Measure Your Performance

Success is unique for every artist. By understanding your Artist Analytics, you can pinpoint the areas that deserve your attention and drive your growth.

Listening Now: This metric displays the number of fans actively streaming your music. It counts only online plays and excludes offline listening.

Plays: A play is counted when a user listens to a track for more than 30 seconds on Apple Music. This includes plays from Apple Music radio stations, which can be user-generated or curated by Apple.

Average Daily Listeners: This represents the average number of unique listeners per day within a selected time frame.

Purchases: This is recorded when a customer buys your song or album from the iTunes Store.

Shazams: Every time your song is identified by the Shazam app or partner apps using Shazam technology, it is counted as a Shazam.

Radio Spins: This measures how often your song is played on over 40,000 terrestrial and digital radio stations worldwide, excluding Apple Music Radio.

Milestones: This section highlights key achievements and all-time bests for your music, including top plays, top Shazams, and editorial playlist additions.

Video Views: A view is counted when a user watches your music video on Apple Music for more than 30 seconds.

Apple Music for Artists provides detailed performance analytics for:

• Songs: Total plays of a song across all albums and compilations.
• Albums: Plays of any album, EP, or single release.
• Playlists: Inclusion in Apple Music editorial playlists.
• Videos: Views of any music video available on Apple Music.

Discover Who’s Listening Now

Get real-time insights into how many fans are currently streaming your music. The Listening Now widget shows the number of listeners who have initiated playback at any given moment.

Selecting the widget gives you a detailed view of trends over the past 48 hours. Maximum Listeners indicates the peak number of listeners at any time during this period, while Average Listeners reflects the average number during this timeframe. You can also see your six most-played songs under Top Songs Now.

Note: For privacy reasons, a minimum listener threshold must be met to display Listening Now analytics. Gaps in data may occur if this threshold is not reached.

Track Your Radio Spins

The Radio Spins feature, integrated throughout the Apple Music for Artists platform, allows you to monitor airplay across more than 40,000 radio stations in over 200 countries and regions. Visit the Trends page for detailed insights into which stations play your music the most and which songs from your catalog are most popular. Use the Places page to discover where your music is being broadcast worldwide.

Connect with Listeners Globally

The Places tab in Artist Analytics shows where your listeners are located by city, state, country, or region. Use filters to track the popularity of new releases and identify potential tour locations.

Discover Global Impact and Trends

The Trends tab helps you analyze your music’s performance by comparing listener actions. Apply filters to learn about listener demographics, including gender, age, location, and their favorite songs.

Maximize Shazam Insights

When users Shazam your song, you gain valuable insights into its reach. Learn what happens when someone uses Shazam to identify your track and how this information can benefit you.

Data Availability

Data is displayed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and updates daily. New data may take up to 48 hours to appear in your dashboard.

Different distributors may release your music at various points in your career. We aggregate this data into a single track group, displaying one cover art to represent it.

Note: For financial or royalty queries, please contact your distributor.

Download Your Data

In the Music section, click “See All” to download data from your entire catalog. Ensure you set the date range before downloading your CSV file

Jamvana.com is excited to introduce a suite of powerful new features that provide artists with deep insights into their music’s performance. With real-time data on listener engagement, artists can now track how many fans are currently streaming their tracks, analyze radio spins across 40,000+ stations worldwide, and explore listener demographics by city, state, country, or region. The platform also offers detailed metrics for plays, purchases, Shazams, and video views, helping artists understand what’s driving their success. Additionally, Jamvana.com now includes tools for monitoring trends and milestones, offering a complete picture of your music’s impact. With these features, artists can make informed decisions on where to focus their efforts to maximize their reach and growth.

The post Understand your analytics first appeared on Jamvana.

Understand your analytics

August 15, 2024 No Comments

Success varies for each artist. Understanding how to interpret your Artist Analytics can guide you in identifying the specific areas to prioritize.

Read More »

Pitch Your Music To YouTube with Jamvana

June 3, 2024 No Comments

From playlists to Shorts, we’re dedicated to building surfaces and tools to make it easier to amplify your music and grow your audience. Today, we’re delivering on your long-standing asks by introducing Loudspeaker, YouTube’s next-generation pitching tool designed for scale as we enable new multi-format opportunities across YouTube. Loudspeaker brings all of the current functionality of Pitch Music with some new highly requested features, such as Drafts, Bulk Editing, Flexible scheduling, and more! At Jamvana, we’re pitching daily from our catalog and securing placements on YouTube and YouTube Music. Sing up with Jamvana today and start gaining exposure on the number one streaming service. 

Read More »

The post Don’t Put Your Music At Risk first appeared on Jamvana.

Musicians have consistently had to take on their own careers and manage them all by themselves, but with the the increasing amount of tools available to content creators online, stressing over organization, project management, and online storage backups are becoming a thing of the past.

All of these tools are built to make our lives easier. Some of the tools even allow you to automate entire workflows, saving you hours of time and a lot of money.

So, musicians, let’s dig into the best tools to for your arsenal in 2023.

Note: The information presented in this article, such as pricing and package offerings, is subject to change at any time and may differ than what’s posted in this article. We will do our best to keep the information here updated, but if you’re interested in using one of the products, check their website for their most updated packages and pricing.

Here are the 31 best tools for musicians to grow their careers in 2023 and beyond.

DISCO

Sharing audio files on Dropbox, Google Drive, and SoundCloud is not as ideal anymore. DISCO has quickly become a gold standard for sharing audio files with others, especially music supervisors. They almost always use DISCO to organize their libraries of music. 

DISCO allows users to create playlists, upload stems, provide contact information, lyrics, publishing information, IPI numbers, and more directly in their upload, thus removing the need for multiple documents for each track.

DISCO’s “Lite” plan allows for one user and 500 tracks for $10/mo. “Plus” starts at $15/mo. and increases track limit to 1,000. Their “Pro” plan starts at $25/mo. and includes everything in the Plus plan as well as custom fields, password protection, and distributor ingestion. 

Box

Box is an online cloud storage platform that’s similar to Dropbox and Google Drive. They are one of the best cloud storage services on the market and are headquartered in Redwood City, California. 

Keeping all of your files in one centralized location makes it easier for you and your team to access them whenever, wherever. With Box, users can upload most file types, add comments for collaborating on documents, and backing up your files. 

Box offers an Individual, Personal Pro, Business Starter, and Business Plans. The individual plan is free for a single user, allows for a 250MB file upload limit, and 10GB of storage. Their Personal Pro plan is $14/user/mo. and provides up to 100GB of storage and a 5GB file upload. Their Business Plans range in price from $20/user/mo. to $47/user/mo. and allow for more users and unlimited storage, which may be more ideal if you’re looking to use it as a backup solution.  

Jamvana

Jamvana is a premiere music distribution platform that gives musicians the tools to distribute and monetize their music onto leading service providers like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more. They are headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

Getting your music onto digital distribution services is one thing, but getting it in front of the right audience is much more difficult. Jamvana’s custom-built content management system has tools built in to curate your audience, get playlisted, and get heard. Jamvana actively pitches music to DSPs and their playlist editors and work diligently to ensure your release goes as smoothly as possible.

In addition, Jamvana has the most transparent and detailed royalty reports of any other music distributor. With their standard subscription, you’ll get online backup solutions for your audio files and documents, music distribution, marketing tools, playlist pitching, and much more.

Jamvana offers a free plan and a subscription plan for $9.99/mo. and you’ll keep 100% of your royalties. Get started here.  

Google Drive for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms

Similar to Box, Google Drive is a great solution for backing up, storing files, and working collaboratively with others.

The most attractive feature of having a free Google account are their office suite programs, such as Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Forms, among others. They’re continuously adding new features to each program. Docs and Sheets are great programs to utilize when writing lyrics, writing press releases, and keeping a rolodex of industry contacts. 

