Do you wanna be an official artist with your music on all those global music streaming platforms?
Well, then you’re in the right place. In this post I will cut the shit and make this as straight to the point as possible to not waste your time or mine (I got shit to do).
First of all you need to make sure that you can sing/rap and write songs, writing songs is not as important nowadays because there are a bunch of songwriters that will be happy to ghost write for you for a very low price. With that being said, you better write your own shit if you wanna earn some respect around here (I mean from your fans, followers and friends).
Second of all, No it is not magic, and it is not just having lyrics and a good voice/good flow, that’s barely 20% of it. I guess by now you’re like “so what the fuck do I gotta do to get this shit done?”
Alright, here it is step by step:
Step 1: Go to YouTube and find yourself a nice beat, if you are a little on the pro side and wanna search for a specific type beat you can also go to Beatstars and create an account, then look for specific beats, follow producers that you like, save beats that you like, or even write lyrics within that platform, they also offer their platform on a mobile app so it will make your life a hell lot easier.
Step 2: No, you don’t buy the beat and start working, don’t rush. Listen to the beat, feel the energy and the vibe, write your song and practice it.
Step 3: Make sure that you are gonna nail this song, because I am not gonna sit here and encourage you to buy beats you wont end up perfecting or even finishing.
Step 4: You need to either find a studio that will record you, or go to step 5 to record yourself.
Step 5: Okay if you are gonna do it independently, keep in mind the following, you will fuck up and it’s okay, just don’t bother the public with it until it is perfect and until you learn from your mistakes, unless of course you want people to clown you. Get yourself a Mic, a condenser mic would be preferable, get a sound card for example: M Audio Sound Card, if you are in Oman visit House of Music on Instagram, they got what you need. Ensure that you are recording in good acoustic room, you don’t want that echo and unpleasant room reverb to fuck up your song, trust me. Oh and of course, you need a laptop and a Recording software like Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, Adobe Audition, etc. (Youtube how to set them up and how to use them)
Step 6: Once you’re done recording the main vocal track, backgrounds, adlibs and all the other stuff, you gotta work on your mix, equalizing, adding reverb, using a compressor and using any other effect/plugin to either enhance or clean up your recording.
Step 7: So now you got yourself a nicely mixed song, and you think you are ready, haha fuck no, you still gotta master that shit, that’s right, get in touch with a sound engineer online or whatever, and get your track mastered, cause guess what? it ain’t an easy job. Make sure the final file is a wav 44100, 16-bit depth. (For distribution)
Step 8: Make a dope artwork and if you suck at that, contact @artify.music on instagram for the hookup.
Step 9: Okay now you got your shit together and you wanna distribute your song to the world, cool stuff, go to Tune Core, CD Baby or Distrokid and make an account, I personally recommend Tune Core.
Step 10: setup your account with them, then register publishing, and then go to BMI (through Tune Core) or go to them on the web if you are using another distribution platform, and register there.
Step 11: Once you are done with all the boring stressful work, go on tunecore and create your new single, upload the artwork, enter all the information, upload your file, set release date, etc. And when you are done, a couple days later go and enter the shares in the publishing dashboard, most producers ask that you register 50% for you and 50% for them.
Step 12: which should have been step 11.5, make sure to set the release date 3 or 4 weeks ahead, cause spotify and the other platforms take time to deal with your shit, mhm, so you better give them some room to breathe otherwise you lose all your chances at getting placed on one of their special playlists variety.
Step 13: That’s it, go and tell everyone about it, go on YouTube and look up ways to promote your music on social media and get the word out.
Step 14: Once your song is live, you can request artist profile access through your songs for Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists and Anghami for Artists, get your profile looking good and complete.
Step 15: Got a question or something? leave it in the comments below, peace ✌️