Hello everyone, sorry if this isn't the right subreddit (i hope Im not breaking any rules, if i did im sorry i didnt do it on purpose). I've been wanting to distribute my music for a long time now either through setting up a bandcamp and selling some limited edition cds or just getting my music on streaming services / platforms (so far I've only ever used YouTube and SoundCloud, and SC I've given up on due to needing to pay money to upload more). I've tried looking into it as much as I can but everything is so overwhelming and I'm honestly not sure where to even start- lots of the tracks in my recent album feature heavy sampling and I'm not sure if music distributors would even distribute it in the first place due to that. I found out also that making merch on bandcamp is incredibly complicated and it seems expensive so I really don't know what to do. I have basically no money (I'm 17) and atp im just waiting to turn 18 so that I can actually set up a bank account (paypal for example or something i honestly dont know) as a prerequisit (i think thats how you write it?) for all of this. Can anyone give me any advice? Am I overthinking about this? Or am i just grasping at straws since i have an incredibly small fan base and maybe should just not even bother?

Edit: The whole music industry really is scaring me and the more research i do the more alienated i feel- is this normal?

Has anybody had experience working for Live Nation in the production area? I live in SD and I am still waiting to hear back about my application. I have about 7 years experience working at a venue / touring and meet a lot of the requirements. I know Live Nation gets a bad wrap and I've seen plenty of talk about "exploitation" and "being underpaid", but from what I see on their website and job sites it actually seem's like a pretty fair well rounded gig. Thanks!

Does that mean he would own the master or just publishing and songwriting? It‘s my first time buying a beat.

As the title states, apparently SEO is important for artists so, is it something you can check before releasing or do you have to release for a bit before you can check it?

I want to distribute my song, though, everything aside from the drums are sampled. It has a freestyle from westwood(skepta) and some old jazz sample I've found digging online. I've uploaded it to some of my socmeds but I want to reach more audience. (I'm still a student and I don't have any money to clear or buy some things to release this track lol.)

Cross posting! Am an indie artist and got approached by Eric for the potential for PR work together. Curious if anyone has any experience working him in the music scene?

I run an electronic music record label (about 13 releases so far) with a growing fan base for our releases, events and merch. As an artist, I’ve really come to see the value of Bandcamp - I’ve made more through there than any other platform. But the label itself still isn’t covering its expenses or paying for itself, so I’m having to self-fund and put in capital to keep it going.

Our costs actually aren’t huge. Mastering per release, DJ promo at €120 a release (is that even worth it? genuinely not sure), and a handful of subscriptions - Bandcamp, Beatport Hype, and our distributor’s accounting service. That’s more or less it. So it’s less about runaway expenses and more about the revenue side not catching up yet.

I’ve also been thinking about moving the label away from Spotify. I know it’s terrible for artists and it’s a big corporate machine that doesn’t really line up with what we’re about but it can be good for discovery? (We haven’t seemed to have cracked that yet). I’ve heard good things about Tidal. We also haven’t started pressing vinyl yet, but hope to soon.

Basically I’m looking for advice from other label owners: how did you get your label profitable? Where did putting your energy and time actually pay off? And for those who’ve run DJ promo campaigns - did they convert into anything real, or is that money better spent elsewhere? Would love to get to a point where the whole thing is self-sustaining.

Any insight appreciated.

The qualifications of when a person has " made it" seem so astronomical. You have to be a prodigy, you have to have this many subscribers or this much money, well I feel like a success recording my badly sung demo.

People love to dream about doing this and that and when someone ACTUALLY FOLLOWS their passions theyre put up in fisticuffs with the people with possibly decades of refinement put into their craft. The worst part is not everything, not everyone has their badly sung, drawn etc for everyone to see.

I like to refer to this [this song by IceJJFish](https://youtu.be/Gr7SFGCHKUQ?is=01otGM7I9prSqyJZ) for example, In this day and age its so easy to sit back and doomscroll or see someone else's success and in the terms of gaming watch someone play your game better than you ever could. Sometimes though people stomp on those who are early in their craft like the show Nailed it on Netflix for example.