Their Google One plan provides multiple tiers that include 15GB for free, $1.99/mo. for 100GB, $2.99/mo. for 200GB, and $9.99/mo. for 2TB of storage.

Professional email address

The music industry is all about networking, so you’ll be sending and receiving a lot of emails. It’s important that you look professional online, and a branded email can help with that.

A branded email is an email that utilizes your artist, band, or business name. For example, instead of mybandrocks@gmail.com, you could have jane.smith@mybandrocks.com. 

There are a number of ways to go about creating this, but the easiest is to use Google Workspace. It’s easy to set up and will allow you to keep the aforementioned Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms under the same account. A Google Workspace account can be created for as little as $6/mo.

Explore the other methods of setting up a business email address.  

Digital audio workstation

A digital audio workstation (or DAW) is a computer application that provides musicians and producers to write, record, mix, and master their music.

No digital audio workstation is better than the other, per se, but they each will have different features that may make it easier for you to get ideas out when those moments arise. Just because one producer uses Ableton doesn’t mean that it’s going to work for you. Research which DAW has the features you’re looking for and explore those options extensively.

Here is a list of the most popular DAWs in 2022, according to MusicRadar:

• Cubase
• Studio One
• Bitwig
• Ableton
• FL Studio
• Logic Pro X
• Reaper
• Reason
• Pro Tools
• GarageBand
• Mixcraft
• Cakewalk by BandLab

DocuSign

DocuSign is an e-signature company headquartered in San Francisco, California. With DocuSign, users can upload documents and send them to the parties who need to sign. 

Before working with anybody on music (including your best friend) it’s important to have agreements written and signed by everybody contributing to the work. These agreements typically include who owns how much of the publishing and the master, admin privileges, how royalties are split up, and more.

You can use a program like Google Docs to draft up a basic agreement and then use DocuSign to have the other parties digitally sign it. This acts as a legal-binding document.

DocuSign offers a free 30-day trial to get you started. Their Personal plan is $15/user/mo., Standard is $45/user/mo., and Business Pro is $65/user/mo. You can also choose to pay annually and save $120, $300, or $480, respectively. 

Alternatives to DocuSign: HelloSign, Adobe Sign 

Songtrust

Songtrust is a music publishing administration company. They provide tools that allow artists and songwriters to collect their music publishing royalties. They are headquartered in New York and owned by Downtown Music Holdings.

Songtrust will collect your publishing royalties from around the globe while you maintain 100% ownership of your music. Should you land a sync deal, you’ll retain 100% of the sync fees. They have contracts with more than 215 collection societies around the world.

When your song is played on radio in France, Songtrust will collect those royalties. If it’s aired on a TV show in Switzerland, they’ll collect those royalties.

It’s worth noting that Songtrust is not a publisher. 

Songtrust costs a flat one-time fee of $100 to get set up. They’ll then keep 15% of the royalties they collect.

Unless you want to manually strike deals with collection societies for your publishing royalties across Europe, Africa, or Asia, then Songtrust is well worth the $100 fee and 15% of the royalties.  

Camera

It’s very important to be able to put out high quality photos and videos. You most likely already own a high end camera: your phone. 

Any mobile device made within the last 3-5 years is likely capable of shooting HD photos and videos. They can be used to create social media content and even film music videos.

The music video for Lady Gaga’s “Stupid Love” was shot entirely on an iPhone Pro 11. Watch the official music video below.

Gumroad

Gumroad is an online e-commerce platform that allows content creators, including musicians, to sell digital products. They were founded in 2011 and are headquartered in San Francisco, California. 

In the digital world, people want and will pay for just about anything if they can have instant access to it and it’s helpful. This also gives fans of artists’ work another avenue to support them.

To give you some ideas, you could sell sheet music, the WAV file to your latest single, a project file, top 10 lists, a subscription to a mini series, and much more. Think of your talents and how you could package them up into a digital asset that you could sell. If successful, selling digital goods on Gumroad may provide you with a really strong source of revenue alongside your streaming income.

Gumroad is free to get started, and as you sell more they will take less in fees.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a website building and hosting company headquartered in New York. Their online website builder is easy to use, set up, and affordable. Features include e-commerce integrations with platforms like Shopify, appointment scheduling, and free templates.

Websites for musicians help with their visibility in the digital realm. They act as a digital resume where fans and industry professionals can go to find and read everything about you. Some pages that should be on an artist’s website include a biography, high resolution press pictures, social media links, and music.

Squarespace offers four different plans: Personal ($23/mo.), Business ($33/mo.), Basic Commerce ($36/mo.), and Advanced Commerce ($65/mo.). 

Their personal plan is probably sufficient enough for artists just getting started; however, the inclusion of the professional email, as we discussed above, from Google is a nice perk in their Business plan. 

MasterClass

MasterClass is an online learning platform that hosts courses from musicians like Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, deadmau5, Alicia Keys, and more. Their courses span a wide gamut of cooking, film making, sports, music, and more so it’s not just for music.

Continuing education is vital to remaining with the times. The music industry evolves at an alarming rate, and new techniques and programs are always being introduced. MasterClass is a solid solution for independent music professionals to remain at the top of their game.

Starting at $15/mo., one user can sign up for MasterClass’s Individual plan. Their Duo plan offers one account for two devices for $20/mo. Finally, they have a Family plan for one account and six devices for $23/mo. The difference between the plans is the Individual one does not offer downloading for offline viewing.

Alternatives to MasterClass: LinkedIn Learning, SkillShare, Coursera

Splice

Splice is a cloud-based music creation and collaboration platform. They offer industry-leading sample libraries, audio plug-ins, and integrations with most digital audio workstations, including Ableton, Logic Pro X, and FL Studio. 

Losing your projects is a nightmare and worst-case scenario for every musician and producer. Artists can save and automatically backup their projects with every digital audio workstation to Splice for free. Their paid subscriptions grant access into the sample libraries, plug-ins, exclusive online events, and more. Even if you’re not interested in using their sample libraries, saving them to the cloud and having unlimited storage is a no-brainer.

Splice offers three plans: Sounds+ for $14.99/mo., Creator for $19.99/mo., and Creator+ for $39.99/mo. 

Linktree

Linktree is a free “link in bio” tool and landing page for content creators. They are headquartered in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.

The way that Linktree works is that creators get one link that they can use in social media bios, emails, SMS marketing, and more. This Linktree link will take people who click on it to a landing page “tree” that links to other places, such as a merch store, Spotify profile, place to buy tickets for a tour, a recent podcast interview, and more. You can link to where you’d like. 

Linktree has a few tiers, including a free tier. Their Starter plan is $5/mo., Pro is $9/mo., and Premium is $24/mo. All plans include unlimited links, a QR code, music links, Spotify embeds, and social icons.

Alternatives to Linktree: SmartURL, Koji, Tap Bio, Linkin.bio, Taplink

Hunter.io

Hunter.io is a program used to find and verify email addresses. Their program scrapes the internet for contact information for people at various organizations. Personally, I’ve used this application in the past and have found it to be very useful. 

Trying to contact someone at a record label or publishing company can be difficult unless you already know someone who has previously connected with them. As mentioned above, you’ll most likely be reaching out to these people quite frequently. Unless someone is very public facing, it can be difficult to get in touch with them and Hunter can help find and verify that email address. 

Hunter uses a number of techniques to find and verify emails, such as scouring the internet and skimming, for example, an article a person may have done where their email is published. 

While incredibly helpful and valuable, their pricing can get expensive if you’re on a budget. They do have a free plan that allows for 25 monthly searches and 50 monthly verifications. After that their Starter plan is $49/mo., Growth is $99/mo., Pro is $199/mo., and Business is $399/mo. 

