RouteNote 101: A Step-by-Step Guide to Releasing Music
Get your music heard with this beginners guide to free music distribution using RouteNote to get your sounds heard worldwide.
Welcome to the world of digital music distribution. For an artist, music distribution means unlocking a global audience of listeners and taking your music career to new heights. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music provide a route to listeners all around the world.
In this article, we’ll walk through the simple process of uploading your music to the world’s biggest music platforms. Using RouteNote, you’ll learn how you can distribute music to all platforms for free and when to decide whether an upgrade to Premium is the right thing for you.
By the end of the article you’ll be well on your way to finding your global audience and earning money from your music that gets sent straight to your account. From here, you can build your music career to new heights!
- Setting Up Your RouteNote Account
- Preparing Your Music and Artwork
- Creating Your First Release
- Understanding Rights and Licensing
- Choosing Your Distribution Option
- Submitting and Managing Your Release
- Tracking Analytics and Getting Paid
- Continue the Journey
1. Setting Up Your RouteNote Account
Your journey begins at the RouteNote website. In the top right corner you’ll see a button saying Get Started and that’s exactly where you start, by creating your RouteNote account.
Fill in your personal details on the Create your account page. It’s a straightforward page that requires you to pick a username for your account and add an email that can be used to get in touch with you and verify your account.
You will need to add a password to your account – be sure to choose a strong password but that you will be able to remember, or store it somewhere securely. The page will let you know the strength of your password. For an added measure, you will then add a security question and response – be sure to choose something that someone else wouldn’t easily be able to guess the answer to.
Click to read and agree to RouteNote’s Terms & Conditions, then verify you’re not a robot with a click and you’re ready to press Sign Up!
You’ll need to head to the email you used to sign up with to verify your account from a link that will be sent to you. Once verified, you can log in.
2. Preparing Your Music and Artwork
Now you have your shiny new RouteNote account, it’s time to start using it. If you’ve gotten to this point you should have some finished music ready to release. There are some things to consider to make sure you will be able to release your music on RouteNote.
- Audio must be in either FLAC or MP3 audio file format
- Audio must be 320kbps/16 bit at a sample rate of 44.1kHz
If your audio doesn’t meet these requirements then don’t worry! It should be a simple case of re-rexporting your audio file from the app you recorded it into and ensuring you select the correct formatting from above.
You’re going to want to make your music visually striking as well, to stand out to new listeners when it appears on streaming services. Picking great album art enhances your music. There are some requirements to keep in mind to make sure that we can accept your artwork as well.
- Artwork must be 3000 x 3000 pixels
- Artwork needs to be a JPEG/.jpg file
- Your image must be less than 25mb
- Use the RGB colour space
Check here to see what your artwork cannot include. If you’re stuck for inspiration creating your album art then check out our guide on making great album art below.
3. Creating Your First Release
So you’re ready to upload your music to RouteNote and begin distributing your tracks around the world. To get started, simply head to the Distribution tab in the top right and then select Create New Release.
We have an essential guide walking you through the upload process if you need any help. The process is very straightforward but use our video guide if you get stuck at any point to help you ensure everything is in the best position to get it distributed around the world as quickly as possible.
Our playlist is broken into sections so find the video that matches the section you’re at, or watch the whole playlist to become a pro at releasing music via RouteNote.
One of the most important things to consider is where you want to release your music. Whether you’re uploading your music for Free or choosing to pay for Premium, you can select every single partner store and every territory in the world for your music.
If you want the best possible reach, finding listeners in every corner of the globe no matter what they choose to listen on, then simply select all territories and all stores – it’s free!
Be sure to keep in mind that if you are releasing cover songs, then there are certain restrictions to bear in mind.
4. Understanding Rights and Licensing
It’s important to understand what rights you have as an artist when you upload your music online. Your copyrights will help to gauge the royalties you are entitled to from your tracks.
Master Recording Royalties: Also known as the ‘main artist royalty’, these are the primary earnings you will receive for streams and downloads of your releases.
Synchronization Royalties: RouteNote can collect your YouTube Sync royalties for you. These are earnings generated when your composition is put to a moving image (video).
Publishing Royalties: These are royalties collected by collection agencies such as PRS, ASCAP, and PPL. Find out more about them and the royalties they collect here.
Of course, you must remember the rights that other artists have too. This means, that if you plan on using any content that isn’t your own whether that’s a sample or covering their composition, you need to ensure you know what that means for your music and that you are following the right steps to legally use their music in your own when you release it.
5. Choosing Your Distribution Option
With RouteNote, you always have a choice to do what best suits you depending on where you are in your artist journey or even what you want from each individual track. Choosing between Free and Premium distribution can seem like a big choice but we’re here to show you why it’s easy to make the best choice for you.
