How to land releases?

[sheikyerbouti]

I really like the calm and considerate approach amadeus is describing. Its similar to what I suggest. Have some meaningful stuff to say and send. For me its more the foot-in-the-door, than the door-in-the-face technique.

If I recognize that someone is mass mailing me and didn't even bother to check if his sound matches mine the email is definitely deleted without listening to anything.

If someone writes some nice stuff, related to me and his music he might have a chance.

[sheikyerbouti]

@amadeus:
Just bought one of your records at my local record shop. Nice stuff ;-)

[ghztomash]

thanks for all of your replies, they were really interesting and helpful.
after searching for some labels myself, I found one of them had posted pretty much what you have mentioned

This brings me to couple of more questions now.

First of all, as I can guess, unless I'ts a Various Artists compilation release, we actually have to send them an EP demo, not a single track right?

Another, rather noobish question is, at which point do the tracks have to get mastered? I know that for example vinyl releases require different kind of mastering, do some labels do their own mastering? or I already have to send them professionally mastered?

And finally what are the deals after that? How does this part work? Do labels pay the artists per track purchase etc? Or is it like a flat rate per release?

[Kwal]

-You don't need to make an EP, you can contact pretty much any label with a single.

- I would suggest mastering your song before sending it to anyone. Be proud of your product, they're not going to want to hear excuses about "how your mixdowns suck" or how "it's not mastered yet." They may say no, so I'm assuming if you give it away for free you'd still like to give everyone your best product.

- Labels usually pay quarterly from what I've seen, so you sign a contract that states what percentages you'll get and so on and so forth. Be very cautious when signing contracts, smaller labels may ask for permission to your performing rights and all that tricky stuff and you do not want that to happen.

[ImNotDedYet]

- Labels usually pay quarterly from what I've seen, so you sign a contract that states what percentages you'll get and so on and so forth. Be very cautious when signing contracts, smaller labels may ask for permission to your performing rights and all that tricky stuff and you do not want that to happen.

I finally bought your track brutha. I think it had been a few months since I bought anything digitally...hopefully you get that penny before you finish your Christmas shopping!

[DJ SB]

FWIW I think the first track you posted is really good.

[amadeus]

thanks for all of your replies, they were really interesting and helpful.
after searching for some labels myself, I found one of them had posted pretty much what you have mentioned

This brings me to couple of more questions now.

First of all, as I can guess, unless I'ts a Various Artists compilation release, we actually have to send them an EP demo, not a single track right?

Another, rather noobish question is, at which point do the tracks have to get mastered? I know that for example vinyl releases require different kind of mastering, do some labels do their own mastering? or I already have to send them professionally mastered?

And finally what are the deals after that? How does this part work? Do labels pay the artists per track purchase etc? Or is it like a flat rate per release?

So first question, depends on what you want to get signed, I'd send two or three of your best tracks, If you only send one and they don't like it, they won't ask to hear anymore, if you send two or three then they may like one or two of them and you'll have a better chance of having something signed, either an EP or a single track for a VA.

I know for us, we just want the artists to do a good mixdown (pre master), leaving plenty of headroom and then we send to the mastering company we always use. So no don't attempt to master them yourself, and if a label is asking you to get them mastered yourself, I'd say avoid that label. They obviously don't really care about having a consistent sound across a release and they just want to put as little money into the label as possible.

And yes mastering for vinyl is different to mastering for a digital release, we have the same company do the mastering for the vinyl and digital.

As for money, I haven't actually made any money from releases yet, but then again I'm also not bothered by that. All my releases have been on vinyl, and I know the labels I have worked with aren't making any profit from it, if anything probably losing money or breaking even. But I also didn't start releasing music to make money, it's enough seeing your own music on a slab of wax. For our label we do pay our artists, an upfront cost for the track/EP/remix.