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Don't ask us for tips on getting signed. We're NOT record labels *sarcastic tone*... Even the people here who are signed know that record labels are extremely unpredictable. Each label has a different standard to what they want, but I'll give you some basic tips tho, and elaborate on the simple remarks given. They're all true btw.  just in a funny, smartass way.
| quote: | | making good tracks. |
There's no one set way you gotta have your tracks in order to get label interest. Labels will sign tracks that are the absolute toilet yet they'll sign tracks that are great. Sometimes they ignore tracks that are great too because they don't think they will sell to their target audience.
| quote: | | tongue lots of ass and suck lots of dick |
In other words, just be persistent. Do some bold stuff. Camp out in the label's headquarters if you have to or be like Robin Fox who came every week to Power 96's (a Miami radio station) studio nagging the DJ to play her song, "I See Stars". They turned her down everytime, until one day they were tired of her nagging , said "what the heck", played it, and it became a big hit. Obviously if her track was a flop, after one play on the radio, you'd never hear it again.
| quote: | send mp3 links/cdrs to labels
they tell u yes/no/dont bother replying
if yes, they will ask for a master cdr copy, u sign contract, get test pressing when release time comes round, then a full release vinyl
not much too it really, may get royalties or advance if really good |
Once you get noticed by the labels and get the contract, make sure you have an entertainment attorney look it over to make sure there's not some tricky wording in there so that they take advantage of you, and you get nothing out of it.
| quote: | not necessarily true, it's generally an excuse to not sign a track.
for example haak - frenzy/pulling strings, vazim zhukov, etc |
About not sharing your stuff, yeah Luke's right in a way, they could use that as an excuse not to sign your track, but sometimes it is true (especially for smaller labels), sharing (leaking) more imporantly than harming sales, can harm a track's reputation. If it's been shared for free, all the major DJs have played it on CD-R, and a vynil comes out 6 months later, no DJ will want to buy that vynil to play a track they've burned out 6 months ago. That's why you see a lot of producers on this forum post a 2 minute clip or a lo-fi version to get feedback, instead of posting an entire high-quality 192k+ track.
| quote: | | why rely on someone else to sign you... sign yourself |
I'd have to disagree with Msequence. That's great if you've worked for another label and know the industry pretty well, but if you're a noob to music business, you're gonna get eaten alive by the sharks out there, and your label will fail. If you don't wanna take the route and sign to a label to learn from them. Take a business coarse. You don't have to be a producer to start a label. Hell, we all know that's true. We have big, corperate America as an example for that. Just to sum it up, don't start a label without knowing what you're going to need and get involved with. A label isn't like a "posse" or a "crew of artists". It's a lot more than that. Yeah, I'm looking at you, you underground "rap labels". Those aren't real labels. Just because you call yourself "DAHOTSHIT Records" and have a few rapper friends on it, but don't market shit, you're not a record company.
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Last edited by gerrycueto on Feb-27-2005 at 07:46
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