TradTunes closes down
The online Celtic paid music downloading service, TradTunes, has shut down after its parent company decided to focus its business efforts elsewhere. The digital music service was the first of its kind for the Highland piping and Celtic music scenes, offering hundreds of CDs and thousands of tracks for sale from its growing library of artists.
The demise of TradTunes had been rumoured for several months, but the parent organization, Bees Nees Media Ltd., has promised to make good on any credit extended to the TradTunes operation.
Proprietors of the organization were not immediately available for comment, but a statement on the TradTunes website said, “We have decided that we just cannot continue to spend the time and resource required to maintain the site to the standard that we would like. Therefore we have decided that, for the foreseeable future, we will suspend the activities of the site.”
“I was disappointed but not surprised to see TradTunes close up shop,” commented Michael Grey, whose catalogue of recordings had been carried on the service. “I know intentions were all good in corraling all tradition music under one umbrella but, with all the big downloading retailers like iTunes carrying the much the same music, it must have been very hard to compete. One-stop online music shops are just too easy for people to use.”
Among other projects, Bees Nees has since 2005 coordinated the videography and pre-production editing of the DVD made from the World Pipe Band Championships. The company also operates PlanetPipe, and online entertainment resource aimed at the Highland pipers and pipe band drummers.
TradTunes was started originally by the well known piper, John-Angus Smith. The service at the time was heralded as a breakthrough for the piping and drumming world.
That is too bad. I downloaded a number of great recordings from Trad Tunes. I like that fact that most CDs cost 9 bucks to download, and I dont care that the fancy plastic case and jacket didnt come with it. Although, this may also be a statement about us as pipers and drummers. We are famous for photocopying music books instead of purchasing them, so I can only assume that a large amount of people burned off” a copy of the latest pipe band CD for their friends to enjoy. Maybe if we actually support our community
I’m also msaddended b y the news. This was a great source of pipe band music at a low cost. this service will be most missed