I released my album independently. I'm still waiting for my big break to have some label sign me up but I didn't want to wait that long and I guess we all shouldn't. There are a ton of questions here so I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities. I released my first few EPs, albums by doing the CDs myself. I had hundreds of CDs burned and I did all the design, printing, and buying of blank CDs, picking the color of the jewel case and such. In the end, I ended up with a more than decent independent release that I could easily include in my proper discography. When I released my "proper" album, Devotion. It was still independent in the sense that I had no label but I had someone sponsor the whole thing that I finally got a professional CD made with the proper printing, replication, and it was in a professional facility and not just some guy burning discs off his CD writer. I had more than a thousand made and sold most of them. What I did was have 1200 made and had the 200 as promo copies to be given away. Digitally, everybody can go thru "middle men" companies like Tunecore, etc. I went with Reverbnation because I was happy with their package and the site as a whole. On a side note, I really feel that site is underrated. Their site is really something FOR musicians... Anyway, for a fee, you can get your music on tons of digital sites and you can get it back with only a few CDs sold so I don't see that as a problem. My usual advice is, don't see your first records sold as money making avenues. Instead, treat it as a calling card for you to get more gigs, projects that can earn you more than what you get from a single CD sale. In terms of recording live sets and such, I have a separate set for live than those which I release so I'm pretty more detailed on those I release with processing, editing and such. Well, style will end up with as much answers as there are questions. Some people think tagging tunes with "genres" doesn't help it either. But generally, if you want to do something along the lines of a certain style or are concerned in tagging yours, what I usually do for styles I'm unfamiliar with, is I simply download mixes regarding a certain style and see the pattern in it. I guess that's the most basic thing I can recommend. Of course a simple google search won't hurt either :) Approaching record companies is I guess best with doing your research. Just make sure you submit something that the label does or sounds like. Do listen to their catalog and see if you'll fit in their roster. It'll save you time and money. Regarding what you write on CDs, what I initially did was take out a bunch of artists CDs that I liked and just looked at what was common among them of if something stood out, I also included it in mine. I'm pretty hands on with my project as silverfilter so I usually write everything and even design my album covers. It doesn't mean that I don't welcome any help. If some guy offers to make the cover for me and does it really well, why not right? Hope I helped a bit there :)
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I hope you guys learned a bit from this. If you have questions, feel free to contact me!
God bless.
Cy
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