Alternatives to Hunter.io: RocketReach, ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, and UpLead

Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a social audio platform that rose to prominence in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. They used to be invite-only, but it is now open to everyone on iOS and Android. They are headquartered in San Francisco, California and developed by Alpha Exploration Co.

Clubhouse is a great place to connect with other music professionals, perform live in rooms, and join in on conversations to showcase your expertise. A number of high profile experts across varying sectors of music are always joining in on rooms sharing their knowledge. It’s a best practice to find and follow the people you want to learn from so you are notified when they speak in a room. 

Clubhouse is free to join and use. 

Alternatives to Clubhouse: Twitter Spaces, Facebook Live Audio Rooms, Reddit Talk, Spotify Greenroom

GigSalad

GigSalad is a full-service platform for booking gigs. Musicians and creatives alike can join the platform and start getting booked for events in their area. They are headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. 

Musicians looking to get their name out there could use GigSalad to expand their horizons and begin performing at events like weddings, concerts, birthday parties, and much more. If you live in a music hub like Los Angeles or Nashville, for example, you never know who’s going to be at a birthday party you’re hired for. That could be your next big break!

GigSalad offers a few tiers for those looking to get their name out and start getting events booked. They offer a free plan, but they claim it provides the fewest leads and there’s a 5% booking fee. Their Pro plan is $139/3 mos., and Featured is $169/3mos. and they claim it garners an average of 26x more leads than the Free plan. 

Alternatives to GigSalad: The Bash, StarNow, Backstage, Jammcard

Bandcamp

Acquired by Epic Games in 2022, Bandcamp is an online music streaming service that gives musicians an alternative to selling their music. Fans can purchase high quality music directly from their favorite artists. They are headquartered in Oakland, California.

Bandcamp is a great tool for musicians because of its ease of use and ability for fans to easily connect and support the music they love. Similar to distributing music through a distributor like Jamvana, they give musicians the flexibility they need to release music when and how they want. They can also set a minimum price for how much they’d like to receive for their album.

Bandcamp is free to use, but they will take a commission on every sale. They’ll charge 15% for digital items and when you reach $5,000 in sales, that rate drops to 10%. Bandcamp also charges a 10% fee for physical items as well as shipping and tax and their payment processor fees between 4-6%.

Bandcamp is not a distributor. In order to get your music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc, you’ll need to use a music distribution service like Jamvana.

MusicTheory.net

MusicTheory.net is a free resource for everything related to music theory. You can practice scales, do ear training, and even take short lessons to freshen up on those pesky Neapolitan chords.

Staying fresh on music theory and learning new techniques will only better you as a musician, and MusicTheory.net is an impeccable resource for that. Their exercises are great if you find yourself with 15-minutes of downtime, like at the airport or the in-laws’ Thanksgiving get together.

Backblaze

Backblaze is an online cloud storage and data backup company that is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

Backblaze operates slightly differently than Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box does. It’s great for those with hard drives filled with samples, project files, and audio files. Download the free Backblaze application, plug in your hard drive, and it’ll begin uploading all of the files to Backblaze’s servers. You’ll get unlimited storage, files, and file size.

Backblaze will save up to 30 days worth of backups and then begin overwriting them with the most current ones after that. If your hard drive crashes, you can download the files for free from the web or have it shipped to you on a flash drive for $99 or an external drive for $189. You’ll receive a full refund upon the return of the flash drive or hard drive.

Their personal plan is only $7/mo. This plan should be sufficient for most musicians backing up one or a few hard drives.

Zapier

Zapier is an online tool with thousands of integrations between web applications, allowing users to automate almost everything. They are based in Sunnyvale, California.

There are endless use cases for musicians and Zapier. One example would be everytime someone purchases a song on Bandcamp, add their contact information to a Google Sheet. Then when that Google Sheet is updated, Zapier can be triggered to send a notification in your team Slack. The chain of automations and possibilities are unlimited. 

They do have a free tier, but it’s limited in features. Their other plans are:

• Starter: $29.99/mo.
• Professional: $73.50/mo.
• Team: $598.50/mo.
• Company: $1,198.50/mo.

The free plan should be enough to get your feet wet, and the Starter plan would be a great next step, especially if you’re going to need more automation.

Chartmetric

Chartmetric is an online service that provides musicians with comprehensive streaming and social media data so they can succeed in their careers.

The program operates by connecting streaming services and social media platforms and compiling the data into an easy-to-use and digestible dashboard. With this data, artists are able to obtain a 360-degree view of their career. They’ll be able to see how their music is performing on Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, and many other places.

This information will inspire additional marketing and growth opportunities and allow artists to make “money moves.”

Chartmetric is used by record label A&Rs, music supervisors, artists, digital marketers, and brand partnerships.

Chartmetric’s “Artist Plan” costs $10/mo. ($100/yr.) and gives subscribers full access up to three subscribed artists, 28 days of historical database, basic data access on millions of artists, and more. Their “Premium” plan, however, is the most robust. It costs $140/mo. ($1,399/yr.) and features the full historical database, audience demographic insights, A&R dashboard, and more.

Check out the hour-long video below to see how Chartmetric works and how you can use it to track your music on digital service providers.

Sound Credit

Sound Credit is a one-stop shop for your entire music and its metadata. They’ve essentially converted those detailed and confusing spreadsheets into an easy-to-use software. They also provide you with an ISNI, which is a vital piece of your metadata.

Sound Credit relaunched their pricing tiers with “Starter,” “Pro,” and “Business” packages, which start at $10/mo., $39/mo., and $99/mo., respectively. Each tier will give subscribers additional features, such as more storage, additional exports for metadata for mastering, lyric sheets, and more. With their “Pro” tier, subscribers will have access to the “Vault,” Sound Credit’s online storage solution.

Subscribers of Sound Credit can also use their program to share their profile using their Creator ID and collaborate with other musicians. This ensures all participants receive proper credit (and royalties).

Sound Credit provides an excellent suite of tools to keep all of your audio files and metadata in one easy to access location.

Mp3tag

Mp3tag is a desktop application for Windows and Mac that is used to edit the metadata of audio files. The application allows content creators to edit MP3, MP4, M4V, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, AIF, DSF, MPC, WV, and WAV files.

In addition, Mp3tag supports online database lookups from Discogs and MusicBrainz. Integration with these online music databases allows Mp3tag to properly tag and download cover art for users with large libraries of music.

Music metadata is one of the most important things that creatives forget about when releasing their music to the world. Without the proper, or incorrect, metadata, digital streaming platforms don’t know who to pay royalties to.

Canva

Think of Canva like an online version of Adobe’s Photoshop. It’s powerful, easy-to-use, and affordable. Canva is used by creatives in every sector of business, including music. The platform is used to create business sales reports, presentations, resumes, handbooks, social media graphics, and much more.

This handy little online tool can be used to create cover art, tour posters, social media graphics, and pitch decks for musicians.

Canva’s pricing is affordable and easy to understand. They offer a free version, which features their drag-and-drop editor, 250,000+ free templates, 1+ million free photos and graphics, and 5GB of cloud storage. Their “Canva Pro” plan is $12.99/month for one person. With this plan, subscribers can enjoy unlimited features, folders, and premium content; 610,000+ premium and free templates with new designs being added daily; and 100+ million premium stock photos, videos, audio and graphics.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Photoshop, then Canva is an excellent (and affordable) solution for creatives at all levels.

Spotify for Artists

Spotify for Artists is a musician’s goldmine for analytics on Spotify. This backend tool allows artists and their teams to develop their fanbases and discover who their fans are and where they’re located, among many other things.

Within your Spotify for Artists dashboard you’ll be able to see exactly where your music is being played, what playlists its featured in, and pitch to Spotify’s editorial playlists.

