Taxi vs. Sonicbids

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Permalink Reply by 1.6 Band on September 29, 2008 at 2:43pm

I hate Sonicbids.

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Permalink Reply by CK Barlow on September 30, 2008 at 10:41am

Why? Curious.

I think I used them one time to submit to a contest and so I still get spam from them.

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Permalink Reply by 1.6 Band on October 1, 2008 at 4:17pm

It all seems like a big scam to me, a way to make money without really doing anything. $25 for a submission to a festival that nobody has heard about? What does that $25 go to? Their bottom line is my guess. I have not heard of one person ever benefiting from that site.

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Permalink Reply by CK Barlow on September 30, 2008 at 10:39am

TAXI does charge $5 per submission. They feel like that's just enough of a barrier to keep people from submitting, say, a rap song to a country listing. (People of course still do that because of some delusion that "it'll get heard and that's good!" I'm pretty sure I read a while back that the majority of rejections TAXI issues are because the submission is entirely the wrong genre, or is an instrumental when a vocal was specifically called for, etc.)

Also, most submissions get critiqued, which is worth $5 in my experience. "Most" meaning nearly all. Those that don't are a special case, typically involving either a tight deadline or a situation in which the label/music library/etc. that TAXI ran the listing for wants to screen the submissions him/herself and of course isn't in the business of mentoring anybody, just getting a good cut to use quickly.

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Permalink Reply by Martin on October 14, 2008 at 10:16am

I thought Sonicbids was more "EPK" oriented while Taxi was better at getting the music heard.

Am I mistaken, do they do the same things?

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Permalink Reply by CK Barlow on October 14, 2008 at 1:54pm

@Martin re: EPK vs. getting your stuff heard: That's the impression I've gotten, but again, my use of SonicBids is limited to the one songwriting contest. TAXI can be anything from artist pitches (EPK-like, in that they request songs + bios and headshots) to just a song needed for a commercial, a one-off.

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Permalink Reply by AnneHouse on November 23, 2008 at 12:58pm

I've been a taxi and sonicbids member for 2 years. If I were gigging out more I'd find sonicbids more useful but I mainly write for music libraries. Taxi serves mostly as a "friendly introduction" between the members and those looking for music, with specialization in tv/film music library placements, and as a learning tool. Soncibids, it seems to me, is more for finding performance opps. but they do have licensing opportunities as well. I know several people who use both sites regularly, as well as broadjam and others to pitch their music.

Thank you, CK, for telling me about this place. Hope to meet you all soon.

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