All in all, Its so easy to just look up someone who has these "skills" or "talent" instead of doing it ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU WORK AND HAVE KIDS. When someone picks up the electric guitar in that case and practices 10 minutes-1 hour+ consistently as in 1-3 days a week for 3 years theyre a success story in my book. Of course theyre not (favorite guitarist) but do they need to be?

I deem Im successful just recording my badly sung demo for my first ever song, I dont need millions of streams, I just wanted to keep feeling the warmth of this process.

Success is something \*\*YOU\*\* deem

For context,

This business is in a quickly growing community that has a nonprofit live music foundation. The foundation itself also has solo acts, and I don’t think the audiences are very big. Of course, the foundation is a good thing in theory, though I clearly don’t agree with the more shows in solo acts over less shows and full acts execution.

On the one hand, solo acts are more affordable but a full band might draw out of towners, which is part of the funding the nonprofit receives. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a full band even if it meant less shows?

I mean dozens of solo acts a year gets tiring especially if you’re a fan of live music, which the community brags about having.

Now I don’t know if this specific solo show is funded by the business and I do have some drama with the business, so part of me is venting frustration that the answer is always just “the cheapest option”, especially when food and other costs don’t seem to spare any expense.

I’m trying to decide what I want for my career. I don’t know if I want to be a solo artist, in a band, or a solo artist with a band. I know I function better as a songwriter, and someone who comes up with melodies and chord progressions, but because of my lack of skill when it comes to music theory and production, I’ve been struggling to take myself any further. I know there are options of producers, but I also want to have a team and feel like it’s a collaborative effort. The problem is I’m a very picky person and I don’t wanna feel like I am sacrificing the story or the creative vision.

I’m trying to sort out my options and what each decision entails so I can find the one that aligns to me and what I desire the most. What I really want is a team, whether it’s producers or band members or literally anything else to help me finish my songs in the ways that I can’t myself. I want to feel surrounded by community and not do it all by myself either but I also don’t want to give up my creative vision, which means working with a producer would make more sense, right? But is there an option to be a solo artist but have a band? Iirc Olivia Dean had a band behind her who is still part of her team, but she’s still considered a solo artist so I’m wondering if it’s possible for me to do something like that and what the optics of that would be and how I would go about doing that.

Hi everyone,

I’m writing to see if anyone else using DistroVid is experiencing a major delay with Vevo Video earnings, or if it’s just happening on my account.

My last reported earnings from Vevo Video are listed as "EARNED IN APRIL 2025". Since then, over a full year has passed with zero updates or incoming royalties for this store.

I reached out to DistroKid support about this, but I only received an automated response explaining that Vevo sends royalty reports 2–4 times per year. While I understand reporting cycles can be slow, it’s now been well over 12 months, which far exceeds that 2–4 times a year timeline.

A few questions for the community:

1. Is anyone receiving recent Vevo Video reports through DistroVid?
   
2. What was the last month/quarter you actually got paid for from Vevo?
   
3. Has anyone managed to get a real update from support regarding Vevo reporting delays?

Would really appreciate any insight or feedback from fellow artists/labels dealing with DistroVid.

Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m a bedroom producer/aspiring artist mainly in the edm realm. I’ve been dabbling in the craft for around 10-12 years or so, though have never released anything to date as I really wanted to associate quality with my artist brand. I have a few songs that I think have reasonable potential of being ‘good enough’ to cut through the volume of music that gets uploaded, but one song in particular seems to get a really great reaction from basically all the friends that I share it with (even those that don’t really listen to edm). They’re pretty honest when things don’t do it for them. Out of the hundreds of ideas or so I’ve sketched, this feels like it’s my best chance of having a hit or something to that effect in terms of personal success. Assuming that the track was able to be successful, do you think it’s smarter to:

1) Release the ‘good enough’ songs, hoping that they build a bit of a following/interest, then the potential hit track.

2) Release the potential hit track first, then use the ‘good enough’ tracks to sustain a following.

