so in this video we're going to go over a step-by-step tutorial on distrokid
and how you start from scratch taking your finished song and getting it
on live on all the music streaming services available that distrokid
offers if you have a distrokid account great we can get started right away if
you don't have a distrokid account that's okay there is a link in the
description where I can offer you a discount so I'll put that there you can
get started and we can go through this tutorial so we're going to go to this
top link here upload and click upload and from this page we're going to go top
to bottom and fill out all the information that we can and at the end
of that page we'll be ready to go and have our music uploaded so the first
thing is just choosing the music services that you want your music
available to by default distrokid will have these all clicked for you already
and that's because most of the time people want their music everywhere
available but I recommend just leaving these all clicked unless you really
didn't want your music on Amazon or Pandora for example the next question is
number of songs and one of the biggest benefits of distrokid is you pay 20
dollars annually recurring so you will pay 20 dollars a year but you can upload
as many songs as you want so you can go and upload 35 songs right now if you
choose in this case we'll just say we're uploading one the previous released
question is important some most of the time it wouldn't be previous released
but if your song is already on Spotify for example you're going to want to make
sure this ISRC code is the same so that you're not duplicating any ISRC codes that are to the same track the artists name is really important and
this is where you will type in your name for me my artist name is Charles Cleyn if
you already have a Spotify for artists page they will recognize your page so
here you can see Apple music has showed up there's already one artist named
Charles Cleyn and on Spotify the same thing and that happens to be me already
if you have a popular band name or your name maybe isn't that unique it
will just say like Apple music has already five people under this name and
you have to go and click the right name that actually is you and not someone
else so you would say that's me for example I'm here that's me
there continue down this is the release date question and he's only available on
the mid-tier package for distrokid if you're doing the 20 dollar annual
package you will not be able to choose a release date the benefit of choosing the
mid-tier package is that you can choose a release date and we can also put a
custom record label name down if you don't have this that's okay but you just
won't be able to say I want my song to be released on June 16th 2020 and that
way you can plan and you can schedule your social posts until you tell your
whole audience that the song is going to be out on June 16th this is the same
thing for release time and the record label we are now able to choose I can
say that my record label is Charles Cleyn and that just looks good on your
Spotify for artists Apple music pages if not it will say released by distrokid
that's fine but if you want to have a clean look it's nice to have a custom
record label name the next thing is album cover and this is just a simple
upload of your album artwork it is recommended to be actually at almost
has to be three thousand by three thousand pixels if it's not I
think Apple music will won't accept it they're very particular about their
artwork and the size and the pixels of their artwork so make sure it's at least
I think fifteen hundred by fifteen hundred better to go with three thousand
by three thousand pixels which is a perfect square
language primaries on under a secondary genre these are important fields to fill
out because this is actually the genres that Apple music gives tags to so if you
choose big band genre but you're actually in pop well you're gonna be in
the big bands onra in Apple music now our getting into the track information
which is really important and you don't want to make any mistakes here there are
some requirements here that you can read over for example I'll put one of my
songs that I'll be releasing soon don't start now I'll spell it correctly
because that's really important but if you have a featured artist or for
example if your there's some capitalization requirements just read
over them distrokid won't accept the title if it's not within their
requirement if the next step is the audio file and you want to be uploading
at minimum a 16-bit audio file whoever is mastering your track should give you
at least up to a 24-bit hopefully audio file wav file that you can upload here
from your finder or browser windows and this is also the section mentioned
previously if you already have an ISRC code from before
uploading it to Spotify that's in your case you can put that ISRC
code down right here next section is important you if it is a cover song make
sure you do clarify that it is a cover song if not it's just an original song
and then here you can give credit to the artist maybe you have a co-writer on the
lyrics or you had a producer you can add their names here and that will show up
on the streaming services as well and we'll give them credit this doesn't have
to do with like the share of earnings that they get that's just giving them
shout out credit explicit lyrics obviously if there's swearing and stuff
make sure you put yes if this is a radio edit make sure you put yes or no
instrumental obviously if this is super simple yes or no a preview clip start
time so this is helpful if you especially for tik-tok Apple music and
iTunes they have that 30-second preview where you can get and if you're thirty
seconds at the intro of the song is really slow maybe don't put that choose
the highest dynamic most energetic interesting part of the song here that
