starting a tech-house label

[jro323]

a few partners and i are in the beginning stages of forming an all digital tech-house record label.
we are in the process of educating ourselves and putting together the foundations of the business.
we are taking our time to get it right before we launch.
we have all been involved in "the scene" as djs and promoters.
i have some experience helping out with a small rap label and i've been doing plenty of research on
legal structure, financial accounting, distribution, promotion from grassroots on up, branding, etc.

we all understand that this is mostly for the love, and no one will become a millionaire for it.
we are also completely uninterested in losing the scarce cash we have on a bad gamble.
and of course - putting out great music - that we stand behind - is the big goal.

some specific concerns of mine are that i may be missing genre specific information in my studies.

for those of you working in techno/house/idm.
what have your experiences in dealing with labels (or better yet) forming your own label taught you?
any advice for the new kid? pitfalls to avoid? major points that can't be overlooked?
i'm kinda curious about the nuts and bolts here. contracts. advance payment size. publishing rights. etc.

how neccesary is beatport in comparison to other forms of distribution?
(besides putting out a few records by very famous producers) what would be other fast and
efficient ways score with distributors such as beatport?
if it's not possible to have a direct relationship with beatport how else would one go about it?
through what channels?

where are the majority of your sales coming from?
beatport? itunes? local heads? dj community? your myspace/facebook/twitter freinds? other sources?

can you recommend any books, websites, magazines, forums that go more in depth on this kind
of info as it relates to electronic dance music? like residentadvisor, beatportal, mnml.nl etc.

any advice at all is greatly appreciated.
thank you all for taking the time to read and consider.

[Digital Network]

Hi,

I started a Minimal Techno label (vinyl and digital).
Before to find your distributor, you must :

1) Prepare your project
2) Find releases for the next 6 months
3) Build a Website, a Myspace page and a Facebook page
4) Be able to explain your project at the distributor you'll contact

When all is ready, you must look for a digital distributor.

Excellent digital distributors :

1) Triple Vision
2) Symphonic Distribution
3) Straight Distribution
4) EPM

Beatport is the most important digial shop but they are very difficult to accept new labels in their catalog.

All the best,
Vincent

[jro323]

thanks.
the time frame and the distributor names help out alot.
are you releasing 2 a month or so? more? less?

[AJ Reynolds]

Beatport is roughly 90% of the dance music market (especially tech house)

[subsonix]

Originally Posted by AJ Reynolds

Beatport is roughly 90% of the dance music market (especially tech house)

Maybe for house/tech house, but not all dance music styles. They do well for their given field but not so well outside of that.

Great for what the op wanted though.

[lore]

Originally Posted by Digital Network

Hi,
Before to find your distributor, you must :

1) Prepare your project
2) Find releases for the next 6 months
3) Build a Website, a Myspace page and a Facebook page
4) Be able to explain your project at the distributor you'll contact

When all is ready, you must look for a digital distributor.

+1
try to build a businnes plan on an excel sheet (fixed costs,variable costs,incomes, breakeven...) and experiment adding/removing variables to understand what's needed to survive ...
i'll stress again on the project side ! you must persuade distributors that you know what you're doing and you're not just a kid smoking pot .
for the legal side of the label you should speak with the company handling all the copyright in your country (here in Belgium SABAM, France Sacem,Italy SIAE ...)

[XAXAU]

Originally Posted by AJ Reynolds

Beatport is roughly 90% of the dance music market (especially tech house)

Are you sure? Junodownload.com is not exactly a small site?

[axm311]

I co-own a vinyl/digital label and the lion's share of returns come from beatport, hardly anything from junodownload in comparison, but YMMV

[Digital Network]

If you only sell on Beatport, I think you can release every week.
If you sell on all the shops, that's 2 releases max per month.

[Kindred]

Originally Posted by XAXAU

Are you sure? Junodownload.com is not exactly a small site?

