Well, it's finally that time for me when I'm starting to think if my music could actually bring in a dollar or two. Me and a friend of mine are working on some tracks (his track, actually, I'm doing a remix of it) and the plan is to send it out to a couple of places for some feedback, and hopefully someone will like the tracks

The thing is, I have no clue what I'm getting into. I don't know how the whole process works, so I was hoping that you guys could share YOUR experience.

Mastering - something that we need to take care of, or something that the record label should manage?

Contracts - am I selling a track or am I selling my soul? Is it normal for labels to put you under contract, such as "you now belong to this label and are not allowed to publish your work anywhere else" ?

Foreign labels - I'm from Iceland and my friend is from Spain, not many trance labels in these countries, so we're looking towards germany, U.K., Holland, etc. for labels. Is this something that could complicate things alot, payment- contract-vise, and legally?

any and all insight would be very helpful, whether they be horror stories or stories of fame and success (and also, note that we have not yet sent the tracks out, they are still work in progress)

First of all. Dont get too excited if you just made a big leap in production and thinking you have made the leetest tune.

When you progress to another level you can be fooled into thinking your tune is better than it actually is.

Im only speaking of personal experience, and it could very well be you are making an excellent tune.

Then you should look for labels that are releasing about the same stuff as you have made.. try avoiding small digital labels, they might release anything they get their hands on.

You shouldnt be concerned with mastering, a fully mastered track and a track just bounced from the sequencer shouldnt sound very different. The most important part is the actuall mixing of the track.

Being resident in a foregin country of the targeted label is no problem at all, all happens over net these days.

I have no clue how your track sounds, but i advice you to send samples to alot of your friends and see what they think.. if most of them think the bassline is way off, that is most likely to be true.

Anything else is beyond my experience, as im not signed to any label. And wont be for a long time.

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http://soundcloud.com/subtara

thanks for your insight.
About the quality of my track - I do think it's my best work so far, and after 5 years of producing trance, I must be getting "somewhere"
I think that I'm my own worst critic, but besides that, my friend and I have decided to have a brutal-honesty relationship... but even so, it's up to the label to decide; we think it's good work, if they disagree there is nothing we can do about that other than doing better next time

From what you say, and your experience, you probably made a track worth sending, atleast you should try.

Almost every big trance label has either upload form, or some sort of demo submission on their site. You should try sending it to a couple of labels.. Although, the bigger the label, the less chance for a reply, you should send to more labels, simply because you dont wanna wait weeks and month for a reply you might not get.

Sending to atleast 5 different labels should guarantee you a reply (maybe) if your track is not total scrap.

But i repeat, send it to friends, ask them what they think, preferably someone who produces or DJs, its hard to have an objective opinion on something you have made.

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http://soundcloud.com/subtara

have your contracts checked out by someone who's at least slightly into music contracts. The first version of a contract a label gives you has a 90% chance of having bullshit clauses in them. Don't be afraid to ask to have them removed, cause removing them is normal.

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All rhythm evolves around a kick...

Don't worry about mastering. Label people know good music, and a bad mastering job can make a good track sound bad. Best to leave your music at its best, and if the label likes the track, they can find someone to master it for you. I've also heard that some labels will even get people to work with the mix if they like the tune well enough, but that's less common.

If you're really serious about getting into a record contract, you might want to look into getting a lawyer, too. Thankfully, I can't speak from experience, but there are industry horror stories about kids that jumped head first into record deals where had to cut records at a blistering pace, and still couldn't recoup, and when they finally got out of these contracts, they didn't even have the rights to the sound that they had created, because they had sold them in the record contract. If you don't get a lawyer, at least make sure you read and understand your contract fully before signing it, and if you see something suspicious, ask people who've been in the industry for a while.

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www.jexmusic.com - My website