You’ll also be able to customize your Spotify profile directly within the Spotify for Artists app. It’s free to join, and we recommend all artists and musicians join it so they can see exactly how their music is performing on Spotify.

SubmitHub

SubmitHub is a tool that’s used by musicians to pitch their music to Spotify playlist owners, social media influencers, record labels, blogs, and more. It was founded in late-2015 by Jason Grishkoff.

For the most part, SubmitHub is free to use; however, some online publications, influencers, and playlist owners require a small fee to pitch to them. This covers the time it takes to thoroughly review and listen to your music. If you’re looking to pitch your music, SubmitHub is one of the most efficient and effective ways to do it.

SubmitHub currently works with Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, Ultra Music, Ninja Tune, and more.

Calendly

Calendly is the easiest and one of the best scheduling applications available. It’s easy to setup and frees up time for creatives so they don’t have to focus so heavily on the administrative tasks of booking meetings.

Calendly’s ability to automate the booking process removes the busywork for creatives. You can set your availability in the backend, connect it with your calendar, and setup specific meeting types. When you add a new event to your calendar, Calendly will update in realtime to ensure an event doesn’t get booked over that time.

If you’re a musician and are constantly doing studio sessions, or even consulting of any kind, then Calendly is a must-have in your arsenal.

Calendly does offer a free plan, but it’s limited in features and has the “Powered by Calendly” branding on everything. If you want to remove Calendly’s branding, you’ll need to upgrade to their Essentials ($10/seat/mo.), Professional ($15/seat/mo.), or their Teams plan ($20/seat/mo).

MusicPro Insurance

MusicPro Insurance is an insurance company that is tailored towards music professionals. The insurance company is co-owned by ASCAP and SterlingRisk. They launched in 2000 and have become a primary choice for insurance when it comes to protecting musicians’ musical instruments and equipment.

Insurance is crucial if you’re a musician who’s on the road a lot, or has amassed a large collection of hardware over the years, then insuring your livelihood is crucial.

Pricing for insurance varies on location, amount of gear you have, and how much it’s valued at. To get an accurate quote, check out their free coverage quote tool.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a creator marketing platform for musicians, authors, podcasters, and business owners. Their software allows musicians to build an audience quicker than any other email marketing platform out there. ConvertKit also makes it easy to create campaigns to send to fans and subscribers of your list.

Creatives shouldn’t spend hours designing and crafting email campaigns to send to fans and followers. It should remain simple and just work. That’s where ConvertKit thrives because it’s built for today’s content creators.

ConvertKit’s plans vary depending on how many subscribers your email list contains, like many other email marketing platforms out there. Plans range from $15/mo. for up to 300 subscribers on their “Creator” plan and go up to $2,599/mo. for up to 400,000 subscribers on their “Creator Pro” plan. If you need more, you’ll need to schedule a demo with the ConvertKit team.

Alternatives to ConvertKit: Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact

Asana

Asana is a robust project and team management platform. It’s used by companies in all sectors of business to organize, track, and manage their work. They are headquartered in San Francisco, California and launched commercially in 2012.

Managing huge, time-sensitive projects via email or notes just is not a solution anymore. Having one cohesive and organized dashboard for every project and where it’s at in the pipeline is crucial for efficiency and productivity.

For musicians specifically, Asana’s functionality would allow you to layout (and template for future uses) a single/EP/album release rollout. You can invite your band, team, and/or label to your dashboard so everyone can begin working on their assigned tasks. You’ll never forget to register a copyright, submit music to distribution, or miscommunicate with your graphic designer on tour graphics or album art again.

Asana offers a free tier, which is perfect for individuals and small teams who are just getting started with project management. If you find yourself needing additional features that Asana offers, you’ll need to upgrade to their “Premium” or “Business” plans, which cost $10.99/user/mo. and $24.99/user/mo., respectively.

Conclusion

There are new tools that can increase productivity popping up every single day and it can become difficult to sift through the herd of which ones are usable, how they function, and if they’re worth the price they’re charging. From automating your life with Zapier to selling your music on Bandcamp, all of these tools can fill in a blank in your career. 

The products and services listed in this post are some of the most beneficial for artists and musicians.

Are there any products or services we missed? Share them in the comments because we’re always looking for the best products to improve productivity.

The post 31 Best Software Tools and Services for Musicians in 2023 first appeared on Jamvana.

Music royalties are a complicated topic in the music industry, and things are constantly evolving. Apple Music, for example, pays a different amount of royalties than Spotify, TIDAL, and other digital service providers. Once those royalties are collected by your distributor, they need to be allocated to the appropriate copyright holders. But how much? When? Do I only need a music distributor to collect all of my royalties?

These are the questions we’re going to be answering in this blog post.

What are music royalties and who gets them?

Music royalties are the fees that an artist earns for their work when it is played on the radio, streamed on a streaming service, or downloaded on Beatport, among other things. They are paid by streaming services, radio stations, TV networks, and other companies or artists who play an artist’s music in a public setting. The keyword here is public. Performing a song or playing a song on Spotify for a private birthday party at your house is not a public performance; therefore, you do not need to acquire the proper licenses to play it. Performing that song at a club or coffee shop is a public performance and requires the proper license and permission from the copyright holders.

Royalties paid out by streaming services to music distributors is set on a per-song basis and it is usually paid out to the master copyright owner(s), which is typically the artist or label. Songwriter(s) and publisher(s) are also paid, but they are not paid by the distributor. However, some music distributors have the ability to collect and pay out mechanical royalties.

Songwriters can also earn a percentage of revenue from concerts where their songs are performed live or from merchandise sales if they have signed an exclusive publishing agreement with a particular company. These are called “360 deals.”

If you’re an artist and performing your music publicly at a local venue, you can earn royalties. That’s considered a public performance, and you should submit a setlist to your PRO ahead of time.

5 Different Types of Music Royalties and How They are Collected

Musicians are entitled to different types of royalties for their work. These royalties are collected by different entities, and the amount that is paid to the musician varies from one type of royalty to another.

Let’s take a look at the different types of royalties and how they’re collected.

Mechanical Royalties: This type of royalty is collected by a mechanical rights administrator on behalf of the songwriter or composer. In the United States, it’s the Mechanical Licensing Collective. Songtrust also collects these royalties, so if you’re registered with them you do not need to sign up to the MLC. The mechanical royalty is typically paid every time a song is streamed or sold. The amount that is paid can vary depending on a number of factors such as streaming vs. digital sales, international rates, etc.

Performance Royalties: This type of royalty is collected by performing rights organizations, such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, who collect money for public performances like radio broadcasts, TV broadcasts, live performances in theaters and nightclubs, etc. This money will go directly to the songwriters and not the publishers. However, according to Royalty Exchange, this landscape is changing, and publishers are wanting a bigger piece of the pie. The amount that you get paid for a song on Spotify, for example, depends on which country you’re in, but it’s typically between $0.00055 and $0.017 per stream, according to iGroove.

Streaming Royalties: A “streaming royalty” is a royalty that is paid to the sound recording copyright owner(s) and is negotiated between music distributors and streaming services. Every distributor negotiates a different rate, and this information is typically not publicly available. The streaming services commonly pay out 50% of their revenue to the artists on their platform, according to Soundcharts. This revenue is then split up amongst all of the artists. “The split is determined by ‘share of content’ or the number of streams a given artist has on the platform divided by all streams on the platform,” per Soundcharts.

Neighboring Rights/Digital Performance Royalties: This one’s a little confusing, but neighboring rights are similar to the public performance royalties that are paid to songwriters, except these royalties are paid out to the sound recording owners for public performances. In the United States, terrestrial radio does not pay out these royalties. Other countries do. Non-interactive streams (Pandora, SiriusXM) do earn royalties. Neighboring rights can also be considered “digital performance royalties,” but they do have a few slight differences. The organization that collects the digital performance royalties is SoundExchange.

