists.

By: Angry

Angry — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:07:13 +0000

Thieves thieves thieves thieves!

Go to Myspace.com or G2.fm for free press kits.

By: Donald "King of Rock" Trump

Donald "King of Rock" Trump — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:16:11 +0000

We’re all gonna be famous!

We didn’t go into this business to make money, it’s all for the love of music.

Back when I was CEO of a multinational corporation I used to say “don’t pay me — I’m just doing it because I love this business.” I didn’t pay any of my employees either we all just worked for the glory of it.

Then along came those other companies who were all like “we have families to feed” and I said “you guys don’t get it — you’ve all sold out,” but somehow they managed to keep their businesses afloat even though they were just in it for the money.

Couldn’t they all see that as a CEO the craft was the important thing?

The government was all up in my business like “you have to pay us taxes if you want to stay in business” and I explained to them “no way, dudes, we don’t pay to play.” It seems like I couldn’t even organize a hostile takeover without someone wanting to get paid for it.

It was crazy, everyone in the business wanted to get paid. All the time I was like “guys, can’t you see that there are more important things in business than financial success?”

So I’m still a struggling CEO, but I know that if I can just find the right gig then everything will work out. I’m putting a new company together and we’re all about the D.I.Y. we’re gonna freecycle our whole manufacturing facility.

In the meantime SonicBids keeps taking our money, I’m like “why is it everytime we give you some cash, you just take it — what’s your problem?” and then we give them some more money.

Why is it that in business every time you give some someone money they take it? Why can’t they be like “I’m sorry you really don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of success with your current business model so we’re giving you this money back so you can use it to buy a clue”?

On top of it all people are always rejecting our anonymous submissions without any productive feedback. I’m like “hey, if I’m gonna take the time to submit something to you anonymously on the internet, the least you can do is go out of the way to send me a carefully thought out reply, after all, I thought we were friends!”

They just can’t recognize real talent when they see it.

By: Sami

Sami — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:59:24 +0000

these comments makes a lot of sense to me.
it always been so confusing to me that since when paying a promoter to listen to your stuff became a better way to get heard than playing your music as much as you can,handing free records to people as long as possible?.and since when finding good producers and promoters is easier through a website asking you ta pay them so they would have your stuff reviewed by promoters and producers which they claim they are the only ones have access to them.do you think good promoters and producers would ever close the door on them selves and have a Sonicbids at the gate,asking for money from artists to enter?if they are that good to have that nose that high in the air then they are already rich and wont need your 20 bucks dud!.and good producers and promoters don’t think a serious artists is someone who pays a fee to get heard,it is all the music and potential in it and you, as the performer.but when you see there are more than 1 million of bands alone in UK and the world is still a bad place to live,then it is so obvious that most of them can do better things than doing music and are just making and filling a row cause they can strum some string and let out some melody, a mix of what ever they have downloaded on bit torrent and make a food money and keep on living and we see that even that had became so hard cause these bogus peoples are becoming a big amassing crowd and good artists have to feel like shit looking at them on the same stage they are going to play some minute after.and WELL DONE SONICBIDS,CAUSE THEY FOUND OUT IF THERE WERE 1 MILLION TRUE ARTISTS OUT THERE, WORLD WOULD BE A DIFFERENT PLACE,BUT IT IS NOT,SO 90% Of THEM MOST BE STUPID,AND HELL WE CAN MAKE MONEY OF THAT,AND THEY SO DO!.And as the money matters to 90% of the music industry guys more than anything,and they see by pouring their honey in this amassing ball of fake instrument holders they can make a very easy money,and if by a chance a good artist came across,they will get that one and run of course,so i keep faith in being true than joining the dumb community,and seek happiness in a Sonicbids toilethole!.they promoted a band for SXSW from a Africa,and from middle eastes yes!.but where are those bands now?,i know them,they are in the amassing dumb ball!,wearing dumb suits and being a crap copy of a good band if they could stay in the usa.! i always keep reading story of bands which made it,and hell they always make it through the pubs they kept sharing love in rather than licking some fuck dumb A&R dumb so promising ass.if you got money,spend it with your own strategy or get a good trustworthy manager to help you.these websites are just to control the side effects of the music industry,which was in 70’sthe cool awsome peoples which would take their guitar and go out and play some songs 30 years ago and enjoy and come back and knew they are acting like the artist,and would never fake the true thing cause they were true humans!,and if they thought they can do good then they would and hell they would be right.looks like those are not human any more,they take the fist to the air and say “hell we can do it” and they go and fill the doors.wouldn’t you put a sonicbids gorilla at those doors if you were in?,could you hear the true artists among all those sounds?!!!my 2 cents.it all happened since every one thought they CAN do it,rather that they ARE it.

By: e. fish

e. fish — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:24:16 +0000

there is one very important point regarding sonicbids that people here have missed: sonicbids takes 50% of all submission money. that is, you submit to one of the ahem, “opportunities” (contests with really bad odds), and say, the submission fee is, i dunno, 20 bucks… 10 of that goes to, yes, sonicbids. so not only are you paying sonicbids for your epk hosting fee, but you are also paying sonicbids every time you submit to anything.

it’s a wonderful business model, doncha think? sonicbids is raking in the cash… not off the back of the (all to often dodgy) promoters, but off the backs of desperated musicians.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:12:35 +0000

I agree with many of your points except “Sonicbids is easy to use”. It’s horribly difficult to use, with many page fetches timing out. Their class of service is abysmal by the standards of any paid service. Neither is there any meaningful regional support so one can limit the raw number of “opportunities” being examined.

By: scambids

scambids — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:38:29 +0000

Yep, it has already been said. SONICBIDS is a complete scam for 99% of musicians. I personally know some bands with huge draws that tried sonicbids and got nothing. How do I know them? Cuz I manage them lol. Maybe I am a shit manager but in my country my bands have a great regional follow and on sonicbids “not selected” and no evidence of promoters viewing the EPKs at all.

Sonicbids is a bullshit scam. Tell a friend!

By: Stevie the K

Stevie the K — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:20:03 +0000

I have no axe to grind about Sonicbids (pro or con) but I have been struck by the amazing coincidence of posts by certain people dissing them in favor of some other sites, appearing in multiple blog comment threads.

Under different names. With exactly the same message.

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:12:26 +0000

Glad to read someone has the balls to talk about how bad this company is for musicians. Kudos to you.

By: Lola

Lola — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:34:59 +0000

If anyone is looking for an insiders take on Sonicbids please check out my blog at soundslikepenis.wordpress.com. Im a Sonicbids employee and I’m trying to keep my sanity.