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how to send track to labels
how to send track to labels ,major and minor labels?
to do mix & mastering or what?
you should be a little more clear, but most labels dont want mp3. they'll more than likely want the wav file. but you gotta be a little more specific, as i dont know exactly what you want to know.
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| Originally posted by Anz_ you should be a little more clear, but most labels dont want mp3. they'll more than likely want the wav file. but you gotta be a little more specific, as i dont know exactly what you want to know. |
thanks for correcting me i forgot about the 320 mp3.
Generally, labels have email addresses for submissions on their contact pages. You should probably send them as 320 kbps mp3s. You don't need to master the track, although it may help if you do it well. I'm not sure on that last point because I've never submitted a track to a label.
Such action might get you noticed, or you might get tossed in the garbage bin before anyone important has ever heard your track. The latter is more common if this method is used.
Generally, if you really want to get noticed, you should look for friends and acquaintances that know people. The music industry is more about who you know than what you can make.
yeah wav's are used for mastering the song, and are rather large. if labels were sent these their boxes would be ungodly full.
just be polite while not sucking up, be to the point ect. don't expect a response at all and even if you get one saying no think of it as better than no response. best of luck.
I'd take the extra effort and send a CD.
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| Originally posted by Allied Nations I'd take the extra effort and send a CD. |
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| Originally posted by psymon.d depends on the label, some don't want CDs but you're right, others do see it as a positive thing. |
Most of them prefer e-mails and a link from what I've seen. One even said 'Don't send us CD's , we'll only lose it'.
I read an interview with above and beyond and they said to do Cds. They said that it was easier for them to then go and spin it that night, whereas with mp3 theres an "extra step" (their words) in that you have to burn it.
By the by, WTF is "to mix and master?", what does that mean exactly? are you asking if you should mix it? Coz that might be a good idea! Mastering; just knock of everything under 30 HZ and slap a limiter on it, watch you limiter as the track plays and try and make sure it doesn't attenuate too often or too much. That is all.
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| Originally posted by kitphillips I read an interview with above and beyond and they said to do Cds. They said that it was easier for them to then go and spin it that night, whereas with mp3 theres an "extra step" (their words) in that you have to burn it. By the by, WTF is "to mix and master?", what does that mean exactly? are you asking if you should mix it? Coz that might be a good idea! Mastering; just knock of everything under 30 HZ and slap a limiter on it, watch you limiter as the track plays and try and make sure it doesn't attenuate too often or too much. That is all. |
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| Originally posted by Allied Nations That's basic mastering for sure, but at a certain level, you'll begin to realize that just doesn't cut it. If it did there wouldn't be masterig studios. |
Pity you mentioned that man, I was just going to open my own online mastering studio, and charge 50 quid a track...now you've exposed my mastering methods, die you bastard!
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| Originally posted by RickyM Pity you mentioned that man, I was just going to open my own online mastering studio, and charge 50 quid a track...now you've exposed my mastering methods, die you bastard! |
John'00'Fleming wrote a good article about demos. I think it's good to post here as well, usefull info for producers who are sending their first demos out.
Sending demos
"In todays World its easy to access music software and get into production. This means more of you are producing your own music and looking to get those tracks signed to a label. Well I'm going to give you advice as a label owner of how to send us your music. There's one thing that bothers us at record labels, and thats the amount of spam emails we get. Not the regular Viagra and cheap loans emails, but spam from new producers hassling or adding us to newsletters informing us of their latest gig at their friends house! Yes we do get plenty of them!! We dont mind emails but we'll come back to that in a moment. The first and important thing is to only send your music when youre 100% happy with it and its finished. You'll be surprised how many tracks we get sent that are 'just an idea that needs finishing'. These tracks rarely get listened too or even at all. The important thing to do is catch the attention of the record label by sending hi-quality finished music. You can imagine how much new music we get sent every week, also how much of it is rubbish and doesnt even suit our label. So do your homework and research a label that you think suits your sound. Get an honest opinion from a very honest friend. You may think the track is the best thing ever and will be a top 10 hit, but you need someone to give you a wake up call and make you listen to it in a different way.
