The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your First Release
By Daniel Nesci
Planning, funding, creating and launching your first release is probably one of the most pinnacle steps any musician can take for their professional career and can even be just a confidence booster or bucket list item for a hobbyist musician. However, this process, no matter your desired result whether it’s going to be a serious commitment, a one-time thing or you’re unsure can be a daunting, nerve-racking and unfamiliar process.
Through this mini-series ‘DAW to Dawn’ I’m going to be walking through everything I learnt across my first year of releasing music which covered two EPs and a single. Covering everything you should consider from day 1 to release day. Of course, these are only the approaches that I took and where I see relevant I will include points from other people I’ve discussed this with so you can feel free to disregard this in your pursuit of creating music, there isn’t one set path. The title of this series ‘From DAW To Dawn’ refers to DAW which is a digital workstation station for those of you unclear.
Continuing on. I’ll be honest, if you want to release music just for fun, there is going to be a lot of extra detail over the next few columns that you won’t necessarily need to consider and if you aren’t a musician at all this will just provide insight into what goes on for a new independent artist. If you are even considering releasing music just for fun, I implore you to do it. For nothing else, releasing music allows you to look back later in your life and see a snapshot of who you were at that point. Beyond that, releasing music can be personally liberating and it’s something unique that you made from nothing, not many people can honestly say they’ve bet on themselves and taken a chance like that so you can be proud to be one of a kind. I hope you find value in the following columns for your musical journey.
Part 1: Logistics
Logistics, it’s boring but necessary. Like any complex project, creating a music release requires planning from album art to a release schedule. If you are a solo artist this is a little easier, all decisions are on you and you get the only say, if you’re in a band, it’s a little more complicated not worse but it will require compromise and ultimately a consensus. You may be wondering what the logistics of a first release could be. Here is a short list I’ve made:
- Amount of tracks
- Album art/single art
- Budget (both for music creation and marketing)
- External musicians (mix engineers, session players, etc)
- External marketing/PR individuals
- Photographer (press photos)
- Videographer (playthrough/music video)
- Merchandise
- Setting up band/music dedicated bank account
- Track names/album name
- What story do you want to tell?
For me, it always starts with track amount, if I’ve set myself an amount to reach in terms of how much I need to produce I have a measurable goal. This number will fluctuate at the beginning, I remember my bandmate and I started at six tracks as our desired amount, it then shifted to just singles and then eventually landed on three for our final release. It has to be quality and in this series, I’ll be dedicating a whole column to perfection vs completion so it’s a topic that I will be expanding on more.
Art in my view is super important, I’m an aesthetic person, if it looks good I’ll take a deeper interest in what else there is on offer. One of my favourite albums ‘Floa’ by Mammal Hands, the artwork was what immediately attracted me and I believe art can sometimes be the first introduction you have with an audience. Generally, people will see the cover art before listening and your artwork is inviting a listener to hear your story.
Money is never a fun topic, so budgeting yourself is the best way to stay within your means and know how much you’ll need to put aside to pay for any expenses. Opening a music-dedicated bank account will allow you to dedicate money regularly to your music that you won’t touch. The budget you create will impact how many external people you can bring on board, press photos, merchandise, marketing, etc. I can’t stress this point enough, if you want quality work done, expect to pay for it, no one is going to give you their musicianship for free and they shouldn’t.
If you are a new artist approaching someone established, whether that be a producer, mix engineer, or session musician they have no reason to work with you other than having quality music that they would genuinely want to be a part of and the pay. If you want work for free go find a student who has no experience looking to build up a portfolio, when I was fifteen/sixteen I did the vocal engineering for my high school friend’s single and EP for free so I could get the practice, the quality was nothing compared to what an industry professional could have done on any given day. So if you want to sound like the best you’ll need to pay for it or learn how to do it yourself which can be incredibly rewarding but taxing.
Finally, what story do you want to tell? My first year of releasing music was instrumental metal, we were working with ‘vibes’ as opposed to stories and now that I work with lyrics it’s about what’s emotionally being said. You may want an aggressive album with certain undertones of loss and sadness, on the flip side, you might want a happy album with love being the focal point.
Channel your life into it and use real memories to weave powerful themes together. With this, song names and the album name also come together. Think of the release like a painting with the theme and names all being the rough sketches before you add the colours. Our first release had no lyrics, we named songs based on what we felt and heard, that eventuated into ‘Moon Grotto’ because we felt it had space elements and grotto sounds better than cave. With lyrical songs, we usually take the hooks because a listener is most attracted to that and is most likely to search that into Spotify or Google. Ultimately, if people can relate to your story, it is likely to be a far more successful release.
I know it’s a lot but everything I’ve said are elements that I believe are needed if you want to create your first release in a professional capacity. This all needs to be thought about at the very beginning and if you’ve already started writing just take a day dedicated to planning, it will be immensely beneficial to the long-term success of your release.
Previous/Following Articles:
Pt.6 The Feedback Process
Pt.7 Release Cycles
Check Art As Catharsis’ latest releases on Bandcamp.
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