About labels

[Guifrog]

So this thing added me on YouTube:

http://www.toolroomrecords.co.uk/

http://www.toolroompublishing.com/

And, as I know about to nothing on this subject and couldn't find much in the available threads, thought I'd ask someone in here.

This one's mostly looking for electronic music, have a FAQ with explanations on the basics about the music industry, income, royalties and stuff, and also have a signing form with the option of subbing a track through SoundCloud. Mmmmmkay, but what else? What's the cons of signing to a label? Is there a fixed way of writing the blahblahblah to sign up to an independent one? Where does your $$profit$$ go to (as a foreign dude, I'm specially not sure about the whole process)?

Also, you think this one's actually worth it?

Share your thoughts/opinions/experience/etc.

[Kidd Cabbage]

So this thing added me on YouTube:

http://www.toolroomrecords.co.uk/

http://www.toolroompublishing.com/

And, as I know about to nothing on this subject and couldn't find much in the available threads, thought I'd ask someone in here.

This one's mostly looking for electronic music, have a FAQ with explanations on the basics about the music industry, income, royalties and stuff, and also have a signing form with the option of subbing a track through SoundCloud. Mmmmmkay, but what else? What's the cons of signing to a label? Is there a fixed way of writing the blahblahblah to sign up to an independent one? Where does your $$profit$$ go to (as a foreign dude, I'm specially not sure about the whole process)?

Also, you think this one's actually worth it?

Share your thoughts/opinions/experience/etc.

The cons of signing to a label is that 1) They're taking a good portion of your money, and 2) They own the masters of your music recordings.

Nowaday with the internet, the only thing that labels have going for them is distribution. Most people can produce a decent album by themselves, so it's more rare that labels are there to offer recording advances (which you would recoup the costs of in sales), as used to be the main reason to even have a label.

The statutory rate for royalties on your masters is 9.1 cents per song. Let's say you have ten songs on an album and the album sells for about $10. Unless you're sure that signing onto this label will get you over 10x more sales, it doesn't make good business sense to do so.

[Meteo Xavier]

A lot of them have additional marketing and connections that would be beneficial and easier to come by then it you did it yourself. Granted, its still not stuff you couldn't potentially get yourself, but that's the record label's job. That's what they're taking a cut from you for.