Recently, I was asked about how I signed music to underground labels and the process. To provide some context, my experience is mainly in the UK Drum & Bass scene, and I have been signing music to labels since 2011. This is not an exhaustive guide, just my thoughts on the topic. With that in mind, let’s dive in.

Research the Label

The first thing to do is research the label that you want to work with. When I was hoping to sign music to Metalheadz, I had been listening to their music for about 20 years and had loved the music and the whole vibe of the label for such a long time that the research was easy. I rewatched the Talkin’ Headz - The Metalheadz documentary and listened to my favourite from the back catalogue. Inner Terrain and I sat down and tried to describe the sound of the label as clearly and succinctly as possible. We boiled it down to 4 essential words to describe the sound. Each tune we wrote needed to be on that same wavelength and feature those key aspects. Importantly, you also need to bring your own flavours and sound to the music, but it needs to suit the label too.

I think this is a balancing act that a lot of people get wrong at the beginning, that they will change their music completely to fit a label. But ideally, what you make should be a good fit for the label and also what is right for you as an artist at that time. Labels don’t need a copy of what they already have, but they might be interested in your take on that sound.

Another thing about approaching labels is that if they have no idea who you are whatsoever, it is going to be much harder to cut through and get heard. So we tried to go to events, meet DJs, and meet people on the label. Not in a way that is just trying to get music signed, but truthfully and genuinely that you like the music and the scene.

Quality

Most people need a few years (approx 5 years) of producing under their belt before they are ready to send music out to labels. This isn’t true for everyone. Personally, it took about 10 years of making music before I signed my first release, but I also know people who have been ready in a matter of years (normally, in this case, they had a great support team around them).

So if you have just finished your first track and want to get it signed, it might be a little ambitious. There are always the fringe cases and outliers, but in most cases a few years of dedicated work are required to reach the quality levels most labels would expect. It also takes time to develop the skill of being able to detach from your music and be realistic and critical about the quality of the work. It is important to be able to separate yourself from the music, at least momentarily to understand that the people running the label are also running a business.

One tip I have found about judging the quality of music is testing the time sensitivity. If you get the feeling that a tune needs to be released ‘right now’ because of something that is happening in the scene and this tune would do amazing in this moment then that is a major warning sign. There are a few reasons why, the most pragmatic reason is that the process of releasing a tune takes time, there is mastering, contracts, artwork, promos and sending out to distributors. Labels also probably have at least the next few months’ releases in the pipeline minimum, and you are joining the back of that queue most of the time. Secondly, music that has really stayed with me over the years tends to tell a story or has some features that give it a sense of timelessness. So if you are not going to be happy with that song in a few years time, maybe that is a sign that the quality is not quite there yet. If you have to release that tune right now, maybe consider your own Bandcamp for things to be a little less permanent. Once a song is out in the world, it is hard to take it back completely.

If you want to improve the quality of your music, the solutions are pretty straightforward. Make lots and lots of music, and use some of the label’s notable songs as reference material to test your work against for musical and technical quality.

To promote my services for a moment… You could also consider getting 1-to-1 music production lessons. It is also good to get feedback from people to get a second opinion on where you are currently at and potential areas for improvement. I can’t promise it will get your music signed; that part is up to you and the hard work you put in, but having a mentor can really help to streamline the learning process, so if you are really serious, you can have me personally coach you.

As a final note on quality, I always like the story about Michael Jackson on his album. I’m not sure about the truth of this completely, but he wrote somewhere between 200-700 demos (as legend has it) of song ideas for Thriller. This was then narrowed down to 30 approx serious contenders, and even in the final stages of the album, some songs were pulled at the last moment for not being good enough and replaced. This is the process I apply to my music, and it has helped me with my biggest projects to date.

Quantity

How much music should I send to a label? Most of the time, record labels will give you clear information on how much music they want you to send. For example, some submission portals might say ‘send your best 2 tracks’. This is pretty clear and straightforward.

However, when you don’t have as much guidance or information, I would consider sending approximately double the number of tracks that you hope to sign. This allows the A&R to be able to select and curate something that suits both the label and the artist. To go into more detail. If you are looking to sign a Single (1-2 tracks), then I would consider sending 4 tunes to the label so that they could pick their favourites, and you should also be happy with all 4, so it is a win-win situation.