Still confused? Sign up to our email list, and we’ll send you our music distribution checklist. It will walk you through every organization you need to sign up with and register your music.

How Digital Platforms Have Changed the Way We Collect Royalties

The music industry has changed drastically over the last few decades, and it’s only going to continue changing at a rapid pace. Digital service providers turned the music industry on its head and forced a paramount revolution in the music business.

Artists and labels didn’t have to focus on selling physical products anymore. They could distribute music to Spotify and have an infinite amount of people listen to the music without ever running out. Every time that music is streamed or downloaded (back in the days of iTunes) the artists, labels, songwriters, and publishers would get paid.

The industry at large has made significant strides towards this digital world, but legislatively it’s years behind. However, we are beginning to see progress.

Digital Services That Pay the Most for Artists’ Royalties

With the music industry constantly being in an ever-evolving state, streaming services are constantly updating and revising the amount that they pay out to the artists and songwriters on their platforms.

According to Producer Hive, the five highest paying streaming services are TIDAL, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music.

TIDAL: $0.01284 per stream

Apple Music: $0.008 per stream

Amazon Music: $0.00402 per stream

Spotify: $0.00318 per stream

YouTube Music: $0.002 per stream

Note: This is only for the streaming royalties and not for mechanicals, publishing, or performance royalties.

How do I get paid for my songs?

There are multiple ways that musicians can collect all royalties for their songs. One way is to register with a PRO (Performing Rights Organization) like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. Another way is to register with SoundExchange, which we discussed above. They’ll collect the digital performance royalties for the sound recordings.

Registration with a PRO allows you to collect royalties for broadcast performances of your song, such as on TV or radio.

You’ll also want to register with a music distributor, like Jamvana, in order to release your music to the streaming services and collect your royalties.

Registration with these organizations provides you the best opportunity to start collecting your royalties, but there are more.

Sign up to our email list to receive a free PDF guide with all of the organizations you should register with to collect all of your royalties.

Conclusion

Music royalties are a complicated topic in the music business, but they’re vital for all music professionals to understand. Signing up and registering with the appropriate organizations now will alleviate any stress and confusion later down the road when you get that smash hit—or career changing sync placement.

The post How Music Royalties are Collected and What You Need to Know About Them: The Complete Guide first appeared on Jamvana.

But is it the best day to release music? Why does the music industry release music on Fridays? Should you release your music on Friday?

Well, in this blog post, we’re going to talk about all of the above to help you decide if you should release your music on Fridays, as well as why the music industry releases on Fridays.

The Debate Over Releasing Music on Friday

There has always been a looming question in the music industry about what day of the week artists should release their music on. Some people argue that releasing it on a Friday is best because there are more listeners who are able to listen to the music then. This is mostly because people are tuned in and ready to listen to the newly released music. Furthermore, Spotify pushes out its Release Radar and updates in New Music Friday playlist on Fridays.

But other music professionals argue that releasing on a Monday is better because the music will be fresh in fans’ minds and there won’t be as much saturation from the swath of releases from the Friday before.

Why does the music industry release music on Fridays?

Prior to the summer of 2015, the music business in the US was set on Tuesdays for new releases.

But after the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the organization that represents record labels around the globe, conducted a survey with consumers the release day changed to Fridays. The study concluded that a majority of consumers prefer to listen to new music on Fridays and Saturdays instead of Tuesdays.

“Music fans live in the digital world of today,” IFPI’s head Frances Moore said in a statement at the time. “Their love for new music doesn’t recognize national borders. They want music when it’s available on the internet—not when it’s ready to be released in their country. An aligned global release day puts an end to the frustration of not being able to access releases in their country when the music is available in another country.”

Having a standard release day and time each week was aimed at curbing the piracy plague that hurt the music industry for years. Tracks released in France on Tuesday but not until Friday in the US meant that fans would illegally download that music before it was available to them through iTunes, Spotify, or any other digital service provider. When the track was finally released, consumers wouldn’t purchase it because they already downloaded it, albeit illegally. 

Releasing on a Friday will give you the best shot of charting

If you want the best shot at charting on Billboard, you’ll want to drop your tunes on Friday. Billboard tracks sales from Friday to Thursday each week. So by releasing on Friday, you’re getting in on day one to hopefully chart the next week.

“Traditionally, the labels are playing the chart game,” Chris Anokute, Young Forever Inc’s founder and A&R, told Complex. “They’re looking for a certain amount of the market share that week or that month. Sometimes it’s for vanity and ego. They want to say, ‘We just debuted at the top of the charts because we put out the video, single, and went to radio the same week. From Friday to Thursday, we got all this consumption, which gave us a better chart position.’”

The global shift to Friday releases means streaming platforms also changed

Once the shift from Tuesdays to Fridays happened, streaming services followed suit. Streaming services have used their curation of editorial playlists to encourage artists to release music on Fridays so they have a shot at being included in those playlists. After all, who wouldn’t want a shot at being included in Spotify’s coveted New Music Friday playlist?

What is the best day to release music?

There are many factors to consider, such as what day of the week you are releasing new music, and what time of year it is. Typically, though, the best day to release music is the day that works for you.

When releasing new music, it’s also a good idea to consider the genre for your release. For example, dance music typically does well on Fridays. Rock music, however, may see more success on Wednesday.

Note the above criteria as well. Are you aiming to be included in Apple or Spotify’s editorial playlists? Release on Friday. Are you looking to chart on Billboard and check that box off of your musical resume? Release on Friday.

Cons of Releasing Music on Fridays

Releases on Fridays have caused a mixed response from artists and listeners. Some of the reasons that listeners have given as to why they prefer releases on Fridays are that they are not as busy on Fridays, they are more likely to listen to music when they are in their cars, and that it is easier for them to discover new music.

The post Should You Release Music on Friday: The Pros & Cons of Releasing Music at Week’s End first appeared on Jamvana.

With most things in music, it depends. There are a number of factors that need to be taken into account before jumping in and signing your name on anything, especially one that will be handling any form of your intellectual property.

Most producers, songwriters, and musicians don’t want to put any of their hard earned money in a deal that will benefit a company more than them.

It’s worth noting that a music distribution deal is different from a music distribution service. Digital music distribution companies, like Jamvana, provide a service for independent musicians. They act as a middleman between musicians and digital service providers to get your music online; however, most of them do not offer physical distribution.

What is a music distribution deal?

A music distribution deal is a contract between a record label and a music distributor. The distributor will then distribute the music to various retailers, such as iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon who will sell the music to consumers.

According to The Balance Careers, “Under the manufacture and distribution deal, the distributor pays for the manufacturing costs of an album beginning with the pressing process, all the way through to printing of the labels.”

Music distribution deals are common for record labels, such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group. Such deals can be used to spread the risk of selling their music by selling it through a variety of channels instead of just one distributor.

What are the benefits of a music distribution deal?

A distribution deal can be beneficial for artists in many ways. It can help them get their music out there to the masses, increase their sales, and make connections with other industry professionals.

But, there are some artists that make the mistake of not understanding how distribution works and therefore get scammed out of their hard earned money and time.

Music distribution deals aren’t always favorable for the artists and its label, though. They function similar to a record label deal, but they are in heavy favor for the manufacturer. This is because the manufacturer is the one who has the most expenses in the distribution process. They have the vinyl, CDs, hardware, software, and equipment to move through this process. High quality equipment isn’t cheap.

Until this money has been recouped, the record label will not receive payment. If the label has a lot of releases that need physical distribution then this could run up the label’s bill with the distributor.

Additionally, if the records simply don’t perform well in stores and earn the label money then the label may operate at a loss in this distribution deal.

