Shortening the songs, to rub the mass audience. Is it really worth it? Food 4 thought

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distansee

New member
I have a habit of making my songs long (between 7 and 12 minutes)

Mainly chillout lounge/EDM, with a lot of subtle details, long buildups and (somewhat) massive climaxes. Personally I really dislike all the radio-crap, so I would classify my music more as a listening (tripping) experience, instead of background-filling. A lot of people complain that my music is repetive, though in my mind, they just don't take their time to listen and escape in the pictures of sound and subtle details. And the ones that really like my music is usually high on different kind of....things. I know that drugs combined with repetive, subtle music can really create a floating euphoria (I DO NOT advocate the use of drugs), and that is really the purpose of my music, letting people slip into a state of bliss.

So, should I target the broad audience and cut my songs into the usual 3:25 formula, or should I stick with the long buildups and keep the small audience I've got with my 8 minute tunes and never get the attention I think I deserve?

I know this is kinda hard to answer, and it is basically up to me to find out where I want with this.
But I want your opinion on this.

Thanks.

Distanseè.
 
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make the original mix then copy/paste the arrangement further down the timeline and edit it into radio length. then just highlight the time selection of whatever version you want to render out.
 
Can your song lengths be compared to anyone else in the genre? If longer songs are something the core Chill-Out fan base is used to, it shouldn't be a problem. Like u said, tough to find the "right" answer. I agree with the above post that it helps to have edits available
 
If you make chill out make chill out. Even if you made them shorter moat people don't like that type of music anyway, so it wouldn't matter. Focus in your niche.
 
the only reason to create a radio mix is three-fold

1) different mechanical royalties kick in after the track is at 5 minutes
2) attention spans are far shorter than they used to be
3) radio is based around selling stuff so the songs need to fit the format of the advertising schedule which is usually once every five minutes or so - add in announcer chatter and weather, news and traffic, and the song needs to be under 3'30" to have a chance of being played. Even though dj's can fade a track out to fit play-time requirements, they are so busy with other things that this is not usually an option, so having a your track fit the radio mould is important if you want to garner that type of exposure
 
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