How to land releases?

[ghztomash]

Hey every one,

Looking for some suggestions and opinions of you who've been in the game for a while.

We've all heard the "you have to produce to take your DJing to the next level" thing. But whats the follow up to that suggestion?
I've been producing some tunes for a while now, and lately caught myself thinking, now how the heck does this help my DJing? all the sound design, arranging, mixing, mastering that goes into producing is a lot of hard work and effort to get something at least decent sounding. All I really wanted is to play some nice music, have fun and build synthesizers. I'ts a deeper rabbit hole than I expected and unless its somehow paying off I'm afraid I can't afford to spend all this time and effort.

I generally get good feedback and a handful of downloads, but how do I take it further? or more like, how to put your stuff out there and make yourself more attractive to record labels, and how to get some of your tracks released.

I'm curious to hear your stories how you got started and landed your first releases and some suggestions.
And maybe some honest and constructive criticism on my tunes, are they listenable, dancable to or even worth releasing?

[Student]

Have you tried sending it in to record labels? Set a track to private and send the secret link to them. If that doesn't bring you anywhere, set it to public instead and try having it reposted on blogs and add them to soundcloud groups. Fame doesn't come overnight. Start following people you're interested in, hope they follow back, and promote your music

edit: First part was long term. If you just want this to help your short term dj'ing than make a mixtape and go out to places where they might be interested in the style you play. Maybe you can land a gig or 2. Being able to play your own productions is the best feeling there is!

[jprime]

I got to "unless its somehow paying off.."


I think you should do it because you want to, and if it pays off, well okay that's a bonus. But do it because you want to, simple and straight as that.

[ghztomash]

Thanks for those replies.

Hmm will try sending out some stuff.
You're absolutely right, if you catch yourself thinking "what the heck am I doing" its time to set it aside for a while.

[Kwal]

Another tip when sending private links to labels.. Turn off stats, they don't want to hear your demo that's been played 300 times by other labels

[ghztomash]

Thanks! Interesting tip.
Intuitively I would think that they prefer to see tracks with a lot of plays and downloads.

[amadeus]

I never set tracks to public, always private, stats off, and only ever send to labels 1 at a time.

Send an email to the label (not just a soundcloud msg) say a bit about yourself, about the music.

Generally speaking labels don't like tracks that have been shared publicly, though I have had one signed that way. But the rest have all been private links emailed to labels.

Also I run a label, so I know what I look for when I receive a demo submission, I hate ones that are simply

"hey here's my tracks for your label, (soundcloud link) let me know what you think"

That shows that you just don't care, also shows you haven't put much effort into the email.

[Kwal]

Thanks! Interesting tip.
Intuitively I would think that they prefer to see tracks with a lot of plays and downloads.

Not a chance, a demo is supposed to be something new that nobody has heard yet. They want to generate sales on your song, if it's been downloaded by a ton of people then what's the value of having them sign it? I've seen a few instances where someones free download got signed, but that's rather rare and the song has to be a fucking cannon.

[Deejaesnafu]

i think you production game is pretty on point, i liked the first and third better but its just my preference and honestly could only see myself using the first one, and even then its not something id use as a go to track, however i also lean toward a different sound. production value wise id say you know what youre doing, i cant give you any advice there... but no matter how skilled you are , if you arent having a "feeling" about the track and what its saying, no one will.

try doing more collabs maybe?

[Timbo21]

I'm not too knowledgeable about todays dance music labels, but used to be involved in the 90's and some things haven't changed.

1. It's always been damn hard to actually get an A&R person to actually listen to your a song/tracks
2. You've got 3 quite different sounding dance tracks there. 1st is sort of Deep/Tech vocal. 2nd is quite technoey and the 3rd quite a NY garage sound. Many labels want to sign artists, so do you have a 'sound'. If you are doing quite different sounding tracks, can they market you? I guess this is why Eric Estornel has Maceo Plex for deeper stuff and Maetrik for more techno style. Or, you find a label who will just stick out a single track?
3. You need a bit of luck and a load of tenacity. In this day and age not only everyone and there mum is DJ'ing, but they're producing too. These labels will be getting bombarded.