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Category: Music
Great tips on how to get your tunes signed to a record label. As a record company owner, John O'Flemming should know a thing or two about what record companies are looking for...
"In today's
World it's easy to access music software and get into production. This
means more of you are producing your own music and looking to get those
tracks signed to a label. Well I'm going to give you advice as a label
owner of how to send us your music.
There's one thing that bothers us at record labels, and that's the
amount of spam emails we get. Not the regular Viagra and cheap loans
emails, but spam from new producers hassling or adding us to
newsletters informing us of their latest gig at their friends house!
Yes we do get plenty of them!! We don't mind emails but we'll come back
to that in a moment. The first and important thing is to only send your
music when you're 100% happy with it and its finished. You'll be
surprised how many tracks we get sent that are 'just an idea that needs
finishing'. These tracks rarely get listened too or even at all. The
important thing to do is catch the attention of the record label by
sending hi-quality finished music. You can imagine how much new music
we get sent every week, also how much of it is rubbish and doesn't even
suit our label. So do your homework and research a label that you think
suits your sound. Get an honest opinion from a very honest friend. You
may think the track is the best thing ever and will be a top 10 hit,
but you need someone to give you a wake up call and make you listen to
it in a different way.
We get so many tracks that are really basic and badly produced; we
honestly don't understand how people think these are ready? We do
understand that the skill of production can take many years to learn
and that some producers need extra help to reach the next level. Most
labels have an ear for what they are looking for and if you offer what
they want, they'll contact you to give you that extra help. I have done
that myself with some of my JOOF artists. I've signed them and put them
together with experienced engineers making a winning team.
Most labels today will accept an email with a link to your track.
Many still accept CD's in the post; I think it's a personal preference
of how the label owner works. Some like CD's to listen in the car on
the way home, where I like to download them and put them on my iPod to
listen to on airplane flights. Your music will do the talking, so I
advise keeping your text to a minimum in the email. We see so many
emails with life stories and essays trying to do the big sell, but
honestly we never read them and head straight for the music, after all
that's all we're interested in. You can be in danger of building
yourself up to high expectations that could then backfire when you
music doesn't follow it up. Never sent the track as an attachment, this
can really annoy many labels as this huge file can clog up the rest of
the mail, they maybe using a remote device to receive emails. Always
send a link to where the track is uploaded. As I said before, labels
get sent many tracks every week so it may take a few weeks for the
label to listen to it. This is where servers like Yousendit or
Sendspace become a pain, as they only hold the file for seven days. The
amount of times we try to access a track only to get 'file expired'
message. We ask for a fresh link, then the same thing happens a couple
of weeks later when we eventually get round to taking the track. I
advise upgrading your account so the file stays constantly active, or
buying some server space. If you want to take production seriously then
it's worth the investment. In fact it looks more professional sending a
track from your own server than using free servers like Yousendit.
After all first impressions last.
Only upload an MP3 of 192 or 320 Kbps. It can be time consuming
downloading many big Wav files every day. If the label likes the track,
they will usually request a Wav file for a closer inspection. If you
don't know how to professionally master tracks, then don't try and do
this yourselves. You may ruin the overall sound. Our A&R ears can
hear how an un-mastered track can be tweaked in the hands of a
professional studio, its part of our job. So leave that side of things
to the pros, we know how it will sound.
Importantly don't hound the label. It's impossible to reply to all
the emails and links they get sent, even if it's a straight no. If you
don't hear back, then accept it as a no. Just keep sending new tracks
when you make them. Naturally your production will improve over time so
you may strike lucky in the future, so that's why its best not to
become a pain hassling with many emails asking for a reaction, as they
will just simply be deleted or you'll be added to a spam filter.
I hope this advice helps. Now get busy in those studios and we look forward to hearing that great new music "
-John OFleming
4:33 PM
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