SynthCamp is an artist-first marketplace for independent music. Artists upload finished releases, declare their Creative Credits, and sell directly to listeners with an 85/15 split. The platform does not generate music. See the About page for the full story.

Each release declares, on a per-strata grid, which contributions were made by a human (lyrics, melody, vocals, arrangement, mixing, mastering) and which AI tools the artist used (Suno, Udio, ElevenLabs, and others). The grid is signed by the artist at publish time via an adaptive attestation that pairs a base declaration with one appendix per ticked human strata. Credits are shown up front so listeners get context without having to guess. They are positive signal, not a warning label.

You can preview every track before buying. Full streaming requires owning the release: a one-time purchase grants you a personal, non-transferable streaming license tied to your account, with no subscription. Pay-what-you-want above a small floor.

Full tracks stream as 256 kbps AAC over HLS, encrypted with AES-128. Previews before purchase are up to 60-second MP3 clips. The encode chain is deliberately transparent (no loudness normalization or filtering) so what you hear is the master the artist uploaded, and any AI watermarks in the source survive for independent verification. SynthCamp is streaming-only: there are no file downloads, and there is no lossless tier today.

Following is free, public, and signs you up for the artist's release alerts automatically: you get notified the moment they publish a new release. Following also unlocks curation on their tracks, so if you are a curator, you can add their curation-eligible tracks to your Discovery playlists. Follow from any artist profile page.

A live, scheduled session hosted by an artist in one of three rooms: the Global Master Channel (the headline room) and two secondary rooms (Secondary 1, Secondary 2). Each party runs for the sum of the release's track durations, capped at two hours. Parties start on a 15-minute boundary (:00, :15, :30, :45) so two slots cannot overlap in the same room. Listeners join, chat, and can buy the release at a small live discount. Slots are first-come, first-served. There are also private launch parties, invite-only sessions on draft releases (see the artist section below).

Yes, on Discord: join the server for launch party announcements, release talk, and a direct line to the team. Artists can link their Discord from Settings to get their founder and verified roles automatically.

A curator is any signed-in listener who builds a Discovery playlist by adding individual tracks they love. Curators can add a track when two things are true: they follow the artist, and the artist has marked that specific track as curation-eligible (see the artist section for the per-track toggle). There is no application or approval step. Active curators appear on the Curators leaderboard, ranked by total attendees across their Discovery Parties.

Discovery Parties are live listening sessions hosted by a curator on their Discovery playlist. The host schedules the party in the shared Discovery room (separate from the three artist rooms) and gets a private invite link that listeners use to join. Everyone hears the playlist in sync and the host runs the chat. Manage your playlists from /curator/playlists.

Pre-save lets you opt into an alert for a specific upcoming release, even if you do not follow the artist. The button shows on Discovery parties and on private launch parties when the release is still a draft. The variant labelled Wait for Release is the same mechanism, surfaced inside a private party page so attendees can sign up to be notified at publish time. Following an artist already covers all their future drops automatically, so pre-save is the right tool when you want one release specifically.

Each release has a fair floor (covering Stripe fees and keeping the artist's 85% share meaningful). Above the floor, you choose what the work is worth to you, and that whole amount is the price. You can also add an optional tip on top at checkout (see the next answer).

A tip is voluntary money you give an artist on top of the price. Two flavours: a purchase tip is an optional amount you add on top of the price at checkout (a separate line from the pay-what-you-want price), and a standalone tipuses the dedicated tip button on a release page, an artist profile, or inside a launch party (presets at $2 / $5 / $10 or any custom amount above the $2 floor). Both go through Stripe to the artist's account. SynthCamp's 15% commission applies to tips the same as sales.

Yes. On any published release, tap Gift this releaseand enter the recipient's email or @handle. They get a link to claim it, and the streaming access goes to whoever claims the gift, not to you. You keep the receipt and the buyer's refund right until it is claimed, the recipient never gets a separate refund of their own, and a gift never expires. It works like a gift card for a single release.