On my labels I would do -

95% beatport
2.5% juno
2.5% djdownload

[jimdon]

i always buy from junodownload, for british music they are spot on

for other stuff i tend to have to go to beatport

[ischibay]

sorry vinyl only here

[AJ Reynolds]

Originally Posted by ischibay

sorry vinyl only here

hows it going for you?

[axm311]

release once a week?? wow, that's a little overkill I would say, 52 releases a year I would say quality not quantity (imho)

[AJ Reynolds]

Originally Posted by axm311

release once a week?? wow, that's a little overkill I would say, 52 releases a year I would say quality not quantity (imho)

i can't think of any consistently good labels who release that much music. lets say the average release has 3 tracks, thats 156 tunes a year!

[XAXAU]

Thanks for the info guys. Now I know where to sell my tracks

[grantlandau]

ya, once you release on a record label that releases that much music and realize how little attention the label pays to each release, you find the whole deal rather insulting and impersonal.

you're not selling fkn big macs here.

[XAXAU]

Ya, for sure. But if your music is really good it will sell itself. So you might as well start your own label. Just make sure you have 3-4 releases done and got support from som big names.

[jro323]

thanks again to all, this is helpful
i certainly didn't have any plans on trying to release
1 record a week. who has the resources for that?
who would want to?

besides the regulars like myspace, facebook, label website,
twitter, etc.. are there any venues (online - offline)
that absolutely cannot be missed as far as pushing
and promoting this genre of records?

what successes have you guys had?
any hard learned lessons?

[merveilleux]

Hi Mate,

I'm in your seat, setting up a tech house/techno label.
Besides the obvious purpose of releasing great music, It's an output for my own material as well. The ambition is to save up all the (small) accumulated profit, in order to press some releases on vinyl.

Before approaching a distributor, you should have at least 3-5 releases "ready for release", that means mastered, cleared, contracts signed with the artists. This way you'll show the distributor that you're serious about what you do, and that their investment in time and effort for your label will grow a seed to a serious business venture. I've heard stories about label managers getting "tired" after two releases, ending their business - which explains why many distributors have pretty hard criterias with accepting labels today.

You should definately go for it! I'm sure it's a really interesting process, as well as a fun project! Good luck

[FilthyB]

Sorry for the hijack but I'm in the same boat setting up a new label. Anyone know of a good checklist for a label selling digital content only?

[FilthyB]

Originally Posted by jro323

a few partners and i are in the beginning stages of forming an all digital tech-house record label.
we are in the process of educating ourselves and putting together the foundations of the business.
we are taking our time to get it right before we launch.
we have all been involved in "the scene" as djs and promoters.
i have some experience helping out with a small rap label and i've been doing plenty of research on
legal structure, financial accounting, distribution, promotion from grassroots on up, branding, etc.

we all understand that this is mostly for the love, and no one will become a millionaire for it.
we are also completely uninterested in losing the scarce cash we have on a bad gamble.
and of course - putting out great music - that we stand behind - is the big goal.

some specific concerns of mine are that i may be missing genre specific information in my studies.

for those of you working in techno/house/idm.
what have your experiences in dealing with labels (or better yet) forming your own label taught you?
any advice for the new kid? pitfalls to avoid? major points that can't be overlooked?
i'm kinda curious about the nuts and bolts here. contracts. advance payment size. publishing rights. etc.

how neccesary is beatport in comparison to other forms of distribution?
(besides putting out a few records by very famous producers) what would be other fast and
efficient ways score with distributors such as beatport?
if it's not possible to have a direct relationship with beatport how else would one go about it?
through what channels?

where are the majority of your sales coming from?
beatport? itunes? local heads? dj community? your myspace/facebook/twitter freinds? other sources?

can you recommend any books, websites, magazines, forums that go more in depth on this kind
of info as it relates to electronic dance music? like residentadvisor, beatportal, mnml.nl etc.

any advice at all is greatly appreciated.
thank you all for taking the time to read and consider.