you want people to see so they'll come back for more you can also put the track
price in iTunes you can and Google Play and Amazon making cheaper or more
expensive depending on how you want there are some cool extras here some of
them are free actually this Instagram and Facebook one
is free and I so I do recommend putting that because you'll be able to have your
music in the Instagram stories there are other extras that are paid YouTube money
if you want that YouTube Content ID monetization so
if someone else makes a vlog video and puts your song in their video then
distrokid will help you get paid for that video that will send the ad revenue
to your distrokid account however they will be taking 20% of that and charging
you about five dollars a year so if you think people are going to be using your
music a lot for YouTube videos then this is a recommended service to have there's
some other ones store maximizer that's just saying like new stores come into
play then they'll automatically add your song to these stores Shazam and iPhone
that is a really good one I think that you should add if you think people will
be out hearing your song on the radio or on the coffee shop on a playlist make
sure shazam your song just you're gonna want to show up there so they follow up
with you so that's $0.99 year which these last checkboxes are one necessary
to click making sure that you understand all the terms and conditions and that
you know what's happening and then you click done and your music will be
uploaded to these music streaming services in a matter of two to five days
so the next section in this tutorial is talking about some of the other features
and settings within distrokid even what it looks like so we can talk about this
navigation here or back in the my music page here we have the upload page which
we've already uploaded the song the team section is a cool feature that distrokid
offers which is one of the only music distributing services I have a
couple others offer it as well but distrokid offers payment splitting
between your co-writers or anyone else involved in the song which is really
valuable the only thing is they also have to have a distrokid account so
great if they already do distrokid makes it super easy when a payment comes
in and they will split the payments the royalty payments between each of the the
writer the co-writer the producer whoever is involved and you will set the
percentages for each person and then they split them easily the stats section
at the top here is stats and what streams you have from what music
streaming service I do find though that their stats page is a bit limit
most of the music distributors anyways have delayed data their user interface
like the experience of actually looking at a graph is just not very pleasant
compared to looking at your Spotify analytics on the Spotify for artists
page or even the Apple music for artists page so I really I rarely ever spend my
time in the distrokid statistics page the upgrade section is where you can find
out more information of the higher tiered plans for me I'm on the musician
Plus plan but if you want if you have your own label or if you have ten or
more artist names yourself then you'd want to go up to the label plan and if
you don't care about custom early release dates or custom record label names you just
want to upload music get it online then the musician plan at twenty bucks a year
is the right land for you Bank section is obviously the coolest
section and that's where you get paid and where you make your money and where
you see your money coming in from so you can see a breakdown by store here and
where all the money is coming in from from each specific store keep in mind
there is a two-year three-month delay and that's notified at the top here from
where the money is coming in from each store so if you want a pay day all you
have to do is withdraw earnings set up the banking information of where you
want the money routed to and then it will lend in your bank account the more
section here is showing the different features that distrokid offers and
I'll go over some of the ones that I think are cool simply this hyperfollow
link is great it's a custom link for you with your song that you're about to
release that has all the music streaming services that you choose on that link so
if your song my song for example was called don't start now I can put this
link you share it on Instagram or Facebook or wherever and send all the
traffic to this link then the person that lands on this link can choose I
have Spotify song I want to listen to this song and Spotify but if I'm an
Apple music listener I can choose Apple music if I'm on YouTube music I can
choose YouTube music you get the idea it's a great free feature that district
it offers with their service fixer is another thing if you do have what I was
mentioning like your name is maybe popular and a lot of the times you
upload music and it ends up on another person's account not yours you can use
the fixer setting where it is quick and easy to change that back to your actual
account lastly in this settings section the referral program is really cool and
that's the link I have in my description as well which is just giving people a
discount to sign up and then in turn I get paid and you can go and have your
own referral link as well and share that with your friends they get a discount
and then you get paid in return so a cool little program that is available to
anyone who signs up for distrokid that's what distrokid looks like it is
super simple so I hope you found this video useful if you are thinking of
going with distrokid. Feel free to use that discount link in the description
that I have and please feel free to subscribe to and check out my own music
I have all my music available on Spotify app music all the music streaming
services too so I hope to see you in the next video.