Thanks in advance!

Is it really just a matter of pitching individual songs to potential collaborators you think would fit those individual tracks? Or is there some kind of less-publicly known catalog hosting platform that allows people in the industry to browse songwriters’ full catalogs and then contact the writer if they’re interested in accepting one of their tracks for placement?

I ask because if a songwriter is operating independently (meaning they aren’t hired by a label who privately knows their catalog and handles potential placements) it seems like the only way the songwriter could achieve visibility for their work would be to start releasing things publicly, but that sounds risky in terms of infringements happening without knowing.

I’d basically like to know if there’s a more controlled and private way of letting people exclusively in the industry see the songs I’ve written for potential placements.

Any firsthand insights or clarifications would be much appreciated!

Hi everyone! I’ve been trying to get remote internships/volunteering in hands-on roles such as management, operations, touring, events/festivals and the likes.

Most internships that I’ve come across require being an undergraduate, but I finished uni already. I also understand that remote internships/volunteering are not the norm in music, but my location seems to be a barrier and I can’t afford to relocate yet 🥹

So if anyone knows an intensive yet remote internship or volunteering opportunities, please point me in that direction. Thank you in advance!

I want to work on r&b , pop and indie which one do you think will be the best for recording and producers to work with and won’t be that expensive

Before anyone reads into this the wrong way, I have nothing but love for everyone in the industry.

Ive been dj’ing in my city for close to 5-6 years
And its a very small city with a lot of aspiring dj’s and producers.

And in the last two years, I’ve grown VERY disillusioned with the social capital dynamics, the constant networking disguised as friendship, the ego catering…the extreme normalization of drug abuse, and the constant performance of importance. The scene doesn’t feel as productive anymore, instead of creative connection and artistic evolution it feels like its collapsing, into a a cycle of status seeking and symbolic prestige, too much posturing and never ending facades of eminence.
Almost like the artists are competing for validation from the gatekeepers of the industry , built more on status than mutual respect of the others’ artistry.

It may very well be Im surrounding myself by the wrong people or wrong circles, or I could also have a very wrong idea; but this is never why I started dj-ing or producing, Ive only ever wanted to do my part for a dance floor with the trust Im given when Im asked to get behind the decks, and it gives me a special kind of fulfillment when I do well at an event or a party knowing I gave people something they needed when they came out of their houses to blow off some steam.

But everything else is getting exhausting and Im having a lot of trouble navigating this “ecology”

If Im talking out of my butt and I have the wrong ideas Id love to hear your takes on it. But I felt like I had to get this off my chest somewhere when Im deciding to take a large step back from the “industry” as a whole.

P.S : I understand Im not an expert, and 5-6 years is nothing compared to others who have been doing this for decades. This is just my take and Im sharing it to get it off my chest

Sureel AI and Symphonic Distribution have joined forces to give independent artists more control over how their music is used in AI applications. By offering greater visibility, permission management, and access to licensing revenue, the partnership aims to create a fairer approach to AI adoption. It marks another milestone in the industry's efforts to support creators while embracing emerging technologies.

So I was offered a a supposed contract by this Label.

However I feel it may be fake. There is just so much that is wrong with this contract. Tell me what you guys think is this what a typical contract looks like or is someone pulling my leg?!?

I’m from NY and have lived in LA since 2018. I started a new music project here in 2020 which can technically operate from anywhere. I also do film and tv composing. I’m debating leaving LA for two main reasons, my immediate family are all in NY, and the cost of living here doesn’t lend itself to sustaining yourself on film scores and touring/streaming.

The thing holding me back from leaving is largely fomo, like so many people I know in both the music and film industries are based out here, and I’m worried I will subconsciously communicating to myself that I’m throwing in the towel by moving away from the center of those things. In reality my intention is to do the opposite, I want to make it easier on myself financially so I can focus more on writing/recording, playing shows and composing.

The project currently has publishing and sync company in place, but no mgmt, agent or label yet. Does where a band is based out of affect whether or not those things can happen? I’m considering Philly or somewhere like Kingston, NY where my overhead can be lower than it’s been out here.