Set up your artist profile, connect Stripe for payouts, upload an EP or album of at least three tracks, declare your Creative Credits, sign the attestation, set a pay-what-you-want price, and publish. The full walkthrough is in the step-by-step release guide.

No. You can release the same music on SynthCamp and anywhere else, on your own timing. SynthCamp never asks for an exclusive window. If you want to give your fans the first listen, you can do it here through a launch party or a pre-save, and still publish wherever you like. You keep 85%, and your payments land directly in your own Stripe account.

Yes. On your own published release, comp a fan by their @handle and they get free streaming access right away. No money changes hands, so a comp never touches your sales, your payouts, or how the release ranks. There is a per-release cap so free copies stay a warm gesture and do not undercut the fans who paid.

Sign up, then toggle Become an artist in your profile settings. You will be guided through Stripe Connect onboarding, which handles KYC and payouts. Once Stripe confirms you can accept payments (charges enabled), you can publish and sell - even if withdrawals are still pending identity verification.

Free to sign up, free to upload, free to publish. SynthCamp keeps 15% on each sale. The other 85% goes to the artist. There is no monthly fee, no listing fee, no hidden cut.

Payments use Stripe Connect direct charges: the buyer pays the artist's Stripe account directly, with the 15% commission deducted at checkout time. Stripe pays out to your bank account on the schedule you configure (typically rolling, every 7 days). No recoupment, no shadow accounting.

Yes. You can host one active public party at a time, scheduled when you publish a release. Pick a start slot on a 15-minute boundary (:00, :15, :30, :45) in any of the three rooms, and the party runs for the sum of your tracks, capped at two hours. The host runs the chat and can add moderators. The Global Master Channel is the headline room, with two slots per calendar month per artist if you want a higher-profile drop. You can also host one active private party at a time on a draft release before publishing (see the next question).

A private party runs in a dedicated room of yours, separate from the three public rooms, on a draft release before you publish. It is invite-only: anyone with the URL can join, the page is not listed anywhere on the site. You do not need Stripe onboarding to host one because there is no purchase. Use it to preview an unfinished release for friends, fans, or collaborators without committing to publish. Only one private party can be active at a time per artist.

Each private party has a unique URL. Copy it from the party scheduler or from the draft release page and share it directly. The URL is the access token: whoever has the link can join (after signing in). There is no separate guest list. If you regenerate the party (cancel and recreate), the URL changes.

Publishing a release with active private parties auto-cancels them and notifies everyone who attended or signed up to be alerted (Wait for Release). They get an in-app notification and an email pointing at the now-public release. The cancellation is confirmed in a modal before the publish runs, so there is no surprise.

SynthCamp keeps the pace easygoing: two releases per calendar month, or four if you are a founding artist. Drafts are unlimited and never count against that, so build and polish as many as you want and only the ones you publish use up a slot. If you are bringing over a back catalog and need more room, the limit can be raised. Just reach out on Discord or write to [email protected] and we will sort it out.

Yes, per track. Each track has its own curation toggle that controls whether curators can add it to their Discovery playlists (see the Listening section for what a curator is). Default is off (opt-in), so you decide which of your tracks are eligible. The toggle lives on the track row of your release page.

When you publish, your tracks are acoustically fingerprinted and registered for duplicate detection. If someone else uploads the same audio, their upload is held for human review instead of going live. This protection covers unlisted releases too, so you can publish as unlisted to register your tracks without putting them in the public catalog. A draft does not register this claim yet, it only prevents duplicates inside your own account. SynthCamp encodes also carry a signed provenance tag (see /docs/provenance-spec).

When you distribute a track (through DistroKid, TooLost, or any distributor), it gets listed in the streaming and content-ID databases we fingerprint new uploads against. So our duplicate check can match your own release and hold the upload for a human review. That is expected, not a rejection. Open the track and request a review: confirm it is your own release (or a cover or licensed use) and a moderator clears it. Your distributor does not need any detection feature for this to happen, the match comes from the platforms your music was delivered to.

