I have been contacted by a record label on Soundcloud who wants to sign one of my tracks. Seeing as i’ve not followed through with this before i just wanted to know what peoples thoughts were on whether to go ahead. I asked them to send me over some terms or a contract and they sent me the following reply…
[color=#2]Royalties are 40 % for the artist 60 % for the label. We will be a contract, if is ok. In the contract are more things that you must read. Give us your details, we will prepare the contract, and if is ok for we make the next steps.
We need this info also (for the contract) :
Real name :
Artist (band) name :
Address :
Name(s) of the track(s) :
Version(s) :
Genres (for tracks) :
Track in .wav format
Track is mastered? [/color]
The track isn’t mastered so not sure how this will affect things?
Although i hadn’t heard of the label before i checked them out on Beatport and they have quite a few releases and they are pretty good. I’m just not sure what kind of agreement is a fair agreement.
I normally get 50/75% of royalties from sales and sometimes work on getting a advance. Also I normally send a mastered 24bit version of a track aswell as a unmastered 24bit wav.
I would be at least be asking for 50% royalties even if it is your 1st track signing, start as you mean to go on and don’t get ripped off!
You need to tell them that its not mastered and see what they say. If they say they will master it for you but want a higher royalty percentage then tell them to kindly F off. Any label that doesnt or cant sort out mastering is a label you need to avoid like aids. Tbh if they will sort the mastering etc its fine just make sure the contract doesnt tie you to them for your next 3 releases etc as this can be a bummer if you make a killer track and Sony want to sign it but you cant cos u have an exclusivity deal with some guy in his basement recordings…
Yeah, I wouldn’t sign it if I were you. Any label that knows what it’s doing knows the industry standards. These are typically, like other people have said, at LEAST 50 % net receipts.
Also, it should be a tipoff if they want you to master the track. This means that they don’t want to shell out the money for an engineer on the track. This will probably mean they’ll do the artwork themselves (…uh oh) and spend no money on promotion.
Give it some thought… These label offers can be really tempting, I remember getting my first. But usually if a label approaches you and you haven’t heard of it, it’s best to avoid it. It’s sort of a bummer to pass on the opportunity, but you’ll be thankful later.
The best thing to do would be look at artists who you sound similar to, look at the labels they’re signed to, and pursue those labels recklessly. Don’t settle for second best, it’ll bite you in the *ss later on.
Tbh I think what the above posters say is BS, no offense. You shouldnt worry too much about the royalty percentages because with how e music is, even if it was 90/10 in your favour you still wont see a penny. You need to be more concerned with what the label is gonna do for you in terms of marketing and promotion. Is it a well known label? Having a few releases on beatport means fck all im afraid. But just getting tracks out and getting your name out is priceless tbh dont get tied up with little royalty battles that mean fck all tbh…
Just to be clear, there is NO money in electronic music even if you sign your track to Sony more likely than not it will be up on zippyshare before its up on beatport…
I’m with Jan on this. The royalty rate is much much less important than how they promote.
Here’s what I ask labels now - politely of course…
How do you promote tracks?
What DJs support your label regularly?
Any radio stations supporting you?
How long between signing and release will it be? Some tracks need to be released within a certain timeframe. You don’t want yours sitting way down on someone’s “to Do” list.
Do I get to approve the mastered version?
Hope that helps and the other guys that have signed more stuff than me might be able to add or delete from that list.
Yeah I forgot about that, the release date frame is extremely important and I actually fell victim to it with my last track, it was signed like 1.5 years before it was released… Not good…
I wasn’t saying that you should get into a royalty dispute, I was just saying, if they won’t do the mastering and they don’t know what standard royalties are, it’s probably an indication of the label quality…
At the end of the day i’m really not fussed about rushing into getting something signed. I haven’t sent any of my tracks out to labels as i don’t feel that i’m at a level where i can consistently produce releasable tracks. When the day comes that i’m happy with what i’m doing i will send stuff out to labels i know about. I have a lot of friends that are running well established labels so getting signed shouldn’t be a problem once the consistency and quality is there
It’s just good to know what other peoples experiences are and what pitfalls to look out for.