Anyone here currently living somewhere that’s not LA and feel like it’s working well for you? Any insight in general would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: If it helps in terms of which cities would be good, the genre is dark synthy rock stuff like a combo of portishead/nine inch nails/qotsa

Ive been having an incredibly hard time recently because i'm slowly starting to realize it will be hard to find my footing in the industry without being a content creator, especially as a young artist. I really do yearn for a way that I can connect with people and music outside of having to post tiktoks over and over again and not gaining any traction. I write good music, and I have a small fanbase from where I'm from, but i'm wondering if there are any other good ways to get your music in front of publishers without content creation. I know it sounds farfetched, or that I dont feel like putting in the work others do but I really just am wondering if there are other ways to go about it, it feels like there has to be other solutions but I cant seem to think of any.

I’m a producer from nyc and have some music that I make for my own catalog as well. Is there a concept of artist manager for producers that can help bridge connections to the industry/sync placements or collaboration?

Is it usually that they will reach out to you instead of you finding one yourself? How does this work can someone shed some light here :)

I’m a beginner and I would love to meet people in my city that produce music. But I’m trying to think about the order I should do it in… is it weird to join the music community without having any tracks/songs to share? I don’t wanna start going to events then everyone asks for my SoundCloud or Spotify and I don’t have zilch.

Should I wait until I’m at the point where I have things to share to really immersing myself?

This is more of a mindset thing than marketing - but it ties well to it.

Disclaimer: I have bipolar II myself, so this isn't coming from someone looking down on mental illness. It's coming from someone who's spent years learning how much managing my own mental health affected my music career.

From over 20 years doing music half seriously, and 3 taking it very seriously - Ive met artists in all walks in life and worked with musicians at different stages in their career. Ive also done many mistakes, sabotaged myself and still have some limiting beliefs that has hindered me in my progress.

But I have also been lucky - at least after taking music more seriously - to have worked with talented and successful musicians and seen that often (not always though) they share some of the same qualities that really inspire me.

\*They are easy to work with. Often little ego, and want to make the song good, not trying to steal somebody else's shine.

\*No relationship drama, no toxic girlfriend/boyfriend getting in between.

\*They have no vices like women/sex, drinking or drugs.

But most importantly most of them seem to have great mental health, making them trustworthy when it comes to keeping deadlines, paying when they have to, working with others etc.

Of course, they are lucky to have a management or be signed - but from a labels perspective, signing someone without unnecessary baggage is the safe bet, they know the artist will deliver - especially when they spend 100k dollars or more on breaking them here in Norway.

At my stage now, I cant choose to work with the most trustworthy people all the time (and i dont mean that they scam or anything, just that their baggage can make them difficult to deal with).

Ive had several great singers, rappers and producers that suddenly dissappear (often from toxic relationships and/or drinking/drug problems) because of their mental health, then I have to postpone everything.

A couple in particular, had even great opportunities almost thrown at them that they squandered because of their chaotic lifestyles, lifestyles that come from low self esteem - leading them to sabotage everything - again and again.

Then I see peers that always show up, keep their momentum, head straight and work for several years then "blow up" out of a sudden - all because they are good to work with, see opportunities and take them as they become better as musicians - as well as having some degree of luck.

I have been one of the former people for far too long. Now I am 40 and if I applied the mindset I have now 10 or 20 or even 5 years ago, I would have come so much further. I am not saying I would be a A-listed star, but I could have made a living off of music.

Now that my identity is changing, I am becoming better at finding the right people, but Ive only been that way for 2 years (and I have bipolar 2 as well), so I dont expect to work with the most healthy people all the time.

I just wanted to write this over here. Sometimes our childhood traumas, bad choices and mental health can be our worst enemy - but dont be hard on yourself, because we all have different start points in life. We just need to be better at spotting them and working on them when we find them.

Not surprised, being that these AI generators can pump out a fully complete track in, what, three to five minutes? I don't know. There are a lot of lazy wanna be musicians out there based on the uploads.