Account email, display name, avatar, optional bio, plus authentication-related metadata (IP at sign-in, session cookies). For artists, payments and KYC are handled by Stripe directly. SynthCamp never sees card numbers or identity documents. Full details in the Privacy Policy.

The relational database and authentication run on a self-hosted Supabase stack with Hetzner in Germany. Audio and cover art live in Cloudflare R2. The Next.js app runs on Railway. Transactional email goes through Brevo (France). See section 4 of the Privacy Policy for the full processor list.

Email [email protected] from the address linked to your account. Deletion is honored within 30 days under the GDPR. Some accounting records are retained for 10 years as required by French commercial law.

Only strictly necessary cookies: Supabase Auth session cookies, and a short-lived CSRF token during Stripe Connect onboarding. No advertising or behavioral tracking. Web analytics are cookieless via Umami.

The platform itself does not generate music and does not run ML models on audio. Artists are free to use any external tools they want, including AI. They then declare it through Creative Credits so listeners get context up front. The AI question on SynthCamp is about transparency, not generation.

Yes. Each full encode carries a cryptographic signature: the encoder embeds a signed payload (an ID3 synthcamp_provenance frame) in each track, signed with an Ed25519 key. Anyone can fetch our public key registry at /.well-known/synthcamp-keys.json and confirm that the metadata (Creative Credits, declared AI tools, attestation timestamp) was produced by SynthCamp and not forged downstream. The format is documented at /docs/provenance-spec. This lets researchers, journalists, and listeners check a release's declared provenance independently of us.

All major credit and debit cards via Stripe (Visa, Mastercard, American Express). Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported on compatible devices. Local methods (SEPA, iDEAL, Bancontact) are offered where Stripe makes them available.

Each seller on SynthCamp declares whether they sell as a Professional (registered seller, recurring income, business or tax ID) or as an Individual(occasional sales, hobby). The label appears on the seller's profile and on receipts. Professional sellers come with standard buyer-protection rules. For individuals, refunds are at the artist's discretion via Contact. Sellers set their status during onboarding and can change it later in Settings (30-day cooldown). Required by EU DSA art. 6.1.b.

Buyers can pay from almost anywhere: Stripe accepts cards globally, plus regional methods where available. Selling is narrower, because becoming an artist requires Stripe Connect onboarding, which is only offered in the 42 countries Stripe Connect supports (the full list is in the For artists section above). On tax: the price you see is the price you pay, SynthCamp does not add VAT at checkout, and artists are responsible for their own tax compliance in their jurisdiction. Add your country and tax ID any time under Settings > Payments. It becomes mandatory for any seller who crosses the DAC7 reporting threshold (30 sales or €2,000 in a calendar year): new sales pause until the ID is on file. DAC7 is an EU directive. SynthCamp reports to the French tax authority because the platform is based in France, so the obligation is not limited to French sellers.

Digital streaming content is exempt from the 14-day right of withdrawal under French consumer law because access is delivered immediately. We still offer a discretionary refund for technical reasons (broken encoding, severe playback bug). The legal guarantee of conformity also applies if a release does not match its description (mismatched track order, etc.). Disagreement with the artistic content is not grounds for refund. See section 6 of the Terms of Service.

Stripe handles authorization, so the decline reason comes from your issuing bank. Common causes: insufficient funds, the bank flagging the charge for fraud review, an expired card, or a 3D Secure challenge that timed out. Try again, contact your bank, or use a different card. If the charge looks taken but you got an error, email us with the approximate time.

Tips are voluntary contributions on top of the release price. They are refundable only when the underlying purchase is also refunded (same Stripe charge). If you tipped by mistake on an otherwise valid purchase, write to us and we will look at it case by case.