Hi All
I was wondering if anyone has previous experience on releasing your own music via your own record label?
I've heard of some websites where you can submit your music, like AWAL, and they'll send it off to Spotify etc - if anyone has had experience with these, was it any good?
I'd like to get some of my music on Spotify, Apple Music, etc 
Good question. I don't personally, but a good friend of mine set up their own label that we used to release on back in the day - Acidphonic. The label technically isn't going anymore but you can still find the music on Beatport etc.
I've known quite a few label bosses in my time too, so I'll try to garner some nuggets of wisdom from them to share...
DIY record label,eh?. Although at some point I was charmed by this idea, I now ask myself: "why bother?". A DIY label for just publishing your own music is a tad bit sad, like the average 'self-published novel' and the pallet of unsold books withering away in a dusty room (comedy gold only if your name is Alan Partridge and it happens to be an autobiography with very few interested in reading it but you make pulping it into an event). It gets a bit more exciting when talented musicians flock together at that label and bring out works of substance with perhaps an overarching style signature but that probably is a bit of a pipe-dream unless you are an established 'brand' yourself and the market wasn't about to be transformed by AI. As @Petter already suggests: 'murky waters' indeed, even one unlicensed sample could bring your fledgling label to its knees with astronomical legal costs, and having a stable of artists and trying to keep business going probably would likely sap all your energy and resources and ultimately seeing it all evaporate in bitter arguments about money and percentages...(as it will always do!)
The higher tiers of say "Distrokid" already contain the possibility of one or more labels under which you can have 2 ('Musician Plus') or 5-100 artists ('Ultimate'). That Distrokid label acts as a 'white-label' so it at least on the surface won't appear as a Distrokid thingie. Obviously most music buyers and streamers don't give a fig about all this. To make a label a label is having the artists, great music AND a slick PR/Promo/Sales/Marketing/Booking apparatus, a very tall order if you are going to do this by you, yourself and the person you call "I"
Distrokid and similar companies already have all the hookups to all the main music platforms with pretty much transparent costs/revenue schemes, I am pretty sure you won't beat them at this game. And if you can't beat 'em ...
Now I don't want to burst anybody's bubble and if an indy label and its mystique is your life's ambition go for it. I vaguely remember I have seen video tuts and several e.books on that topic, probably all outdated by today's streaming market.
Having said all this, it would be nice if ProducerTech would give us a bit more tools to the 'métier' of being a music producer: like collabs, sample clearance, how to obtain remix rights, stems; how to promote, how to sell etc. What are you expect to bring to a live performance. What are typical pitfalls in the industry. Legal counsel: where, what, how, how much? How to set up a (small) music festival or event?
These are all great points; thanks all. I agree that it may not be the most direct route to stardom, but for me, it's just a good way for me and a few friends to get our music out there - I know some friends of friends who run big spotify playlists, so once they're on there, we could potentially get our music in these big playlists - exposure to much bigger pool of people. That's just my take.
So, from your recommendation Distrokid sounds like a good shout. I'll do some snooping and give some feedback on what I find. AWAL pretty much does this now too. And I always aim to use copyright free samples myself so shouldn't run into too many problems.
Hi Samuel, you probably don't want to worry too much about having your own label if you just want to get your tracks out onto streaming platforms. In these days of self-releasing it doesn't seem to be that relevant. The exception is if you want to build a reputation for a group of different artists or aliases on a DJ download platform like Beatport/Traxsource/JunoDownload. To me, these seem to be only places where you can search by label.
I've just started doing this and because I'm very old (and old school) I decided to go down the own label route. I use a distributor called iMusician that allows you to set up your own label on Beatport. But what I've found is that it's very difficult getting any visibility on Beatport if you're starting from scratch like I am (e.g. no social media presence).
If you go with Distrokid, that'll be a good choice and very cheap and easy to get on all the main streaming platforms. You can also release on Beatport through them (for an additional charge) and it will appear as a release on the Distrokid label.
If it's just streams you're after and not downloads, you can look at using sites like Submit Hub and Groover to get on playlists etc. And also Facebook Ads (the cost can build up on these though). There's some good advice on YouTube from people like Andrew Southworth to help get started releasing through Distrokid and the marketing side of things.
Good luck and if you'd like any more help or questions answered I'll do my best to help with what very limited experience I have on this.
Nice. Lots of interesting bits already to check out in this discussion.
DistroKid --> Beatport
As for DistroKid --> Beatport @simon-unsigned already suggested there will be an extra charge "You can also release on Beatport through them (for an additional charge) and it will appear as a release on the Distrokid label."
There is a Distrokid URL, that seems to deal with 'distribution as an album' and I don't see the subject of 'label' being covered, it's my understanding you can specify a 'label' with every upload you do on DistroKid, whether this label information is retained at the BeatPort end, I don't know.
This is the Album bit: "DistroKid offers distribution to Beatport as an Album Extra for all DistroKid releases in the electronic genre. Beatport distribution costs $9.99/month for unlimited distribution for all of your artists."
This here the URL to the webpage:
https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015641853-Can-DistroKid-Send-My-Music-to-Beatport
On that same page a bit of information how BeatPort is losing the plot with yet another (in this case awfully named) platform: "BeatSource":
"Please note that Beatport recently stopped accepting Electronic (Hip Hop) and Electronic (Reggae/Dancehall) releases because they are moving them over to Beatsource. If your releases fall under these subgenres, reach out to us and we can help you out with the next steps for getting your releases to Beatsource instead"
Music Marketing
I stumbled upon a nice collection of short Music Marketing videos. Music Marketing which is one of the next steps we would have to consider making after the initial publishing, and for which most of us don't have an appetite (at all). I'd guess there are hundreds or thousands more like these on YT, but this guy seems to cover many angles (and shortcuts!) and is easy to follow:
I've been self-publishing via Soundcloud and they submit to Apple Music and Spotify. It's easy to setup and you claim your profiles directly via Apple Music and Spotify.
YouTube seems much harder to do, it seems you do need a publisher, I ended up going round in loops with their website about how to claim a profile, but their advice was you needed 3 or 4 published tracks to qualify so I've just reached that threshold, so I'm going to look again.
Beatport seems harder to get going, but I'm going to take another look.
Hi guys
What a goldmine of information! Thank you - there's a lot to go through and it all sounds super helpful
Seems like I should avoid setting up a label if it's just my music I want to release, and go for Distrokid...
