Creating a Release

Select New Release from the Releases main menu - or to edit an existing release hover over it and click 'Edit'.

The Edit Release screen contains a number of tabs down the left hand side of the page, the first one 'Release' contains all fields relating to the release level metadata, such as the release title, catalog number, label etc.

When creating a new release only the 'Release' and 'Tracks' tabs will be visible - however you cannot add any tracks to the release until you have first entered all of the mandatory release level data and saved the release.

Most of the fields here shouldn't need much explanation, but we will go over a few things worth noting below:

• Label - Select which Recording Label you wish to release this product through using the 'Label' drop-down selector. You can create new labels from the labels screen
• Cat. No. - It's important to give a unique catalogue-number to each specific release you put on the market. It can only contain letters and numbers.
• Language - At release level this should be the language the metadata is in i.e. the language the release title and artist names are written in.
• Artist - Artists should be listed individually 1 per dropdown - you can create new artists by clicking the + button next to the dropdown, extra dropdowns will appear to select additional artists after you have made a selection from the existing ones. If there are more than 3 artists on a release select 'Various Artists' instead. DO NOT list featured artists at release level, they should only be listed at track level in the 'Featuring' field.
• UPC Code - Input your UPC code for this release.  
• Store - Choose between Beatport, Beatsource, or Beatport & Beatsource
• Exclusive Period - The exclusive period will allow the release live for the specified time period BEFORE the sales start date.
  • Example: A release with Sales Start Date as November 14 and Exclusive Period of 2 weeks will go live on Beatport on November 1.

A select number of retailers offer preorders of releases prior to the official release date. As preorder availability and options vary between retailers, we have chosen the following criteria to best fit with the range of retailers available:

• The preorder date must be between 14 and 28 days before the general release date

Artwork

You can upload the products cover-art using the 'Cover-Image' upload function.

• Artwork should be 3000px x 3000px in size - smaller image sizes may be resized before sending to retailers causing quality issues, larger images may fail to upload.
• Artwork should use the RGB colour format - uploading CMYK-formatted album-art will create colour problems and the final product may not appear as expected.
• Uploading any image with a DPI of higher than 72 can also be rejected by your retail partners, so be careful that images you upload conform to this.

Once you have entered all of the release details click the 'Save Draft' button at the bottom of the release (you can't make the release final until you have uploaded all the tracks).

If you have missed any mandatory fields when completing the release data they will be highlighted in red and the release will not be saved, simply complete any missing details and click 'Save Draft' again to move to the next step.

Adding Tracks

Once you have saved the initial release details you will now be able to click on the 'Tracks' tab in the left hand column - click the 'Add new track' button to create a new track.

You can add tracks previously created on other releases by clicking the 'Add existing track' button. This will allow you to include tracks from another, finalised product into a new one. This may be useful if you have previously released a version of a track which you wish to re-use in a follow-up or compilation album. The song is still located on the server with the correct metadata, so why upload it again? If you want to build a fresh compilation album from scratch - take a look at the Compilation Builder.

Track Details

Upon clicking the Add new track button, a new form will open for you to enter all the track level details, as shown in the screenshot below.

The first tab titled Main Details contains all the important track level metadata that will be sent to stores. We will highlight a few of the more important fields below:

• Featuring - List any featured artists here, you should NOT add featured artists using the Artist dropdowns (or at release level) they should only be listed in this box. Separate multiple featured artists with commas.
• Remixer - List any remixers here, you should NOT add remixers using the Artist dropdowns (or at release level) they should only be listed in this box. Separate multiple remixers artists with commas.
• Artist - Artists should be listed individually 1 per dropdown - you can create new artists by clicking the + button next to the dropdown, extra dropdowns will appear to select additional artists after you have made a selection from the existing ones. You must NOT enter Various Artists at track level, each artist must be listed separately.
• Track Number - These are set automatically based on the order of tracks listed in the release. You can change the order by clicking on a track within the list displayed to the left and dragging and dropping it to a new position
• Genre - Select the appropriate genre.  See the Genres section below for detailed information.
• ISRC Code - Input your releases' ISRC code here.  If you do not have an ISRC code, you may leave this field blank and one will be assigned for you. 
• Contains Vocals?- Select 'No Vocals' if the track does not contain any vocals in the audio, otherwise select 'Contains Vocals' - selecting Contains Vocals or Vocal Sample(s) will cause the Audio Language dropdown to appear below. Note that tracks that contain even a single word sample count as containing vocals, as such if you select ‘Vocal Sample(s)’ this counts as ‘Contains Vocals’ and the language must also be entered.
• Audio Language - This is the language of any vocals present in the audio, and may be different to the metadata Language listed at release level.

Genres

Different genres become available depending on which Store you select to deliver to:

When selecting Beatport & Beatsource, the following genre mapping occurs:

Updating an Existing Track

If you make changes to an existing track on the system, you may see the below dialog displayed after clicking the 'Save Track' button, this will only happen if another copy of the same track (same ISRC) exists on another release on the system.

Updating an Existing Track

If you make changes to an existing track on the system, you may see the below dialog displayed after clicking the 'Save Track' button, this will only happen if another copy of the same track (same ISRC) exists on another release on the system.

This allows you to easily update all other copies of the track which exist on the system to match the version you have just updated, the available options are:

• No, Just Update This Track - Only update the version of the track you are currently working on, all other copies of the track on the system will remain unchanged.
• Update All Tracks (not contracts) - Update the metadata and audio of all other copies of the track on the system, but leave the contracts unchanged.
• Update All Tracks & Contracts - Update the metadata and audio of all other copies of the track on the system, as well as the contracts, to match the current track you are saving.

Be careful when using the 'Update All Tracks & Contracts' option, as any differences in contract assignment between different copies of the track will be overwritten and lost.

Uploading WAV Audio

Once you have input the metadata for your tracks, you will want to upload the finished master versions for delivery and promotion.

Remember, any music files you upload should be delivered as 16 or 24 bit, 44hz .WAV masters - if you decide to use any other formatting, you may encounter errors.

When in the tracks view you will see a blue button labelled 'Click to Upload WAV' (note this is not visible if you have the Edit Track form open) - click the button to take you to the upload form shown below.

Sharing / Downloading Audio

It is possible to share a restricted link to download an individual track in either wav or mp3 format after uploading to the Distribution Tool. this may be useful when sharing links for promotional or licensing purposes where a full release promo email may not be required.

To create a link click on the tick ... icon next to the desired track and select either the Share WAV or Share MP3 option as shown below.

A new popup window will appear where you can enter a memorable name for the link (e.g. the person you are sending it to) as well as restricting the download to a specific date, maximum number of downloads and number of IP addresses it may be accessed from. If any of these 3 conditions are exceeded the user will receive a message informing them that the download link has expired.

When logged in you can also download an audio file directly from the same ... menu.

Share Release

In a similar way you can share a single link to preview and download all tracks on a release by clicking on the 'Share release' button shown under the main Release tab of the edit release page (see below screenshot):