VLES is a new music discovery community on the web, that is modeled after New York City‘s Lower East Side–a Mecca for young bands and music. It‘s also where artists, fashion designers, and party promoters mix together in a big network of trendsetting, partying, music-loving euphoria. We found those people, asked for their help, and together we created the Virtual Lower East Side (VLES). We hope you like it.
1. make it incredibly easy for bands to self-publish music, and find their audience.
2. make it incredibly easy for fans to find music they love and support the artists that make it.
Nothing, and there are no levels or special features that cost more. Everything is available to every artist and fan that joins.
Looking to join VLES?
You can sign up for free.
Create a fan bio with your interests, opinions, and personality.
Announce events and parties. Share your calendar with others.
Add pics to your photo gallery
Join your favorite bands‘ mailing lists.
Write blog posts to let people know who you are, what you are doing, and what you think and have it syndicated globally
Form groups: allow anyone to join or restrict it to those you invite.
Create playlists: organize and share your music.
Listen to it on any computer around the world: just log on and enjoy.
You can sign up for free.
Create a band bio with member bios. If your bandmates are members of VLES links will automatically be generated to their home pages.
Announce events (for live gigs, parties, etc) that are syndicated globally. You can even combine your calendar with other people and band‘s calendars.
Add pics to your photo gallery
Let fans join your mailing list and import your existing mailing list
Create blog posts to let people know who you are, what you are doing, and what you think and have it syndicated globally
Create groups: allow anyone to join or restrict it to those you invite.
Fill out your profile and get matched to better known artists. If you were influenced by the Green Day, or Miles Davis get discovered by those searching for Green Day or Miles Davis
Announce your live events and parties. Hearing you live, is the best way to get the word out about you and your music!
Upload 192kbps 44 kHz MP3 or FLAC file and we will compress all the songs into top quality MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC files for sale on our site, or...
Protecting Your Music
Full length tracks of your songs are available for sampling on the site. Your music needs to be shared. If new fans are going to discover you, they first need to hear your music. Thirty second sound clips just won‘t cut it. These songs will be provided in 128kbs stereo, and be available through the VLES Player. We had experimented with providing mono tracks, but many artists did not like the "sound quality" the mono tracks provided.
Its fairly simple. After you have created your artist profile you will be able to upload songs directly from your artist page. We have a tutorial available if you have any troubles. To make sure that your music is submitted properly, please read below about preferred file formats and our approval process. Music will not go live if they‘re not approved or if we‘re unable to accept the format.
Before going live, your music will go through either of the following processes.
An original song: After uploading your song to VLES, it will be verified to ensure that it meets our technical requirements. Upon approval, the song will then be transcoded into all three audio formats to ensure your music has access to the widest possible audience. Your song will then be available for fans to search, preview as a 128kbs track, and purchase. To make it clear what step your music is in, you will see the following status messages for each song:
- Submission complete: pending approval
- Music is approved: pending transcoding
- Music is live
Should your music fail to meet our technical criteria or policies or fail to secure a mechanical rights license, you will be immediately notified through your account with the appropriate explanation.
We accept all music, spoken word, and audio recordings. You must own or have secured all necessary rights to the content. The content must not violate our policy guidelines.
Yes. Anyone can listen to your music through the VLES Player. However these songs are provided as 128kbs only.
Yes. You can add your URL and other information to your artist profile page. Users will be able to click your URL to visit your website. We realize that traffic to your website is valuable and hope to generate even more through our service.
In turn, we can provide you with buttons and links that you can post on your own web site or other community sites to let your fans know where they can purchase your songs and support you.
Yes. Each time you submit a song you can add information about it that will help users find your music. The more information you provide, the better your music can be searched.
For the time being, VLES accepts either MP3 audio encoded at 192kbs stereo, or FLAC which is an open source lossless audio codec.
Yes. It‘s your music. Simply click the delete button/link, beside the song in your music library.
Note: we are obligated to still provide the song to those who have it in their playlists.
Our policy is to respond to any notices of alleged infringement of copyright. If we receive a notice or otherwise have reason to believe that content you submitted infringes another party‘s copyright, this specific activity will be suspended until we are satisfied that the authorized owner has rights to post the content on VLES. Please note that we take copyright violations very seriously and we may terminate your account and notify the relevant authorities.
If you believe that someone else has uploaded YOUR copyrighted content without your permission, you can flag the content as in violation of your copyright. You must provide VLES with:
- 1. Identify the material on the VLES site that you claim is infringing;
- A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
- A statement by you declaring under penalty of perjury that (1) the above information in your Notice is accurate, and (2) that you are the owner of the copyright interest involved or that you are authorized to act on behalf of that owner;
- Your address, telephone number, and email address; and
- Your physical or electronic signature.
We‘ll let you know if we receive a copyright complaint about any of your music content that is hosted on VLES. The music in question will be temporarily suspended, and we‘ll give you the opportunity to file a counter notification (need link here).
We do a preliminary review on uploaded songs through both a manual and automated process. Although we try our best to detect and remove songs that violate our policy guidelines, our review process is primarily focused on removing hateful content, obvious copyright violations or significantly poor production quality. Our tagging system is there to encourage our members to notify us when they discover policy violations or copyright issues.
At this time we do not offer these services, but we are planning for it. That will be part of a future release.
The VLES is geared toward the Indie music scene. We let the community and the fans generate excitement for the artists. However, we are thrilled to work with bands and organizations that want to help us generate interest in the vision of VLES
No. VLES is a community. If you are lucky enough to be considered by a record label for representation, there are things they can offer you that VLES cant.
Yes. VLES is still a great way to get your songs exposed to lots of fans. The best way to deal with this is have your label contact us directly at: info ( a t ) VLES (dot) c o m
Everyone is Welcome in the VLES. A driving philosophy for VLES is to focus on the Indie music scene but it is still open to other music communities.
VLES Players are the easiest way to share and discover new music on the web. Each player gives fans the ability to share unlimited music with their friends, which in turn gives artists continuous exposure to new fans and broader audiences.
The system will try the source a few times. If the link is still broke it will drop it from your list, so you shouldn‘t end up with a list of dead songs. Please note; the web has many unreliable sources, so that is why this feature exists.
The Wrench Icon is how you access the areas of inputting information into the boxes. Click on them to open the fields for information.
