Whether you plan to release music online to platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, or Deezer, or physically in record stores via vinyl and CDs, music distribution is how you share it with the world and therefore a vital part of the music industry.
To help prepare you to send your music to all the biggest stores and platforms, the team over at music distribution, record label services and sync licensing company Ditto Music are here to run us through all you need to know about releasing music in 2024.
1. What is music distribution?
Music distribution isn’t a new concept. But depending on how old you are, you’ll have witnessed things change quite a bit.
Music distribution is the way to get your music to your audience, wherever they are. In the past, this meant making CDs or vinyl records and selling them in stores. Today, thanks to digital platforms, music distribution mainly involves making your songs available on streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, or Deezer.
With more than 11 million artists releasing music to Spotify and digital distribution making up 80% of total music industry revenue last year, it’s clear to see that music distribution is now a heavily online process. So what are your options as an artist wanting to release music to these online platforms?
2. Music distribution options
Get signed by a record label
One option you have is to get signed to a record label. Major labels such as Warner, Universal and Sony all have their own in-house distribution teams that send your music directly to music streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify. This direct distribution route has the advantage of getting your music front and centre on top streaming service playlists but does come with the many potential drawbacks of signing with a major record label.
Stay independent
If you’re not fortunate enough to be signed to a record label or want to keep things fully independent, then you’ll need to work with an open music distribution company like Ditto Music to deliver your tracks to online stores.
These companies deliver your music to streaming platforms in exchange for annual or per-release fees, a percentage cut of your royalties, or a mix of both.
This option lets you keep full creative control over your music, something you might not get when signing to some record labels.
3. What’s the difference between working with a music distributor and signing a contract with a label?
Choosing between working with an open digital distributor and signing with a record label depends on the level of control, revenue, and support you want to have.
With digital distributors like Ditto, Tunecore or Distrokid you pay a subscription fee and retain creativity over your music and image. Distributors act as facilitators rather than controlling partners, also passing back the majority, if not all, of the revenue you generate.
Record labels (especially the majors) normally have hefty input on all creative decisions, branding, and your artist image, sometimes even owning the master recordings or exclusive rights to your songs.
In exchange for this ownership, labels do invest in marketing and promotional tasks but usually take a significant cut of your sales and streaming revenue to recoup those investments. Some contracts, like 360 deals, may even claim a share of an artist’s income from other sources, such as merchandise and touring. Not with a digital distributor.
Another advantage of working with a distribution company is the flexibility it provides you with. You can easily and quickly cancel or switch distributors if things aren’t quite working for you, while label contracts are famously long-term commitments that require you to meet specific obligations.
4. What does a music distributor do?
There are many different roles that a good music distributor needs to play, but their priority should be making sure your music gets sent to all the stores you want it to appear in. Nowadays, the main stores you’ll want to concentrate on releasing to include Spotify, Amazon Music, TikTok and Apple Music.
Acting as the middleman between artists and streaming services, digital distributors have contracts and agreements in place with various industry stakeholders such as digital rights music licensing companies and royalty collection services, such as PPL in the UK, that allow them to distribute your music to the major music streaming platforms and collect music royalties for you.
Our Major music distributors like Ditto, Tunecore, Distrokid often have tight partnerships with all the major online platforms (as well as regional and more genre-niche stores across the world) let you concentrate on what really matters: making your music.
Aside from the few platforms that do actually let artists upload music themselves, most of the big streaming platforms don’t let artists upload their music directly due to all the added admin and processing that would incur. Understandably, they’d much rather work with a distributor directly on behalf of all of its artists – with industry professionals that they know and trust.
Think about how annoying all this extra work would be on your end too. Having to upload your music to multiple platforms and constantly re-enter all of your metadata and release details. Far from ideal.
Collecting royalties
Once your release is live in stores, the role of music distributors is to secure your royalty payments. Every time your songs get streamed, downloaded or bought, music royalties get created. Distributors collect your royalties from stores and pass them back to you or your music’s rights holders.
As you can imagine, this is a lot to manage, so choosing a reliable distributor to take care of all of this for you and set your release live on time is vital.
Your distributor also streamlines the whole royalty payment process for you. Instead of collecting royalties from each store your music is live on, you’ll receive one big payment each month. Nice and simple.
A good music distributor’s job doesn’t end at distribution and royalty collection though. Another key task they can – and should – assist with is music promotion.
Promoting your release
It doesn’t matter how much of a banger your new release might be. If you haven’t carefully planned out your marketing and promotion you’re going to struggle breaking into the spotlight.
You don’t have to struggle on your own though. Good distributors can help along the way, providing playlisting guidance, sync pitching tips and general industry advice.
