10 Free Online Tools For Musicians

Sep 15, 2020

Being a musician can be a tough path to follow at times, which is why it's important to be up to speed with the latest software/tools to help keep your career flowing like clockwork. Below are ten free &and affordable) online tools to help you get the most out of your career.

Each tool has a link to sign up below it! Please share with an artist who could find this article valuable :)

1. Trello (Mac OS, Windows, Web, iPhone, Android)

Trello is a super awesome, and super simple project management platform. It provides a beautiful "Kanban" style drag and drop list view that allows you to see which tasks need to be completed, and by when. Here's how Trello looks in action:

As you can see, Trello makes managing your tasks (or to-do's) simple! This is a tool we use for Musicspace to track bugs and other development work. One of the other benefits of using Trello is that you can set due dates and add descriptions/information into each moveable card you see above in the GIF. You can also collaborate with your team in real-time, so you always know whos up to what.

2. Musicspace (Web/Mobile)

A little shameless plug here for us! Musicspace allows you to easily organize your entire music catalog in one beautiful dashboard. You can store all of your important metadata such as: Lyrics, collaborator information, publishing numbers, ownership percentages, cover arts, track files, quick access links, genres, moods, BPM's, notes, and more!

Musicspace also goes a step further and allows you to "protect" your music by using our built-in Copyright protection tool: Musicspace Protect. Additionally, you can document your entire career journey using our Milestones feature.

Don't miss out on organizing your most valuable assets as an artist: your music catalog.

Organize your first three tracks here for free: Musicspace.io

3. Unsplash

Artist's, the last thing you want is to have a track that goes viral (or reaches the masses somehow) and to be hit with a Copyright Infringement lawsuit because you used an image owned by someone else.

Unless you custom design each of your artworks yourself (or take photographs owned by you for your artwork), or have someone else custom design them from scratch, you never want to use images that aren't owned by you.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no hack for using Copyrighted images in your cover art such as "If I only use a portion of the image it bypasses Copyright Law", or "If I add an effect, it removes the Copyright". Nope. Doesn't work that way. If you use even a small piece of the Batman logo in your cover art (for example), guess what? Warner Brothers Studios still owns the rights to that image and can take you to court.

Unsplash is a website that allows you to use any of their images for whatever purpose, whether that's commercially or non-commercially. Using an image from Unsplash means you never have to worry about a nasty Copyright lawsuit, as photographers who upload their images to Unsplash accept terms that give anyone the right to use their images.

Visit: Unsplash.com

4. LinkTree

LinkTree stormed onto the Instagram scene over a year ago and has fast become one of the most used bio-link platforms globally. LinkTree allows you to centralize links related to your brand in one single link. Here's what we mean:

In as little as a few minutes, you can add one link to your Instagram bio that then showcases a bunch of other links related to your brand, such as merchandise, where to listen to your music, other social media websites, etc.

5. Identifyy (YouTube Content I.D)

Are you making money when people use your music in their YouTube videos? If not, you should be! Content I.D, otherwise known as just "C.I.D" is a digital fingerprinting service created by Google/YouTube. As a partner of YouTube, Identifyy provides users with Content Identification technology allowing you to upload your music files to your own dashboard. You can then sit back while advertising revenue from videos using your music rolls in over the months.

Additionally, you can also collect revenue from Facebook whenever your music is used + monetized!

Identify works as follows:

You upload your track + details related to the track
Identifyy then creates a "digital fingerprint" of your song and adds it to their database.
Identifyy then tracks down any usage of your music and monetize those videos so that you get paid.

Identifyy works on a "Revenue Share" basis, meaning their tool is free to use, however, they take a small percentage of any royalties collected by them and paid to you (between 15%-20%).

6. Timepage By Moleskin (App - iOS Only)

Time management as an artist is essential. Whereas Trello helps you organize your tasks, Timepage helps you organize your time with its beautiful and intuitive calendar/reminder app.

The app is free to download, however, you can opt to pay $2/month for some cool features (recommended - I personally pay for this!). Timepage takes only a few minutes to get set up, and you'll quickly become addicted to how easy and mind-calming it is to use! Here's to more organized days! :D

7. Pixaloop (App - iOS & Android)

In an industry where attention is the primary currency, you have to stand out when it comes to your visual branding. Pixaloop is an awesome app that allows you to create mesmerizing 3D/moving images in just a few clicks! For a free app, this one's a no brainer!

Pixaloop also has some super affordable In-app features that you can leverage in a few clicks. If visually appealing content is something you want to focus on, then Pixaloop is a must for you!

8. Hunter.io Campaigns (Web)

When submitting your music to music supervisors (the people in charge of licensing your music for films, movies, etc), it's imperative to personalize your outreach. For example, when I reach out to musicians to join Musicspace, I listen to music from each artist, then customize an email to highlight something I like about them, their music or their social media pages. This greatly improves open-rates and also helps me build a real connection with artists who may someday use Musicspace.

Hunter works as follows:

Create a google spreadsheet with headings like "Email, Name, Compliment (use the word "Source" instead of compliment - we'll explain below). These headings in Hunter are referred to as "Attributes".
Once you've added information for music supervisors (or promoters) you wish to contact in your google spreadsheet, save it as a CSV file, then go to the "campaigns" section of Hunter and create a new campaign (name this whatever you like e.g. "Music supervisors September 2020").
From here you'll be able to create custom emails + subject lines for each email. You can then add attributes like in step one. For example, the start of your email could read: "Hey {{first name}}...." - Your "first name" attribute (heading) from your spreadsheet will be used here when you set up your email templates.
When setting up a campaign, you can also create "follow up" emails. This allows you to kindly follow up with people you're reaching out to.
Since Hunter doesn't support custom attributes just yet, you should add "Source" as a heading on your Google spreadsheet whenever you want to add a personalized message to an email to someone. For example, I use the "source" variable to compliment something I like about artists. Other attributes like "First name" and "email" are supported so you can leave those headings in your spreadsheet.
Next, you want to upload your spreadsheet to Hunter, then help Hunter understand which attribute is for which part of your email. For example, in your Google spreadsheet, you may have had two headings such as "First name" and "Email". All you'll need to do is tell Hunter which heading relates to which parts of your email (You'll get what we mean when you try it out).

Here's a tutorial on How to Use Hunter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1gya9Z4ajk

9. Facebook Groups (Web, iOS, Android)

Wait a minute? Facebook Groups? Oh yes! People are neglecting perhaps one of the greatest ways to market their music, through groups. Specifically "Influencer groups". There are tons of them, from UK influencer groups, to groups in Los Angeles, to Europe, to Africa! All you have to do is search. And then, simply ask if they would be interested in using your music in their content at no charge (of course with credit, though).

Don't just limit yourself to influencers, though, reach out to cooking channels, fashion creators, charity events, etc. Always remember, attention is the most valuable currency, so get creative and reach out to as many people as you can.

10. Wave (Accounting)

I came across Wave a few months ago and was astounded at how easy to use and practical this platform is. Wave is a MUST for artists who wish to track the following and more:

Income & Expenses
Fully functional double-entry system. Generate financial statements for year-end
Connect your bank account in seconds to get a live feed of your income/transactions
Easily organize income and expenses into tax categories
Run multiple businesses in one account
Instantly see how your business is performing on your dashboard

The idea of accounting would scare the hell out of me before launching Musicspace. After having a bad experience with finances as a teenager starting my first company, the idea of mismanaging my money was always a fear. Thankfully, with platforms like Wave, you won't have to deal with the headache! I hope this platform helps you all!

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