How Formaviva works

Making a living from independent electronic music is hard. Formaviva is a platform for independent creators and the people who listen to them: artists and labels publish their own work, set their own prices, and keep the great majority of what they earn.

For music lovers

Discover. Browse releases, artists, labels and mixes, or search across everything from the search bar. What you find is handpicked — selected artists and labels in one place, rather than an algorithmic feed.

Listen. Every track streams in high quality, with a waveform display built for electronic music. The player follows you across the site, so browsing never interrupts playback. Create an account and your likes, follows and playlists are kept on your profile.

Buy. Tracks, full releases and physical merchandise go into one cart. Prices are set by the artist, and where they have allowed it you can choose to pay more than the asking price. Checkout takes any credit card or PayPal; VAT and shipping are calculated from the country you select before you pay.

Download. Purchases live at Purchases forever. Open one and download it again whenever you like, in whichever of the available formats you want. Large downloads are prepared server-side and start as soon as they are ready.

For artists and labels

Formaviva is invite-only, which is what keeps the catalogue worth browsing. Apply for an invitation and we will get back to you.

Upload as much as you like. Drag an audio file into the uploader and it is processed for streaming — waveform, metadata and all — while you fill in the details. There is no cap on how much you publish.

Publish on your terms. Group tracks into releases with cover art, a release date, tags and a tracklist. Set a price for the release and a price per track, or give the work away for free. Anything not ready for the world can stay private behind a secret link, which is also how you send demos and promos.

Sell more than audio. Add merchandise — vinyl, cassettes, shirts — to a release, with stock, weight and per-zone shipping. A physical item can bundle the digital download so buyers get the music immediately.

Get paid. Formaviva distributes up to 90% of earnings to the creators. Sales, payouts and play sessions are all in your analytics, so you can see what listeners actually did with your music rather than a single monthly number.

Getting started

1. Sign up for a free account.
2. Follow the artists and labels whose work you want to keep up with.
3. Buy the records you love — that is what pays for the next one.

Still curious about why we are building this? Read our mission.