What is the difference between a music distribution deal and record label deal?

Record label deals are typically a more expensive way to release your music. They also have a lot of strings attached, such as the right to distribute your music and the right to release your albums independently. Some labels will own the master rights in perpetuity, so you won’t be able to touch them, unfortunately.

Music distribution deals, however, can be less expensive and they allow you to retain all of the rights to your music. They also don’t require you to sign away any publishing rights or distribution rights.

How to find the right music distribution deal

The best way to find the best deals for your needs is to research and compare different offers, different labels and distributors, which will help you get the most out of your music.

Start your research by looking at the market share of a company and see companies they distribute to, among other things. Is their customer service good? What is their distribution process like? Who are some other artists they’ve worked with in the past? What success have they seen?We talked about how to find the best music distributor in a previous blog post.

Conclusion

If you’re a record label and looking to expand your offerings to your roster, then a distribution deal may be an avenue you’ll want to explore. Just remember to weigh your options and do your research before signing anything.

Independent musicians, on the other hand, will likely find that a music distribution deal isn’t something they need at the current moment. In fact, it may be best to spend your marketing money on other things, such as advertisements, brand partnerships, and quality mixing and mastering.

The post Music Distribution Deals in 2022: What Are They And Do I Need One? first appeared on Jamvana.

In this article we’re going to be answering a few of the common questions an independent musician should ask themselves before and as they’re digging into the research.

Quick side note: If you’re signed to a label or releasing a track through a record label, then they will distribute your track for you.

We also discussed this topic on The Vana Room podcast.

Pricing

“This sounds great, but how much is this going to cost me?”

Us independent musicians don’t have a lot of extra dough laying around—but we can if we set everything up correctly.

One of the first things you’ll want to figure out before deciding on a music distributor is figure out how their pricing is structured. Are they charging monthly, yearly, free for a fee, or per release?

Let’s discuss what each one means.

Monthly

Some music distributors offer a monthly subscription fee, such as LANDR and Jamvana. This can be costly in comparison to other services because most musicians only release a handful of tracks or one album per year.

However, if you can afford it and the services and features that the music distributor offers would be helpful to your music then this may be a good option.

Jamvana, for example, offers a suite of features with the monthly subscription. You receive detailed and transparent royalty reports, a promo email platform, pre-saves, and so much more. Sign up with Jamvana here.

Yearly

Yearly pricing plans are the most common for music distributors. DistroKid, TuneCore, and CD Baby all offer yearly pricing.

Depending on the distributor, their yearly fee will cover everything you need to get your music released on the digital service platforms.

Some distributors with this pricing structure may limit you to the number of releases you can distribute per year, and some will allow for unlimited releases.

Free for a fee

Some music distribution companies will have a free tier at the cost of keeping a percentage of your royalties. RouteNote offers this.

With a distributor like RouteNote, you’re able to release an unlimited number of tracks but they will keep a percentage of what they collect. If you’re just getting started and don’t have the extra budget to throw at a monthly or yearly subscription for a distributor, then this may be a good option.

However, if your track starts to do well and gain traction then this may not be a good idea in regard to pricing.

For example, if your track “XYZ” gets 5,000 streams on Spotify, which equates to roughly $20, then 15% of that isn’t too bad. But if your track gets 1 million streams on Spotify, which would be about $3,000-$7,000, 15% is a big chunk to give to the distributor. Even at $3,000, that would equate to roughly $450, which is quite expensive for distribution for one track.

Per release

Some music distribution companies will charge a certain amount per release. RouteNote also offers this.

Rather than paying a monthly or yearly fee, you simply pay a specified amount per release. The way this works with RouteNote is that you’ll pay a one-time fee of $9.99 for the track you want to “upgrade.” Once complete, they’ll no longer take 15% of your royalties and you’ll keep 100% of them, in addition to a few other perks.

Takedown requests

Sometimes our music no longer reflects our sound or there’s a conflict between two collaborators, so we need to take a track or album down from the streaming services.

Before signing up to a music distributor, you should find out how they handle these requests. How long does it typically take to process? Is there a specific department you contact? Do the takedowns cost anything? If so, how much?

Add-on services

Add-on services in music distribution are small upcharges that give your track or album additional features. For example, the price of sending your music to Shazam isn’t included in the monthly or yearly fee you pay. Instead, you can add-on distribution to Shazam for $1.99 for a single.

Depending on the distributor, there may be a handful of add-ons you can select from. Check which add-ons, if any, the distributor offers before signing up to see if any of them would be beneficial for your music.

Miscellaneous expenses

As mentioned above, distributors will quite often provide add-on services. Some of them are clear and some of them aren’t. For example, you may have to pay to have your track taken down. You may also have to pay for ISRCs, UPCs, or even pre-orders. These can be costly for a single release if they’re in addition to a subscription plan.

Every music distribution company operates differently by providing different “upsells” or hidden fees. It’s best to determine exactly what’s included in your subscription plan and what is not.

Extra opportunities

Many music distributors function like a label these days by offering extra services in addition to distribution. For example, some distributors, mostly the ones owned by major labels, may upstream you into a label deal if your music is performing well.

Most distributors will offer in-house playlist pitching services. This means that they will actively send your music to DSPs’ playlist editors for inclusion on their high-profile playlists. Jamvana offers this. If a distributor takes a percentage of your royalties, then this is something that benefits you and them. The more streams they get on your track, the more their cut of your royalties is.

Some distributors may also help with marketing, and they act as a label services. If this is the case, then the distributor may take a percentage of your royalties in return. AWAL functions as a music distributor but also has a lot of label services for their artists.

Customer support

Customer support is one of the most important aspects of any company. Building a product and knowing exactly how it works means your company is the only one that knows the product inside and out.

Music distribution happens at all hours of the day, every day, 365 days per year. If you release a song on a Sunday morning and something goes wrong, is your distributor available to help? How are they available? Email? Chat? Phone? What’s the turnaround time to get a response? Chances are you are not interested in waiting 72+ hours to get a response.

This is one of the first things we recommend researching and confirming before signing up to any music distributor.

Direct or third-party services

Music distributors often have direct contracts with digital service providers. Some distributors have contracts with a third-party company like FUGA that handles the distribution to the service providers. There are pros and cons to each one, but the benefits of the distributor having direct contracts seemingly outweighs them not. Here are a few:

1. Fewer middlemen: If a distributor uses another party to get your music onto service providers, then that’s one extra company to cause errors.
2. Fewer hands in the cookie jar: Since that third party company is providing your distributor a service, they’re going to get paid. Who’s paying for it? Are they taking a cut of your royalties?
3. Fewer chances of inaccurate reporting: If the distributor must get stream reports from the third-party company, then everybody’s waiting on that company. That company sends it to your distributor. Your distributor updates that report to reflect their cut (if any) of the royalties, and then sends it to you. This can delay reports by months—and leaves plenty of room for accounting error.
4. Faster reporting: As mentioned in the previous point, the fewer the companies involved means that there’s quicker reporting.

How do I find a music distributor?

The best way to find a music distributor is to search “music distributor” on Google. Soundcharts has a great post going over the different types of music distributors. There are a number of really good music distribution comparisons available.

Which is the best independent music distributor?

The best independent music distributor is the one that works for you. While you may argue that one distributor has more features or better pricing, it’s not entirely accurate to say, “ABC is the best.” That distributor may not work at all for someone distributing Indonesian 1940s folk-styled jazz.

Which distributor is best for Spotify?

Jamvana is one of the best music distributors for Spotify. They are a Spotify-preferred music distributor, which means they are staying above the threshold of Spotify’s metadata and formatting requirements when delivering tracks.

Do music distribution companies own your masters?

No. Unless you’ve signed a music distribution deal with them that states they own your masters, you will retain all rights to your sound recordings/masters.

