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So I have been talking with this label for a few weeks, sending them tracks and whatnot.

They said that they want to release a few of them on a ep. They want me to get the tracks mastered. They said that if i send them the masters they will send me the contract.

So i have the money in my bank now to get them mastered so i sent them this email....

Hey,

I finally have the cash to get the tracks for the EP mastered somewhere decent.

Are you still interested? If you are, give me a release date and I will get them sent of to mastering asap.


They sent me back this

Yea man!

it seams a bit vague.

I dont want to wast the money on getting them mastered and then they dont get released.

what do you guys think?

Vague? Pretty clear to me

Nah, but it doesn't sound like they take it that serious to be honest. It's your call though.

^ this.
in any case you could just master 'em and send them away to some other label some other time

Are you sure they are serious about what they are doing?

That sounds pretty shady to me...and maybe I'm off here, but generally don't labels have their own mastering engineer or pay for the tunes to get mastered? The especially shady part is the want the masters before you even see the contract...that's what would worry me most.

EDIT: If it were me I'd at least ask to see an example contract before I sent them any masters.

Yeah fuck it, it sounds dodgy as fuck, if thay aint prepared to get them mastered for you, then they dont wanna release your tracks that badly then.

I have just sent them a msg saying that if they send me a contract and a release date then i will send the tracks to mastering.

Im not wasting £200.

you're paying 200 fucking quid to get a couple of tunes mastered?

Trainrek wrote:you're paying 200 fucking quid to get a couple of tunes mastered?

when I looked around it was about £50 a track.

EDIT; am i being riped off?

Light-Stories wrote:

Trainrek wrote:you're paying 200 fucking quid to get a couple of tunes mastered?

when I looked around it was about £50 a track.

EDIT; am i being riped off?

Labels should normally take care of the mastering. Sounds extremely dodgy.

Is this a label you know, or did you just google dubstep record labels? if the latter I would be very skeptical of these guys. Save your cash and find a reliable label.

Face to face meetings are good. Not everything has to be done over the internet.

You're getting ripped off by the label. If they're making you pay for your own mastering then I can't imagine what they could possibly offer you. This doesn't sound like a real label to me.

dididub wrote:

Light-Stories wrote:

Trainrek wrote:you're paying 200 fucking quid to get a couple of tunes mastered?

when I looked around it was about £50 a track.

EDIT; am i being riped off?

Labels should normally take care of the mastering. Sounds extremely dodgy.

Is this a label you know, or did you just google dubstep record labels? if the latter I would be very skeptical of these guys. Save your cash and find a reliable label.

Face to face meetings are good. Not everything has to be done over the internet.

I found the label on beatport, they where featured. Im debating if i should name them or not.(I dont want to name and shame them)

Well im going to see what they say after my last msg. if its just as vague then I might just leave it and look for another.

hudson wrote:You're getting ripped off by the label. If they're making you pay for your own mastering then I can't imagine what they could possibly offer you. This doesn't sound like a real label to me.

This!

Actually.. It isn't uncommon for a label to get distribution, get the artists to pay for their mastering and do a 80/90 - 20/10 split (the bigger number being for the artist). Granted; these are usually incredibly small labels but a sensible way of doing things if you can get cheap/free mastering in my opinion!

You should look at the contract first before you spend money.

What's the rest of their release schedule looking like? Do they have a larger number of tracks coming out per month (or even per week) than you would expect? Have you heard of any of the other artists they have released? What kind of exposure did their tracks get? If possible, can you talk to the other artists and get their feedback on the label, and how they were promoted?

Any half decent label will MASTER, PROMOTE, DISTRIBUTE, AND THEN PAY YOU FOR anything you release with them.
Labels invest in artists, not the other way round.

tbh if they arent willing to invest in you then its probably because they dont have much faith in the product, if youre going to do that then you might as well approach a distro yourself and go it alone, you could even go to someone like symphonic distribution whos basic package offers five free masters and global distro with no outlay on your behalf, you just need to put a bit of time in setting things up

you would basically be paying to be associated with their "brand". fuck that, you are giving someone a percentage for what? a bit of artwork/logo knocked up in photoshop and to get onto beatport?


also i dont know who you were going to get to do your mastering but 200£ seems a bit pricey, quite a few places offer a discount the more tracks you send in one go, prob worth hitting up macc at subvert or lewis at star delta

James

I'm not saying it's never done, but most legit labels don't tend to ask their artists to pay for their own mastering... The main exception I can think of is perhaps a major label that gives a £100,000 advance, and then expects the artist to pay for their own studio time, video, etc.

However, for small indie labels... I've never really come across it. Personally, I would walk from a label that asked me to pay for my own mastering - with the only exception being the label has X budget for mastering, and I want to use someone who goes over that budget, I can maybe see paying the difference. But in general - I think that paying for mastering is the least a label should do.

Any label that said "yeah man!" to any serious question I had would be the end of our correspondence...

Still better than "no bled!" though.