How, where & when to release music? · The Weltsound Community

How, where & when to release music?

Hey guys,

some of you have requested a discussion about Releasing, so let me open this!

Releasing music means sharing it publicly with the world! That's a massive step to do, as music is a very personal product of our creativity and showing it to everybody, blank & as it is, is quiet something. Yet, it is one of the most beautiful things for a musician to get great feedback from people, dancing to their music, smiling because of their melody, living their day to day live with their music and being deep in thoughts & emotions with their tracks.

So it's probably fair to say almost every musician wants to release their music at some point - but there's a lot of obstacles to overcome. Let's tackle some of the biggest ones:

Finding a label or distributor that will release your music
Finding a GOOD label (or distributor)
Actually having solid promotion for the release

To find a label is probably the hardest task - to find a good one is even harder. But what is a label exactly?

Essentially, it's a platform for musicians to release their music with, typically led by another musician who selects the music for his labels via "demo submissions". They will do all the work like sending the EP/Album out to all the streaming & selling platforms like Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Beatport and more (for uploading it at the exact release date & time), generating an ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) for the track(s) (which is essentially like a unique barcode for your tracks to be recognized) and sometimes even more (like getting a Cover Design ready, making promotion, ...).

The other option is to self-release music by either starting your own label or using the newborn distribution services. Honestly, I'm not really informed about those but there's plenty of services that will do the work a label would to (distributing the track(s) to streaming & selling platforms as well as giving it an ISRC). There can be issues with setting those up for exact release dates (& times) and it will have a certain prize per release. Some of the ones I know are distrokid & TuneCore, but if anyone has more experience on releasing via distribution services please share your knowledge! :)

Why is it difficult to find a (good) label?

Reaching out to labels in general is much easier than it was before. Almost every label has a public demo E-Mail where you can send your tracks to and wait for them to answer. If they like your music you might get signed. While in pop-music musicians would often sign "exclusively" with one label, in electronic music oftentimes those signings are "one time" signings, which means you are still able to release on other labels (make sure to always carefully check on the contracts though!).

But what is a good label then? Well, a good label will not only provide the basic services of a distributor but rather push your release to the maximum in terms of promotion (as it also helps them! Remember that a label always takes around 50% of all money generated with your music!). There's not many labels that will actually put a lot of effort in that!

What are your experiences? Do you release with labels or distribution services? There's also more possibilities (like Free Downloads, etc...), let us know what you think and if you have question about this topic!

Let's start a nice discussion :)

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