For an EP (4-8 tracks), again, I would send approx 10 tracks and mention that I am hoping to sign an EP with them. Sometimes it might even go really well and turn into a bigger project, so it can be good to have some extra tracks in reserve to be able to meet that opportunity with high-quality music and not something that has been rushed to meet the demand.

If you want to sign an Album to a label, then hopefully you would already have a relationship with them because this might mean sending them 12-15 tracks of your best work to date and developing the album together over time. I think it would be slightly rarer to send a full album to a label cold and they sign it immediately, but not impossible.

In the past, when I have really wanted to stand out, I have sent folders of 25+ songs to labels. This is when I am hoping to make an impression and show that I am serious about writing music and working with them. I have also heard stories of people sending 40-50 tracks to labels. I think this is a risky move because at those points, it might be too much music for them to be able to listen to it properly. You would also need to be certain that you could keep the quality super high for that many tracks, which is a lot of work, but not impossible.

Collaborations

At the start of my path of signing music, I was super grateful to my pal Phil, who had been making music a little longer than me and is a bit further on in his career too. The first vinyl release I ever had was with my pal Phil through a collaboration. This wasn’t me bugging people online, saying Collab Bro? We had been friends for a while from uni and had spent a few years helping each other with production, and the collaborations happened naturally. This would be one of my top recommendations is to collaborate with people to learn and help others grow in their music too. I would say that some of my most successful music has been through collaboration. However, it is not always an easy road and at the beginning, I had a lot to learn about checking my ego. Over time, I learnt that in the studio, whenever someone has an idea, it is important to at least give it a real try for 5 minutes before moving on to the next thing. If you say no to too many ideas, people stop suggesting and maybe less inclined to work with you. As always, you also want to be able to bring your own stamp and ideas and not just rely on others to do all the work, so as usual, it is about finding a good balance.

Rejection

If you are sending music to labels, you need to be prepared for rejection. However, what I have found to be more difficult than rejection is no response at all. This is what is more likely to happen. Labels will get sent so much music that it will be difficult for them to respond to everyone. So you need to find a way to deal with that. If you can get feedback on why it is not good enough, that is awesome, but it would be unrealistic to expect a label to have time to be able to do this.

My approach to this is to send music to a label and be prepared to wait about a month. I might send a follow-up email to politely check if they got the files, but only once. If I don’t hear back after a few more weeks, I have my answer: the tracks were not right for the label. This doesn’t mean they were not good enough, but maybe just not what the label is looking for right now. At that point, I might consider sending them to someone else or more likely, I might self-release the music on my own Bandcamp.

What is a good deal?

This is not legal advice, and everyone thinking about signing a record contract should definitely get legal advice from a legal professional before they sign anything.

However, just a general tip that I have found is that if the label wants YOU to pay THEM, that is a huge red flag. I would not consider this at any point.

Instead, what is more common is that the label will pay for the upfront costs such as mastering, artwork, promotion and release. They will first recoup their losses from the record sales and strems, and then after that is repaid from sales, you have a 50/50 split on anything after that. This is not always the case, but this is a really tricky area of the industry, and definitely I would recommend getting proper legal advice, not just reading my blog on the internet 😁.

Value

An important thing to consider is the question, What are you providing for the label? There are lots of different types of value you can provide to a label, of course, there is your music which is the main product that they can sell. However, if you can help them sell tickets for the next event because you have a small but loyal following, this might be an extra incentive for the label. The same goes if you have already built something for yourself, such as a small label, club night, podcast or channel. You might also bring other positive things to the label, such as diversity, a different type of sound, listeners from a different country or musical genre.

I think this is something to really think about and to make sure that you are building in the background, whilst making music. That way, you are not just relying on the label to do everything, but instead, you are also bringing something valuable to the table.

Final Tips

Make sure to label each of your songs clearly with: ARTIST NAME - Song Title - contact@email - contact number - put this right in the file name of every song. So often, I have heard label owners and DJs say something similar to, “I have an awesome tune called 'Jungle Tune Mix v2’ but the promo didn’t get named, and now I don’t know who made it”. I have made this mistake in the past and only found out years later that it was a problem.

Try to be patient, it is easy to want to rush into signing music, but if it is meant to happen, it will. The process of getting it right is simple: make stuff, show people, improve and repeat. If you keep doing that, eventually the right people will see.

Featured