PDP – Track Release: Elements

I have used this project in my portfolio as I believe it showcases not only my abilities as a producer in being able to create, mix and master a track, as well as holding studio sessions with artists to record vocals and then work together with the artist in the mixing stage to ensure we are both happy with the final product but also my skills in networking, promotion and marketing. This project was completed over 3 months starting with market research and planning, I done deep dives into producers and artists who work in the genre of the track that I wanted to release and researched into who listens to this music in order to establish who my target audience is, what attracts them to this style and what makes a good track in this genre. With this research I was able to know what type of content would be good for promotion as well as who to promote this track to. I also researched the Scottish independent music scene in order to see how well received the track would be. As I decided to make a gritty Boom Bap track which in itself is a niche sub genre of hip hop, this is even more niche in the Scottish music scene. I took all of this into account when setting my goals and targets for the track.

This project shows my networking skills as I reached out to artists, both to work as well as to help with promotion and make contacts with videographers, playlisters and gaining more consumer followers as well as more artists. I worked well with the artist, Mic Orion and gained his trust musically to the point that I helped him with the sequencing of his solo album as well as assisting him with mixing and mastering advice.

This project also shows my abilities in marketing my brand as a producer as well as my abilities to research and pinpoint demographics to market towards.

In making this track, I gained experience in working as a freelance producer, including booking and hosting studio sessions, sample clearance, conferring, liaising and working together with the artist for a common goal as well as the recording, mixing and mastering of the track.  As I had a deadline set for the track release I also used my time management skills to ensure all aspects were completed in a timely manner. This was also important as I had to ensure that I had content ready for promotion of the track, ensuring that I was able to promote it with enough time to garner interest.

I made the beat for the track in FL studio at my home studio and recorded the vocals on Pro Tools, this not only shows my proficiency in working across multiple DAWs but also my technical abilities in recording. I mixed and mastered the track in both FL and Pro Tools, again showing my abilities in working in these DAWs but also shows my file management skills as I worked on the track in my home studio as well as the college studio. This also shows my creative ability in creating a track as well as my technical skills in mixing and mastering as these were all done by myself.

I released the track through Distrokid, showing my ability to work as an independent artist, while adhering to copyright laws and sample clearance, setting deadlines for promotion and the release of the track.

The skills which I used in completing this project were learned in college as well as my previous freelance work experience. I was able to work to  a client brief and work together with an artist in order to create a track that we were all happy with, a skill which I learned from taking freelance work. The ability to work on multiple DAWs is a skill which I have gained from making music for 5 years as well as throughout the majority of the college modules that I have completed, for instance the DAW, ISP and ADR & foley modules. I was able to market and promote the track due to skills and knowledge gained from the PDP module as well as from my own releases that I have done over the years. I was able to navigate copyright laws successfully with the skills that I have gained from our skills for business module in HNC. I gained the skills to create a professional mix from my 5 years experience making music as well as the mixing module from HNC in college.

 

PDP LOG

 

Week starting 21/10.

I had written in to my plan that I would record vocals on this session however, Michael was still on holiday so I was unable to do this.  As I had spare time I used it to research sample clearance for the track, using Tracklib.  I decided against clearing the sample at this stage as we hadn't had our recording sessions yet and I felt that I wanted to see how the full track was when everything was recorded before committing to this beat and clearing the sample.

I browsed Fiverr and compared potential artists to make the cover art for my single and I also reached out to the head of art & design at New College Lanarkshire to see if any students were interested in paid work to create this. A student got back to me however as they did not make digital art we decided not to proceed.

 

Week starting 28/10

My plan was to record vocals and get some promotional material on this session but Michael had taken ill while on holiday.  I decided to make a plan b in case we were not able to get the vocals recorded in time with the planned release date. I planned a release of a lofi house track that I had been working on in my spare time, creating a cover for the single using photoshop.

I messaged Michael later on that week and we agreed to record next week.

 

Week  starting 04/11

I set up the studio to record vocals with Michael and had Bruce take some photos and videos during the session.  Michael and I worked together to work out how the track would sound and done a rough mix once we had it recorded.  We both agreed that it was short but we were happy with the end result.

I spoke to the music business students and agreed with a student that he would create the cover art for the project. We discussed the aesthetic that I am looking to achieve with the release and I sent reference images to him.

I posted videos of the studio session on Instagram, previewing the track and Michael posted a photo of us taken during the session, promoting the release and I shared this.

 

 

Week starting 11/11

Michael contacted me asking if we could re record his vocals for the track as he felt that he could do better.  In this discussion we agreed that it would be better to make a longer track.  I sent Michael a beat that I was working on and we decided to make a full new track altogether with this beat and lyrics which Michael had written already. Michale had also arranged for a videographer whom he has worked with to come to get content for promo.

I booked the studio for Tuesday afternoon and arrived  early to set it up.  I filmed this and posted it to my Instagram as part of promotion.

We had a 3 hour recording session, and by the end we had a the track completed as well as getting video content and photos taken to be used to generate interest in the track.

I posted a snippet of Mic recording vocals on my Instagram story.

I spent Wednesday mixing and mastering the track, collaborating with Mic by sending the mixed stems to him for any changes he would like to make on the vocals.

I received the footage and photos from the videographer and spent a day going through 40gb of footage, as it was filmed in 4k and edited a video of the studio session on premiere pro to use as promotional material.  The post has done well on my Instagram page, receiving like, comments and shares and I have had a few artists message me wanting to collaborate.

I also used AI to create the cover art for the track, using the prompt “minimal black vinyl cover weathered”.  I added text to the cover using photoshop and made some edits to the colouration.

 

Week starting 18/11

I received Michael’s edit of the vocals and done a final mix of the track.