Do music distribution companies own your music publishing?

No. Music distribution companies typically do not handle music publishing. Your publisher (which is oftentimes you) will own your publishing.

What distributor do famous artists use?

Famous artists typically use major label distributors, which include INgrooves, The Orchard, and Caroline International, among others. These distribution companies are most oftentimes owned by the record label. For example, The Orchard is owned by Sony Music.

The post How to Choose the Best Music Distributor for Independent Musicians first appeared on Jamvana.

Beatport operates a little differently from other service providers like Spotify and Apple Music. Instead, DJs purchase individual tracks for $1.50 – $2, which generates royalties for the copyright holders of the tracks. This is similar to how iTunes works. 

How do you know how much revenue you’re generating on Beatport? 

In this post, we’ll show you exactly how you can access your Beatport daily sales in Jamvana. 

1. In your Music Distribution System (MDS) account, click on “Beatport Sale” and select the dates that you want to see. Then click the “Filter” button. 

2. From here, you’ll have the option to filter from releases, tracks, and labels. 

4. Once the reports are generated, they will post under your Reports tab under “Balance History” with the breakdowns from Beatport, top release, artist, and territories. 

How Jamvana handles your royalties (including Beatport)

Jamvana provides the most transparent royalty reports in the industry. Within MDS, we provide daily trend reports and sales reports for all service providers and we’re continuously adding more. Currently, we have access to Beatport, iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon’s API. 

Timing for reports and timing on trends

The timing is the music cycle of time it takes for the DSP to report back to distributors. If you release a track on January 1st, it will take an entire month for the report to end. Once the reporting cycle has ended it takes an additional 20-45 days for the DSPs to report to the distributors. The full report for the track, EP, or album that you released in January will appear in your account in March. 

The timing on trends reports is similar to your sales reports, less the credit card chargebacks, voided transactions, and refunds that accrue with the DSP. These specific reports will show you how your music is trending on each DSP, but it could change depending on the information above.

Money

Your money report is all of the revenue you’ve made after the deductions, voids, chargebacks, refunds. This balance is then transferred into your account for you to cash out. All sales activity, including refunds, will be reflected in this report.

Are you ready to begin distributing your music to Beatport and all of the other DSPs to grow your career?

Create your FREE account here!

The post How to Read Your Beatport Royalty Statements With Jamvana first appeared on Jamvana.

Linking your Spotify and Apple Music profiles will allow you to see all of your analytics from both DSPs all in one place. You’ll be able to see demographic information, which playlists their music has been added to, streams, downloads, and more. 

Jamvana makes connecting your accounts really easy with our custom-built, proprietary Music Distribution System (MDS). In this post, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions on how you can link your Spotify and Apple Music to your Jamvana account.

Step by step guide for linking your Apple Music and Spotify profiles to your Jamvana account

1. In your account, click the +Artist or Add Artist tab under the music distribution tab. For both Spotify and Apple Music, you’ll simply enter your artist name in the field. 

2. Once you’ve added your artist name, scroll down to Spotify or Apple. You’ll need to verify your account here. If you already have an Apple or Spotify account, simply check, “Yes, I can provide a link.” 

3. Add your Artist URI/URL to verify.

4. Once you’ve verified your account, click the save button at the bottom of the page. It’s worth noting that you’ll need to do this verification for every artist name that you release under. If you release another song under another artist name, you’ll need to repeat these steps.

Note: It can take 7-10 business days before the verification goes through. We will notify you once the verification is confirmed on Apple Music and Spotify.

Benefits of linking your Spotify and Apple Music accounts to Jamvana

When your music is pitched to Spotify and Apple Music official playlists, it’s important that the correct profiles are being pitched to the editors. Verifying your profile confirms this information, and makes it easier for Jamvana to successfully pitch your music with the correct pages. 

It’s frustrating when other artists pop up on their release pages and can be time consuming to get it straightened out. It can cause confusion for fans visiting their page.

Verifying your profiles is also helpful when delivering your metadata, which is a serious issue for artists when distributing their music to DSPs. 

We compiled 10 of the common mistakes musicians make when entering metadata into their distributor. 

The post How to Link Apple Music and Spotify Profiles to Your Jamvana Account first appeared on Jamvana.

Everyone is focused on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook ads, and Spotify playlisting.

All of these platforms have one thing in common: Metadata. Without it (or with the incorrect metadata), musicians wouldn’t be able to collect royalties because none of these platforms know who actually owns the song. 

If monetizing your music is the goal you’ll certainly want to understand exactly how metadata works and why it’s so incredibly important. 

TikTok, for example, has 1 billion active users every month, according to Backlinko. That’s 1/7th of the world’s population. With hundreds of thousands or millions of those monthly active users creating content and using different kinds of music, the game of Where’s Waldo becomes a dark reality. 

But you don’t have to play Where’s Waldo. With the correct metadata embedded within your music these social media platforms and streaming services will know exactly who owns every track, which means they’ll know exactly who to pay. 

Think of metadata like your car’s registration. If your car is stolen and not registered, nobody knows who owns it and who to return it to.  The registration of your car contains its metadata.

In this article we’re going to break down every piece of metadata that you need to include in every one of your releases.

If you’d rather watch or listen to The Vana Room’s podcast episode on music metadata, check that out below. 

What is music metadata? 

Metadata is pieces of information that become embedded into each recording and composition, such as the genre, BPM, ISRC/ISWC, publisher, and singer-songwriter credits. It’s vital that all of this information is correct because again, with incorrect metadata, you and the other authors may not get paid.

This metadata is also used for ID’ing your releases in the digital world. It’s how everyone knows who to pay. It’s how song recordings are tracked through the DSPs. It’s how it’s accounted for in the dreaded algorithms. These algorithms send back analytics to your distributor to show how your music is performing on their service. This data will assist you in developing a detailed, heavily informed marketing plan. 

Since Jamvana is a preferred partner with Spotify, we have every field of metadata that you’ll need to successfully distribute your music to their service. 

Lastly, metadata is used to receive credit for the music you worked on. You can list the arranger, composers, lyricists, artists, producers, engineers, the studio it was recorded at, and more. We’ll get into that later in this post, but always give credit where credit is due. We all succeed this way.

Here’s a detailed list of every piece of metadata you’ll need to distribute and collect your music royalties

If you’re able to, watch the YouTube video embedded above. Bookmark it and save it as a reference. Rob, Jamvana’s CEO, screen shares and goes through the Jamvana backend and discusses each metadata field. It’s worth noting that this information isn’t specific to Jamvana, either. Every distributor will have these fields for you to fill out in one way or another.

Spotify Artist ID

Your Spotify Artist ID is a specific number that Spotify assigns to each artist account. You can get this number by going to your Spotify for Artists account or through the Spotify application on desktop. Jamvana uses this information to ensure that your music is distributed to the correct Spotify account.

This can be retrieved directly on Spotify’s desktop application. 

Artists and Artist Name

Enter the artists that worked on the release. Make each and everyone of their names are spelled correctly. If not, they may not show properly on their artist profiles.

Primary Artist

This name is the primary artist list on the DSPs. Enter your artist name. This is where you get credit. If you’re the only one that worked on the release, you will enter your name here and leave the artists and artist name field blank. 

Featured and Featuring Artists

This is when an artist is featured on the song. If another artist wrote a verse for your project, they can be featured artists. This makes sure that they receive credit on the track and it shows up on their artist pages in the DSPs.

Remixer

If this track is a remix, enter the remixer’s name here. If Dua Lipa wrote a song and Calvin Harris remixed it, Harris’s name would go in this field. By entering this information the track will show up on Dua Lipa’s artist page because she’s the original artist. It will also show up on Calvin Harris’s page. 