Hi guys, please share anything you have found out so far. How is it going?

[Matt s]

Oh dear ...

lol, it's not quite that easy ... many people try to sell their stuff online and hope to license it to different territories and eventually have a hit record or sell enough to keep it going, I know many people who tried for years and never made a penny, on the contrary.

Without support from big DJ's, chart returns, charts, radio, promotion and most importantly, great records, it is likely to be a sour experience.

I'm not trying to put anyone off, I did exactly the same thing and started a couple of labels in 2001 for my output as an artist/producer, we had to shut one within a year, the other is still going Destined Records.
Although I had a couple of big hits, it's a very expensive baggage, you need to ask yourself the following :
*
Why do I want a label ?

Have I got enough money to facilitate at least one big name remix on a release ?

Can I afford to fail for the next 10 or 20 releases ?

Is anyone out there would be better than me for selling my records ?

*

Starting a tech-house label means you've just joined just about every other label who tries to break it on beatport.

If I were you, I would try to get my music attached to some big releases or big name artists (remixing for free in order to get your name around).
After you have the support from a few big DJ's and you know that they will listen to your music, you can try to do it with better chances of actually selling records.

Building your reputation is the key to the whole thing, without it, no one would care what records you're releasing.

Good luck never the less, I hope you break big !

[disco judas]

Hook up with the best mastering studio, drop the idm part, and sqrew the regular beatport techno,techhouse, minimal sound. 95% of it is crap, but 4% is cool, actually. By cool I mean timeless, not sounding like 2008 crap


And beatport is to expensive!!!! you should get a 4 track ep classic dance music for less than a dollar imo, then people will buy,.

I think the only solution is paying a monthly fee for downloading, and owning as much music as you want

And sqrew the lookahead maxi L2 plugin at mastering, pleeease, its terrible

[ponybob]

Originally Posted by disco judas

And beatport is to expensive!!!! you should get a 4 track ep classic dance music for less than a dollar imo, then people will buy,.

at least you are not saying you should get a classic dance 4tracker for free... would you pay more for a deathmetal track? is jazz more worthy than blues?

[disco judas]

Originally Posted by ponybob

at least you are not saying you should get a classic dance 4tracker for free... would you pay more for a deathmetal track? is jazz more worthy than blues?

Is it obvious that all recorded music should cost the same?

I most other products you pay for the cost of production.

[merveilleux]

Originally Posted by Matt s

Oh dear ...
...you need to ask yourself the following :
*
Why do I want a label ?

Have I got enough money to facilitate at least one big name remix on a release ?

Can I afford to fail for the next 10 or 20 releases ?

Is anyone out there would be better than me for selling my records ?...

...After you have the support from a few big DJ's and you know that they will listen to your music, you can try to do it with better chances of actually selling records.

Building your reputation is the key to the whole thing, without it, no one would care what records you're releasing.

Good luck never the less, I hope you break big !

Good points!

BTW: You've got a GREAT looking website, and some nice music out, good luck w everything!

[science]

Congrats, you're about to join the ranks of the 15,000,000 people who had the same idea as you in the past few years

DJ -> "producer" -> "label owner"

Electronic music is ****ed.

[brightbyrd]

Originally Posted by science

Congrats, you're about to join the ranks of the 15,000,000 people who had the same idea as you in the past few years

DJ -> "producer" -> "label owner"

Electronic music is ****ed.

What's wrong with that?

If they suck they will fail. If they are good they may expose some wonderful music.

[science]

Normally that would be the case. Unfortunately, now that there is no overhead in running a "label", especially when you and 2 of your equally talentless friends are the only people on it and all your distribution is digital, failure doesn't mean they go away.

Half of these kids spend about 3 weeks with reason before they consider themselves "pro". Now that all the work has been taken out of releasing music, there aren't as many filters holding the shit back.