Alongside the traditional music promotion tasks you’ll need to carry out like touring and word-of-mouth, promoting your music on Instagram and TikTok is essential to success nowadays. We suggest planning out and scheduling your social posts well in advance to maximise your releases and get more eyes on your content. You’ll thank yourself later.
Music apps like Spotify for Artists also have loads of cool features that you can use within your marketing, such as Countdown Pages and Canvas. Check them out and consider including them in your next campaign. Your listeners love to see you trialling new ideas.
5. Preparing your music for distribution
To make sure everything runs smoothly during the distribution process, we highly recommend getting a few things ready prior to your release date.
Tip: Giving yourself (and your distributor) enough time to prepare your release is vital. We recommend uploading your tracks at least 3-4 weeks before your planned release date to avoid any issues.
First up, you’ll need to make sure your music is in a wav., mp3 or FLAC file format. These formats are favoured by streaming platforms and ensure the quality of your recorded track isn’t lost during the upload process.
Spotify and other major stores also request that your music is at least 16-bit quality. They’ll carry out loudness normalization on your tracks, but if you want to streamline things even further then stick to the ITU 1770 standard when finalising your songs.
Each streaming service has specific artwork guidelines too so stick to these before passing on to your distributor so everything runs smoothly.
Rough quality guidelines are 1400 x 1400 pixels and under 10MB in size so you won’t go too far wrong by following these, but check out the specific guidelines of each store you want to send music to.
Your cover art can’t contain:
- Any social media handles/logos
- Any website links
- Brand or record label logos
- Any random text (artist/song/album names are fine)
You’ll be able to include your label logos on your artwork IF you’ve included this info on your release metadata.
Lastly, and most importantly, we have your music metadata. Metadata is basically all the essential info about your tracks which distributors need to send to digital stores.
Key metadata includes information like:
- The primary artist name
- Any featured artists
- Your song or album title
- Writer and producer info
- Your ISRC code
Tip: As simple as it might sound, we can’t stress enough the importance of double (and triple) checking your metadata for any spelling mistakes!
Providing metadata that is as accurate as possible is only going to help your release flow that bit smoother. Distributors abide by the guidelines set out by the music stores – it’s not their rulebook. They only have your best interest in mind, so make sure to provide everything they ask for otherwise your music won’t get accepted.
Important metadata like ISRC codes ensure you get the royalties you’re owed by matching up your music catalogue to the streams and downloads they’ve received.
These codes act as a digital footprint for each of your tracks and allow streaming platforms to track your sales and streams accurately. Without a valid ISRC, stores won’t accept or distribute your music, as it’s essential for royalty and sales tracking.
No need to stress though, your distributor will provide you with an ISRC for each release you upload to them. They can generate these codes for you as they are already registered with local IFPI organisations wherever you’re based, such as PPL in the UK.
On top of making sure you get paid what you’re owed, metadata is highly important for boosting the discoverability of your music – helping it appear in searches across streaming platforms and stores. For example, if your track has been correctly tagged with the keywords ‘Jazz’ and ‘House’ and someone has searched for these terms on Spotify, then, in theory, your track would pop up.
Once you have your audio file, artwork and metadata together, you just need to pass them along to your distributor who will handle all of the logistics of encoding and delivering this information accurately to the music streaming stores.
Tip: We suggest keeping a record of your metadata and ISRCs somewhere safe. You might need this if you ever switch distributors.
6. What relationship do distributors have with streaming platforms?
Many distributors can also help out with marketing and promotional tasks to boost your music’s visibility and reach. Good distributors have long-standing relationships with all major streaming platforms and can advocate for playlist placement, feature spots, and other promotional opportunities if they really like the sound of your release. Having the backing of a big distributor gives your music more credibility, swaying streaming platforms towards adding your song to their hot playlists.
We know that Ditto’s team, for example, works with the stores to secure these placements on editorial playlists and music blogs and can also submit your music for sync licensing opportunities – throwing your music into the spotlight of TV shows and movies.
Distributors with in-house promotion teams can even provide additional expertise around social marketing strategies and playlist pitching to boost your chances even further.
With the right promotional support and backing, you can maximize the reach of your release and keep your fans engaged at the same time.
7. How much does music distribution cost?
Digital distribution costs vary between companies, but there are many affordable options for you to choose from.
A few companies, such as Ditto, let you keep 100% of everything you earn when using their service, whereas others ask for a cut of your royalties, so carefully weigh up which distribution option suits your needs best.
Now you’ve got the inside scoop on everything you need to pass on to music distributors, how to prepare your music for online releases and how a distributor can help promote your release, it’s time to get your music out there!
🎁 We managed to get you a promo code if you’d like to distribute your music with Ditto! Save 20% on a Ditto Music plan with the code GROOVER20.
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