We get so many tracks that are really basic and badly produced; we honestly dont understand how people think these are ready? We do understand that the skill of production can take many years to learn and that some producers need extra help to reach the next level. Most labels have an ear for what they are looking for and if you offer what they want, theyll contact you to give you that extra help. I have done that myself with some of my JOOF artists. Ive signed them and put them together with experienced engineers making a winning team.
Most labels today will accept an email with a link to your track. Many still accept CD's in the post; I think its a personal preference of how the label owner works. Some like CD's to listen in the car on the way home, where I like to download them and put them on my iPod to listen to on airplane flights. Your music will do the talking, so I advise keeping your text to a minimum in the email. We see so many emails with life stories and essays trying to do the big sell, but honestly we never read them and head straight for the music, after all thats all we're interested in. You can be in danger of building yourself up to high expectations that could then backfire when you music doesnt follow it up. Never sent the track as an attachment, this can really annoy many labels as this huge file can clog up the rest of the mail, they maybe using a remote device to receive emails. Always send a link to where the track is uploaded. As I said before, labels get sent many tracks every week so it may take a few weeks for the label to listen to it. This is where servers like Yousendit or Sendspace become a pain, as they only hold the file for seven days. The amount of times we try to access a track only to get 'file expired' message. We ask for a fresh link, then the same thing happens a couple of weeks later when we eventually get round to taking the track. I advise upgrading your account so the file stays constantly active, or buying some server space. If you want to take production seriously then its worth the investment. In fact it looks more professional sending a track from your own server than using free servers like Yousendit. After all first impressions last.
Only upload an MP3 of 192 or 320 Kbps. It can be time consuming downloading many big Wav files every day. If the label likes the track, they will usually request a Wav file for a closer inspection. If you dont know how to professionally master tracks, then dont try and do this yourselves. You may ruin the overall sound. Our A&R ears can hear how an unmastered track can be tweaked in the hands of a professional studio, its part of our job. So leave that side of things to the pros, we know how it will sound.
Importantly dont hound the label. Its impossible to reply to all the emails and links they get sent, even if its a straight no. If you dont hear back, then accept it as a no. Just keep sending new tracks when you make them. Naturally your production will improve over time so you may strike lucky in the future, so thats why its best not to become a pain hassling with many emails asking for a reaction, as they will just simply be deleted or you'll be added to a spam filter. "
source: www.john00fleming.com
good post ^ ^ ^
yeah j00f has some good things to say there. really encouraging for me to see what he says about some tracks needing an engineer. That means they're not only looking for really crash hot production.
Re mastering, its fairly pointless for people to master demos, the reason I said to throw an eq and limiter on was just so it doesnt clip when you export it and so it doesnt blow out the AnR peoples speakers. You should always do these things before you export a rough mix or anything you intend to play on someone else's speakers, it doesnt hurt the track and only takes a second.
just email the label a link to your track, preferably at 320k and hosted on a site that isnt going to delete the link after 7 days.
However the first track i made i sent to Judge Jules and he played it on radio one, which helped me loads when i got my first track "Alchera" signed to Monster and "Titicaca" signed to Dark Noize. (i have never sent a CD i always send digital)
Just keep sending your material to labels, not sure how true it is that labels dont listen, we personally listen to every demo, even tho we dont get time to react to every one we give each a listen.
If youve not got material signed yet, dont give up as long as your making music for the love of music and not for it to get signed then it will eventually come with practice 
Good luck and if anyone wants t send us a demo feel free
[email protected]
found this old thread and thought i would post on here rather than start a new topic. I understand all the above posts and Joof's post is excellent.
I do have one question however..
What should i say when I email them a link to my track? I know it should be kept short and sweet. Does this mean I just give my name, contact number, email address and genre of track?