You will need to upload separate tracks for the original and remix. These are two completely different recordings. 

Composer

A composer is another fancy word for a songwriter. This field is where you enter the names of anybody that helped you compose or write the track. Was it just yourself? Was it someone else? Was it cousin Eddy?

If there are no other songwriters and just you, enter your name. 

Actor

This term is a bit dated, but this is essentially the project manager for the project. It can also be the producer.

DJ Khaled is known for this. I’m sure you’ve heard him shout “We Da Best Music” on numerous tracks. Since he’s the one that brought the artists on the track together, his name could be entered into the actor field. 

Orchestra

The orchestra is an interchangeable term for a band, like Green Day or No Doubt. Enter that information in this field. 

If this release was a No Doubt track the orchestra field would contain the members of No Doubt: Gwen Stefani, Tom Dumont, Tony Kanal, and Adrian Young. If an actual artist performed on the track, then the orchestra’s name would be entered here. 

Lyricist

The lyricist is the person who wrote the lyrics of the song. Enter their names here. 

Release Title

This is the title of the release. It can be a single, EP, album, or compilation. If this is a single, it would be the title of the single, like “Don’t Speak.” If it’s an EP or album, this would be the title, like Tragic Kingdom.  

Label

Enter the label’s name here. If you don’t have a label, you can use your artist name or make up a label name, but be consistent about this. It’s not recommended to enter a different label for every release. Jamvana allows for multiple labels and profiles for those labels.

You are able to update the label information if, for example, six months after the release you create a label and want the track to show it was released under that. We don’t recommend it because it can cause messy metadata, but it is an option. 

Artwork

Upload the track’s artwork here. We recommend 3000×3000 and 300 DPI to prevent any issues with the DSPs. Every DSP is different. Some ask for 1500×1500. Some ask for 2000×2000.

It’s important to note that you must own the rights to upload this cover art. Do not grab a random picture from the internet and use that. That’s copyright infringement, and you may find yourself in a lawsuit. 

Catalog Number

This is a number that you can use to keep yourself and your label organized. The catalog number is common if you’re releasing through a label. This is a good indicator for how much volume you have and which release it is in the label’s catalog.

In Rob’s example, he uses BOMBEATZ001, which is his label name. If this was Bomb Beatz’s 40th release then Rob could enter BOMBEATZ040, and so on. 

Genres

The genre’s information is used by service providers and users to filter the music they’re listening to. BPMs also play a key role in how this is categorized. For example, adding “ambient” as your primary genre when it’s better suited as a bass house track makes it difficult for DSPs and users to find. Additionally, listeners of bass house music may not necessarily be looking for ambient music or interested in ambient music, so you may be capping the potential of the release by using the incorrect genre. 

If you’re distributing to a boutique shop like Beatport, Juno, or Traxxsource, the main genres are always going to go in sub genres. Their main genres are sub genres. 

Release Type

The release type indicates if the release is a single, album, EP, or mix. 

A single would be one to two tracks, like “Old Town Road.” An album would be Homework by Daft Punk. A DJ set would be a mix. You can have three to eight tracks for an EP, and nine to 19 tracks for an album.

UPC

UPC stands for “universal product code.” This is an identifying code that is attached to a product. This can be for a single, EP, or album. This is different from your ISRC. ISRC is for individual recordings.

For example, Daft Punk’s Homework album has one UPC. Each track on that album will have an ISRC. The UPC shows that each of the tracks on the album are part of one project. 

You can get your own UPCs or have your distributor issue them. Jamvana provides them for free.

Release Dates

This is the day you want your release to become publicly available on all DSPs. It’s best to pick a date at least three weeks out. If it’s a bigger release and you need more time to market, we recommend at least 2-3 months. 

Copyrights

This field indicates who owns the master recording. Jamvana’s system will automatically default it to the record label. If you don’t have one, it would be your artist name. 

It’s important to have an agreement with the label and other producers (if any) so you can properly enter the correct copyright holders.

Price Tiers

This is for iTunes. Before subscriptions to services like Apple Music and Spotify, users would have to pay for each individual track, which included $0.69, $0.99, and then $1.29. Apple also allowed artists to offer exclusives to make a little more revenue or sell cheap so you can go for volume.

Jamvana’s system will default to $0.99. 

Explicit

If your music contains explicit content, such as swear words, then you’ll need to indicate that here. If your music has swear words and you don’t indicate this, DSPs may flag your release and could result in your music being removed from their service. 

Description

Use this field to describe the track or project. Tell a small story about the track. The DSPs use this information for playlisting and feature opportunities.

This concludes the release information. It’s a good time to stop and go back and quadruple check that all of the information you’ve inputted is spelled, dotted, and crossed correctly. 

• Artwork: Make sure it’s uploaded and formatted correctly and that you own it. 
• Release date: Ensure your release date is correct. 
• Explicit: Make sure your release is marked explicit if it has “naughty words.” 
• Credits: Check spelling for your lyricists, composers, producers, mixing/mastering engineers, etc.
• Release title: Check that your album, EP, or single is spelled correctly.

Do not put the version of the track in the title! This is poor metadata, and your track will get flagged. 

Don’t: 

My Signal (Rob Analyze VIP Remix)

Do: 

My Signal

The remixer or version is noted in the “remixers” field and will automatically be added.

Track Level Metadata

Version

This is where you’ll enter which version of the track it is. If you had a remixer, then this is where you’ll enter that information. From the above example, you would enter “Rob Analyze VIP Remix” here, and the DSPs will show it. 

ISRC

ISRC stands for “International Standard Recording Code,” and is essentially your track’s social security number. It’s the identifying code for the individual recordings and is different than the UPC.

So, if you have an album of 12 tracks, each song on that album will need an ISRC to properly be identified.

Typically your distributor will supply your ISRCs. If not, you can purchase your own here.

Album Only

You can indicate whether you want your track to be sold individually or only with the album. 

Territories

Select which territories you want your music available in. If you don’t want your music in a specific territory, deselect it. 

Jamvana recommends releasing worldwide so your music is the most accessible, but this is entirely up to you.

Stores

You can indicate which digital service providers you want your music available in. There are most likely going to be stores that you’ve never heard of because some countries have their own service providers and don’t have Apple Music or Spotify. 

Jamvana recommends distributing your music to all of the stores, similar to territories, so your music is most widely available.

We are constantly striking deals with new service providers and we’ll automatically add your music to new stores as they become available. 

Exclusive Stores

As part of your marketing plan, you may want to offer your release to a specific store ahead of the actual release date. You’ll note that in this field. This may improve your chances in feature support from the store since they’re getting exclusive access for a specified amount of time before the actual release date. 

For example, if you’re pushing a release heavily on Beatport, you can give them an exclusive for two weeks prior to its release on other services.

iTunes Pre-Orders

An iTunes pre-order is an option that allows listeners to pre-order a track ahead of its release. Once the product is released, it will immediately be added to their account. This is common with DJs in case they forget to purchase the product on release day.  

Audio File

Upload your high quality audio file here. Most distributors will ask for a 16-bit, 44.1kHz WAV file since this is CD quality and is currently an industry standard. Some distributors may ask for a 24-bit, 48kHz. 

It is important for you to submit the audio file the distributor is asking for so your music gets released in the highest available quality. 

It is not recommended to distribute an MP3 file. If provided the option between MP3, WAV, AIFF, or FLAC, we recommend either an AIFF or the standard 16-bit, 44.1kHz WAV file.

Conclusion

Metadata is a commonly overlooked step. Most musicians don’t understand its importance until they understand how their music is tracked (or not) and the bank account remains dry. 

We’re here to help music professionals and artists understand the inner workings of music distribution so they can maximize the revenue on their art. If you want to get your music distributed to all of the major music services, get started with Jamvana here. 

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