As this track is influenced by 90’s gritty boom bap, I mixed it as such. I used EQ on all aspects other than vocals to cut out any frequencies over 10Khz to emulate the MPC drum samplers used in this style of track and used Cymatic Origins on the sample chops to give it a vinyl texture, added saturation and movement as well as resampling at a lower rate to gain the desired sound.

Once I had the final mix completed, I made a teaser trailer to use as a paid advertisement on my Instagram.  I used a snippet of the track and automated filter sweeps to open and close the snippet.  I created a video on Canva, using the cover art and the audio snippet.

I started the process of clearing the sample used in the track.  I filled out all the details that I could, however I will need to have the track uploaded to Distrokid and have the release scheduled in order to get my ISRC code as well as having to make an agreement with Michael regarding the revenue split for the track. Once I had this sorted I completed the process.

I set up my release on Distrokid and scheduled this for 03/12/24. This gave me my ISRC code and allowed me to finish the sample clearing process.

 

 

Week starting 25/11

I launched my promoted ad post on Instagram, costing £28 for a week.  I have started to gain followers already.

The Ad was targeted at people similar to my followers, so this was mainly artists and fans of hip hop music.

I also promoted the track by sharing photos & videos with the track playing. To do this, I used targeted promotion, using specific hashtags that were geared towards my chosen demographic.  I used hashtags such as #hiphop, #scottishhiphop, #boombap & #scottishmusic. This allowed me to reach an audience who were interested in these subjects and to gain followers who would engage with my product.

I posted on Instagram, TikTok & Twitter and learned that Instagram was by far the most effective platform for my promotion as on Twitter, my posts weren’t getting much traction and my posts on TikTok were getting a lot of views, however this did not translate into follows or many likes.  I did already have a decent following on Instagram due to previous releases and engagements, so I do believe that this played into why this was the better platform but I do also believe that Instagram is the best platform for growing an audience in music, followed by TikTok but I feel that the algorithm on that is fairly random, making it not as reliable as Instagram.

As I had the ad running, I didn't post as much as I have noticed in the past that if I post too often then this can lead to a loss in followers on Instagram.

 

Week starting 02/11

With my release date approaching I started posting teaser photos with the date of the release.

The videographer that I had worked with sent over a video that he had made from the studio session footage and I posted this to announce that the track had been released.

I posted the link to the track on my Instagram story, tagging Michael and the videographer to credit them for their work, the also shared the post on their own social media feeds. I also shared the track on my personal Instagram account.

I had a few people who also shared the track in their Instagram story, and I shared these as well to promote and show that there was interest in the track.

Throughout the week I posted various snippets of the track with different photos and videos with a link to the track to drive streams.

Due to the genre of my release being quite niche, I did not send it out to for playlisting but instead decided to directly message play listers who deal with Scottish Hip Hop. I messaged the person who runs the biggest Scottish hip hop playlist on Spotify personally, as I know him, for him to consider adding the track to the playlist. This is updated monthly so I will need to wait until this is updated to see if it has been added. When this is updated, the hip hop Scotland Instagram page normally makes a post showing what has been added so this could also be a boost for my followers on Instagram.

During one of my previous releases, an American youtuber made a video reviewing the track so I messaged him directly, with the track link, to ask if he was interested in reviewing this track.  He replied saying yes and that he will tag me in a post when this is out.

 

 

 

Result

For this project, I set out a promo plan based on the producer, The Alchemist. I researched what types of releases he makes, as well as how he markets them to garner interest before the release. In my research I discovered that he has social media presence and mainly relies on that to promote his tracks or albums. He posts video blogs showing him on tour as well as studio sessions with artists and often does Q&A sessions with fans. For my promotion I will look to emulate this on a smaller scale. Where The Alchemist makes long format content in video blogs, I posted shorter teaser trailers and snippets of studio sessions, and where The Alchemist does Q&A sessions with his large fan base, I did polls on Instagram stories.

I already had an Instagram account set up for my music when beginning the promo run for this release, with 164 followers. I started a Twitter page and TikTok page however I quickly realised that Instagram was the best platform for my promo due to TikTok’s user base skewing younger than my target audience and Twitter just not being a great platform for sharing music, therefore I prioritised Instagram but still posted on TikTok and Twitter but to a lesser extent and to less success.

At the time of writing this, the track has had 1206 streams on Spotify, however my follower count on Instagram has increased to 284.  From my ad as well as organic promotion like shares, my content reach has increased by 2567%, reaching 2300 accounts and engaging 94 accounts for an increase of 683%.

Looking at the data on Spotify for Artists, I can see that 76 % of my listeners are male and 17 % are female, with 4% being non binary and 3% not specified and 52% of my listeners being aged 28-34.  Males aged 28-34 is the key demographic for the style of music that I make so this shows my targeted ads worked as intended.

 

Challenges

My first big challenge was potentially having to switch my full project due to the artist’s availability. I created a new track in a completely different genre with a different market. Luckily Mic was available to work together so this only really affected about a week or so of my progress so didn’t have much of an impact on the project.

Marketing a track to this extent was a new experience and a skill that I had to learn whilst doing the job. With previous releases I have been the producer of the track and it was released by the artist, meaning that they were in charge of the majority of promotion and marketing, however with this release it was mainly up to me as Mic had an album release at the same time so he was mostly promoting that. The market research helped in terms of knowing what type of content to push and what audience to promote to and Instagram AI ensured that the promotion was done towards people similar to who I follow and people who follow the same artists that I follow which was a great help.

A lot of tasks at once – making the track, recording with artist, mixing, mastering, promo, sample clearance, release schedule. I have done all of these tasks in the past, however having to do all of them within a fairly short timescale was where this became a challenge. I managed my time well to ensure that I never fell behind. I was also fortunate enough to be working with a professional artist as well as a professional videographer which made the full process easier.