Before 2006, no artist could sell music without a label.
The launch of the digital music aggregator, TuneCore enabled artists to sell music across various platforms and keep 100% of their sales revenue.
In 2017, the independent music label had a revenue generated of one billion U.S dollars by indie artists, which doubled by 2020, increasing up to two billion U.S dollars.
If that has you hooked, here is everything else you need to know about the leading digital music aggregator.
What Is TuneCore?
TuneCore is a platform for labels and independent artists. TuneCore offers its users multiple distributions, payout administration, promotion, and publishing packages.
Unlike other service platforms, TuneCore doesn’t take the majority of revenue artists generate through streaming and downloads of their music.
Instead, it ensures that each musician gets their 100% sales revenue back into their pockets.
TuneCore has been around for more than a decade and artists who seek to distribute their music online choose this service platform.
That’s why TuneCore even now has a growing number of musicians and labels turning towards the company. TuneCore makes your music available to your fans across multiple different platforms.
How Long Does TuneCore Take Distribute Music?
The review process of TuneCore usually takes around 1-2 business days to review the artist’s release.
Once you’ve submitted your release, it will be immediately sent to digital music stores after the review process is finished. After that, each store is responsible for making your release live.
However, one thing to remember when creating your release is to set a release date for the future.
Each platform makes your release live in its own time, so setting a pre-release date will make your music go live on all platforms at the same time.
TuneCore recommends artists release their songs for distribution weeks prior to the actual release date. You can also pre-order the start date.
When submitting your release for playlist consideration, you need to get it approved by TuneCore. In addition, it must be processed in the stores two weeks before your actual release date.
Every artist that submits their release to TuneCore must ensure that their release meets all the formatting requirements of TuneCore’s store partners.
If a release doesn’t meet those requirements, it can cause further delay.
There are some crucial factors every under must understand about the time it takes for their release to get live such as TuneCore won’t send any notification for the release going live as the process is automatic.
When your release has been reviewed and approved by TuneCore, here’s how soon it can go live in different digital music stores.
- It takes 5 business days for the release to go live on iTunes.
- The release will be live in 2-5 business days on Spotify.
- Amazon Music takes 1-3 business days to make your release live.
- Deezer and iHeartRadio both take around 3-7 business days to make your release live.
For all other stores, it takes 1-3 weeks for your release to go live. However, the timeframes mentioned above are approximate and TuneCore has no control over the internal review processes of digital music stores.
TuneCore takes about a day to review your release, so it’s important to schedule the release beforehand to create hype around it.
The service platform also allows you to make your composition available on iTunes for your fanbase before its official release date.
That helps you get the idea of how many sales to expect on the release date. TuneCore allows this only on iTunes/Apple Store.
Things That Can Delay the Distribution of Your Music:
While TuneCore doesn’t take long to review and send your release to multiple streaming stores to make it go live, there are certain things that could cause a delay in distribution.
As mentioned above, sometimes there are some text formatting errors that can make stores reject your music composition even after the distribution has been completed. For instance:
- If you’re releasing a composition that was a result of collaboration with different artists and you don’t mention each artist’s name in a separate line, it can delay your release.
- Mentioning producers and composer titles with the names of the artists is also unnecessary and can cause a delay in your track going live for streaming.
- Distributing a cover song has separate requirements. If you’ve got all the permits and licenses for distributing the cover, TuneCore doesn’t require you to credit the artist with the original song in the track title because virtual streaming stores do not accept that information.
- Always make all formatting edits before release because stores reject songs that have grammatical errors in track titles.
How Do I Upload My Music to TuneCore?
The process of uploading your music on TuneCore is very simple. After you log in to your TuneCore account and upload your artwork, you have to enter the details of your release.
After that, you must select which stores you’d like to distribute music to. TuneCore sends your release to over 150 digital music stores worldwide.
It’s not only cheap but fast to get your music published on TuneCore. You can upload an EP or an album for a starting price as low as $9.99.
How Does TuneCore Process Payouts?
TuneCore believes that every artist deserves to be compensated for their release, so it keeps a track record to help artists get paid on time.
Royalties paid by TuneCore are a lengthy process sometimes. TuneCore pays by quarter throughout the year.
There aren’t any faster timelines than quarterly and any digital music aggregator claiming to provide quicker payments will also be receiving a higher percentage of your revenue.
Thus, it’s mandatory to understand that payout processes in the music industry, especially digitally, can take some time.
In addition, you must understand that for working payouts, any virtual music distributor will require you to process your tax information related to your personal information.
That’s why, for tax purposes, many artists classify themselves as independent contractors. TuneCore ensures that you receive all your documents annually.
If all fees are current, TuneCore offers payment splitting options.
For instance, many artists have different distribution plans, so there’s a lot of extra legal paperwork required for collaboration between two or more artists.
Some platforms impose a threshold on users for any transaction they make through their accounts.
But with TuneCore, the artists can withdraw money at any time from the account once the earnings have been processed. You can also withdraw your money via checks, PayPal, or EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).
Why Choose TuneCore?
- It gets your music listed on all music streaming platforms.
- Promotional tools offered by TuneCore make it easier for your fans to find your music.
- They have a designated sync team to ensure high-quality and resolution files of your music are available.
- TuneCore works with PRO (Performing Rights Organization) to ensure each artist gets all the royalties they are owed.
As the music industry gradually undergoes changes, so do content creators and consumers.
Which makes it more important to keep up with the new trends, such as having a global outreach with your composition and using a leading music distribution service; TuneCore.
You will not only have your music releases go live on several streaming platforms but access to all royalties regarding your music.
