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| quote: | Taken from www.john00fleming.com
So how does it all happen (in layman's terms)?? There are many producers out there who aren't signed to any record labels. They work hard in their studios for hours churning out many tracks. Then they have to find a home for their music, so they (or their managers) send out copies of their new material to record labels that fit their musical styles. These tracks get sent to the A&R (Artist & Relations) people at the record labels (people like me who are looking for new material). Every A&R person has his or her own musical taste or business direction. That's why certain labels have their own individual sound, because it's the same person sourcing the new material. They guide the label in the direction that they want, as I do with mine. Some A&R guys love their music and will stay true to their musical love whilst others are looking for the big sell. They are all clever in their own fields. Even if they want to sell-out and sign a big tunes to sell to the masses, it takes a bloody talented man to find that commercial track that will appeal to the public; they have got very special ears. Once the track is signed we have to prepare the track to sell. In some cases we will get remixes done in another musical style to make the track appeal to a wider audience. This can sometimes take weeks as you rely on the artist/producer involved, as they may have their studio booked for other projects. We may have to wait, up to 6 - 8 weeks in some cases?? When the track is ready to go we will get a limited run of promos pressed. This is where the Glenn's (My label manager) of the record world come into play. He will organize the pressing of the promos. Promos do exactly what they say..promote!! These get sent (By Glenn!) to all the main DJ's. We want them to play them in clubs, play them on their radio shows and review them in magazines. We're also looking to get feedback from them. If it's bad and knowones playing the tune, we need to sit back at the table and either trash it or get more remixes done!! Off course this has never happened to us!! He he!! Loads of you get frustrated when you hear big DJ's playing music that you can't buy yet. Though you don't know it, you're also involved in this promotion. We see you're feedback too from messages boards across the world, we can see that you love it too! Once we get our reaction from the DJ's and dancefloor we report this to the distributor. The distributors job is to sell the records to all the record shops across the world. We will report our reactions. i.e. Armin van Burren played it at Global gathering, Paul Oakenfold played it on his radio show and Tiesto wouldn't stop texting John 00 about it (I can't reply Tijs cos you're on Vodaphone!!!). The distributor will then relay this information onto the record shop manager/buyer and he'll say wooow, we'll order 25 copies of that cos Tiesto is a texting other DJ's about it….well not quite like that!! We will get feedback from the distributor and will get an idea of how many records we have pre-sold. We'll then know how many to press to start off with. This is all worked to a set release date, which is obviously flexible, as we may have to wait for remixes etc. In all it can take 2-3 months to get a track released, perhaps longer if you have other tracks in a que waiting to get released. The bigger releases on major labels can take a lot longer, due to press campaigns, extra mastering and engineering in the studios, they can take a lot longer to prepare for release. Then eventually the record arrives in your local record shop after all that hard work….phew!!!
I hope this explains to you why there is that gap between the promo and the actual release hitting the shops? |
To read his whole diary go to his website. This quote was from february 2003 "Running a record label". Hope this'll help you 
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Current addictions: Reboot // Radio Slave // Matthias Tanzmann // Mathias Kaden // Audion // Martin Buttrich
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