Well, where do I start really… when someone new approaches you and asks you to check out a new life-changing platform that has something to do with music, you can always be a bit sceptical that:
1. It may not work for you. And 2. Is there a need for it anyway?
Well, that situation arose with me when I was introduced to Marc and Jamie from Byta to run through the platform with me. I started to see the benefits of using it on a personal and professional level immediately.
After years of trawling through hard drives, desktop folders and hidden files to upload tracks to WeTransfer and YouSendIt, which most of the time ended up in people’s junk email inboxes (that was a time-consuming and cumbersome task – always a chore), it started to have some appeal to me.
I started with a few of my own tracks to send to some friends who were producing a video. But, as I found the ease of it, it seemed to make sense to actually import the Skunk Anansie catalogue recordings, B-sides and remixes, having them at my fingertips to send at any time, without the time-consuming task of locating and uploading them each time.
The more I uploaded, the more I got to grips with the functionality, which is really useful; it is intuitive and overall quite basic – Byta covers all of your audio-sharing needs.
To be able to see my library/catalogue in one place, with access to send full quality tracks with a few taps on the keyboard and the click of a mouse, makes my day-to-day workflow easier, less time consuming and more effective. It even makes it easier for the recipient!
Fast forward to about a month later, and we’d finished recording our new singles and were getting ready to release them.
As the mixes were being finished I was uploading them into the Byta platform. Then, all of a sudden, it all made sense when the need for the tracks to be in many different places started to explode. I was sending them to mastering engineers to be mastered. I was sending them to people for remixes. I sent them to magazines and publications for reviews, radio stations for plays, producers for programs, PRs, press releases, label/distributor, and live agents for shows.
I was probably getting requests for 4-5 shares to different people every day for a month. These requests would each have specific needs as to how they needed the tracks delivered: an attached photo and press release, as a stream-only Protected Link for a reviewer, or the full quality master for a radio station or record company. Supporting lossless and lossy file formats on Byta meant I could send my tracks (whether personal projects or Skunk Anansie tracks) as FLAC, WAV or mp3 to whoever I wanted at any time.
Each request would probably take me about 1 minute to execute, whereas, in the past, it would’ve taken me hours to do all of these! There’s productivity for you already, and add on the ease of locating them. This was really a time-saving digital dream!
So, I’m a convert… and what I like the most about it is it just does what you need it to do. Do one thing and do it well. There aren’t masses of menus and crazy options. It’s well thought out; sharing full quality music any which way you want, any time, from anywhere is now sorted…
And here we are now as I write this. I’m out on the road with the band, promoting the new singles and rocking to the masses. All I’ve got with me is my laptop and my phone. Now, requests for any part of the Skunk library, old or new, are literally 1 minute’s work… and a very simple and non-stressful operation to share.
Thanks, Byta!
Nuff said…
(Skunk Anansie: skunkanansie.com)
P.S. they even have a free and Solo (£1/$1/€1) plans – helping creators of today. To have all the tools you’ll ever need when it comes to music sharing, I recommend the Creator and Freelancer plans!