Free Reason Release As Radiohead Reap Rewards

Two unrelated points to relate here; the first being that Propellerhead Software have released their educational package ‘Teaching Music With Reason’ as a free download. The ‘reason’ they have decided to set it free is because it was originally designed as a classroom guide for version 2.5 of Reason Adapted, and they are not updating it to encompass the new features of versions three and four…

Reason In The Classroom

Despite the fact that the package is slightly behind the times, it still provides 21 lessons which make an excellent introduction to the Reason environment, and can be tweaked slightly to fit with versions 3 and 4 if required. Here’s what the Props have to say about it:

Teaching Music with Reason is a stand-alone, entry-level classroom package that focuses on learning about and making music using technology. Principally designed for use in secondary and high school music classes, the package includes material for 21 complete lessons and turns each individual classroom computer into a self-contained, easy-to-use music studio, with a realistic rack of equipment that you could expect to see in any professional studio set-up.

You can download the zip file on the Propellerhead website.

Radiohead By The Numbers

With regard to Radiohead, it seems as if the music industry is doing its best to undermine their independent distribution strategy by casting doubt on its profitability. Several (actually lots) of websites have been reporting the ComScore estimates of user behaviour on the ‘In Rainbows’ site, and the key statistic being emphasised is that 62% of customers who downloaded the album in October did so without paying a cent.

There are a couple of points to make about this; first of all, ComScore has no way of knowing what the traffic figures to the Radiohead site actually are – these are just estimates based on very limited data.

Secondly, this statistic (if true) means that 38% of the 1.2 million (estimated) downloads were paid for. At an average of $2.26 per download, we could roughly say that Radiohead pulled in about a million dollars. That’s not bad for a month’s reaping – and that doesn’t count the fans who bought the box set.

The key point here is that this is all Radiohead’s money. Their overheads will be quite small, as the cost of setting up and maintaining the website is minimal, and they didn’t really need to spend a whole lot on advertising. So, when it comes down to it, they will end up with a much bigger pie than they would have gotten if a label had been in on the deal. They certainly wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near a million dollars in one month from a standard label release – and the label probably wouldn’t have either, despite taking 80% plus of the profit.

Although Radiohead haven’t yet released their official figures, I would imagine they’re very pleased with their progress so far…