Free Distribution: At RouteNote, we don’t want to limit your journey. If you’re just getting started and aren’t ready to invest money into getting your music heard, then our Free option is perfect for you. Uploading your music for free allows you to:
- Distribute unlimited releases
- Choose every partner store for distribution
- Release in all territories
- Access all features
- Keep 85% of all of your revenues
So, what’s the difference on Premium? You get access to all the same features, except you keep 100% of the royalties. This means that when you reach a point in your career where you believe your music is earning enough to spend a little extra, you can reap the rewards from it.
You can switch every single release between Free and Premium at anytime to choose the best option on a case-by-case basis, making it easy to upgrade to Premium when a release starts popping off or to move back to Free when the hype wears off of it.
The choice is always yours.
6. Submitting and Managing Your Release
Moderation
Now you’re ready to submit your release. Send it off and our team will check through it to make sure everything is okay for release. Once approved, your release will be sent to all of your chosen stores.
Moderation of your release can take up to 12 working days. It can take 7-14 days from approval for your release to arrive in stores. If you have a release date in mind, it is important to upload your release as early as possible to ensure it arrives in time for release.
Updates
Once your release has been uploaded for moderation, you can make changes to things like track titles and cover art as well as the stores and territories you have distributed your release to. However, be aware you cannot change the audio on a release and will need to create a new release to change audio files.
To update your release:
- Log into your RouteNote account
- Head to your discography
- Cick the three dots to the right of your release title
- Select Update Release
Once you have made changes to your release, these will need to be approved. This can take between 7-14 days, however your release will remain online in it’s pre-updated form. If your update is denied you will receive a message stating why to your email address.
7. Tracking Analytics and Getting Paid
Once your music is live it’s time to enjoy the pleasure of watching the streams roll in. You can watch your music grow and eventually so will the revenues follow it. You can track your data in two different ways.
Music Platforms
Many of the top music streaming services provide their own artist platforms from which you can customise your artist profiles and view analytics for your songs, often in real-time. Platforms like Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists, Pandora AMP, YouTube Official Artist Channels, and many more are a fantastic place to keep track of your music once it is live on their stores.
RouteNote Analytics
All of your data from the stores you have distributed to around the world will be added to your RouteNote account to view in one place. You can easily browse your overall analytics or dive deeper into the specific platforms and performance of individual songs. Simply head to the Sales & Reports tab in your account.
RouteNote receives and uploads analytics 45 days after the end of each month. That means that all of your streaming and sales statistics for January would then be available to view in your account on or around the 15th of March.
Similarly, payments come in with statistics and so will be made on the same schedule. Payments are made to accounts once they have reached a minimum threshold of $50. Anyone closing their account will receive any remaining payments on closure.
Help When You Need It
If you need support, advice, or guidance at any point when using RouteNote, we’re here to help. You can visit our Support Hub which is full of the topics and answers to the most common questions. This can be your first port of call, just search your problem to see if we’ve covered it before.
If you don’t find the answers you’re looking for there, then you can get in touch with our Support Team at support@routenote.com or by creating a Support Ticket from the Community & Support tab in your account.
8. Continue the Journey
You’ve now taken the steps to unlock a global music distribution journey with releases on the top services around the world. But it doesn’t end there. Your journey is just beginning with making your music available on digital platforms.
What’s next? Promoting your music to take it to the next level, gigging to unlock new audiences and bolster your fanbase, cultivating superfans that are with you every step of the way, and advancing your music with every release.
Make use of the fantastic resources that RouteNote offer to maximise and progress your music journey even further.
The RouteNote Blog
You’re already here, but did you know that we have thousands of articles on our blog covering everything from cool RouteNote features, musician tips and tricks, new instruments and software, and so much more. The RouteNote Blog is updated every day with the latest music news, advice, and guidance: routenote.com/blog
RouteNote on YouTube
RouteNote’s YouTube channel is updated weekly with videos on making the most of your RouteNote account, how to progress in your music career, tips on using music software, and much more exciting artist content. Tune in to find the content that interests you and subscribe to stay up to date: youtube.com/@routenote
RouteNote on Social Media
Keep up to date with all the latest coming out of RouteNote and our partners across social media. Find and follow us on all of your favourite platforms from our PUSH.fm link: push.fm/fl/routenotesocials
We hope this article has helped you to take the first steps on a successful journey into music. Remember to keep your eyes to our channels for more, leave a comment below if you have any questions or get in touch with our team elsewhere to find out exactly what you need to know to make your music journey the greatest it can be.