Should I give a short description of the track?
Should i mention brief points about myself e.g - Been producing for 18 months using x software?
Anything else?
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| Originally posted by G-Con Should i mention brief points about myself e.g - Been producing for 18 months using x software? |
why not my track sucks im a horrible producer so heres something to over power the savage cats raping each other outside your office window?
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| Originally posted by Allied Nations Most of the labels online I've seen don't even have an email address for "submission" and direct all submissions to an address. |
I have have had some success by just doing this!
1: I send the WAV to a pro mastering studio. And it doesnt have to cost like 80 euros to get a pro mastering. I pay a company 25 euros to do it and i think it totally worth it, eaven if it doesnt get signed, i think it doesn help a bit to have it mastered.
2: I convert it to 320 Kbps mp3 with the best quality as possible. I think wavelab is good for this.
3: I upload it to my server space, write a short email about the track and me, and ofcourse all my contact detalis. Put the directlink to the track in there. Sometime i eaven compress the file to rar, just so thatthey can download it as fast as possible. Another good thing to do is to put you details in the mp3 ID tag.
I think that before you send the track to a lable, you should be really really happy the reslut. I mean its not often you get a track signed just becuse they like the "concept" of the track. Make it top quality as possible in all aspects such as, Track construstion, mixing, mastering!
And then send it to like 10 of the best labels that you think has about the same sound. I mean for ex, i sended a uplifter to Solar Scape, and it wasnt tha successful. How ever they relpied, but it didnt fit their sound. So pick out the lebels first!
And then if they like it you will probobly get aswers like this:
1) We really like this, but do you have other versions/mixes?
(But often they can help out to get remixers if they really want it)
2) We really like this, however there are some things we would like to change before we decide if we gonna take it to the label
(Ofter the bigger labels say this, from my personal experience)
3) We really like this and we wanna take it to the label. Greate tune. I will fix you up with a proposol tomorrow and the we can take it from there.
4) Greate tune. However i think we gonna pass on this one. But please keep us updated on your future work. And we will have you in mind for remixes, if thats ok?
5) Greate tune, but not the sound we are looking for!
6) No answer = they didnt like it, or never got to listen to it.
And give them time, cus some can answer the next day, and some can answer after like 2 - 3 Weeks!
BUT be aware! Eaven if they say like in ex 2) and 3), doesnt mean they will get back to you ( i have experiensed this some times ). Meaning they just wanna have you hooked on, if something better doesnt come along. So if a smaler label offers you a nice deal, dont turn them down just becuse this big label said what they said. I mean words are just words. So if you havent got a real deal from them, fuck it!
Just some personal experience, and i hope it can help some!
Best
C
In a nutshell from reading the posts above:
1) tidy up any loose ends of ur track.
2) research wot label(s) ur track would work on.
3) research wot format the label prefer to receive ur work in.
4) send a brief description with ur track in wotever format u send it in, it may or may not get read but might be important to the people who recieve it. (contact details, of course.. short/concise description of ur track - dont blow ya own trumpet lol)
5) send it and hope for the best.
Most importantly:
6)* if unlucky, dont give up
One other thing on this topic I'd like to point out:
A lot of the smaller labels won't necessarily "sign" you as an artist, they'll just license your track. When we had a few tracks released in early 2001, we were never signed to the label, we just had a simple "licensing deal" that said basically "we own the rights to this track for 5 years". I think that's a option that a lot of new producers are not aware of when they send their stuff out to labels. I know we certainly were not aware of it when we got a few tracks licensed.
It may not be the ideal situation for everyone, but I know I kind of liked they idea that my future work wasn't tied to any one label, especially since I like to produce a lot of difference genres, not just trance. The funny thing about our situation is that even though the demo CD's we sent contained 3 trance tunes out of 5, the two house tracks were the ones that ended up getting signed, to a trance/progressive label no less. Go figure
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