This is more so an outlet for my thoughts for anybody who has the thought of starting their own label
So I started a record label on a whim this year and to be honest, so far so good! I've been working on a divorce and have basically lost everything out of it, so I figured it would be the perfect time to go balls deep and start this thing up. That and I've always wanted my own business and I can do whatever the hell I want with it.
The biggest troubles I've encountered so far is that A: everybody wants to sign with a big label and doesn't want to start small and B: social media marketing is confusing and C: there is SOOOOO much terrible music out there. I'm still trying to figure out how to get our name out more and get more "social media currency", to which I've already lost some money in doing so, but I always learn from my mistakes. I'm a small time producer and DJ myself from a smaller city without a following so I'm basically building from complete scratch. So what I'm currently working on is doing some events in the southeast U.S. region with some smaller clubs and/or larger clubs once we get a little more established. My thought process behind doing so would be to hopefully draw in local producers with some following so that the name attached with that DJ playing would naturally draw us some attention and social media currency. If a DJ they already know is playing, slap our logo behind them and bickity bam! At least that's what I'm hoping for anyways, but we'll see how it pans out.
On the subject of terrible music...my goodness. I joined several facebook groups to find producers and you have to sift through sooooo much works in progress, bad mixing, bad production, weird experimental stuff, just to find anything halfway decent and it gets quite tedious. So if you've ever wondered why it's so difficult for a major label to even just listen to your music, this is why. The world of music is just sooooo saturated and everybody and their mama wants to be the next Martin Garrix or Hardwell. Hell, set your sights a little lower and build your brand and your sound. If you're good enough, you'll be found...from my experiences I can almost assure you that, but you've gotta put real work in. Which brings up the same idea that some of the talent I have found weren't interested in signing with a small label; some just want go big or go home and I get that too. To each their own.
As for the label itself, it's Aced Records (same name for soundcloud, facebook, twitter, and our .com if you'd like to follow). I named it after my kids oddly enough - Adrien Cameron Ethan and "Da 4th kid I'm never having". I found my first and only artist (other than myself) from a like on a post I had made in one of the groups. He's a young Dutch guy with tons of talent and already has a decent following; he happened to sign with me because he had signed to a small label previously and had done everything himself and had a bad experience. I truly believe he will make it big one day; I doubt it will be with my label, but I really just want be a part of helping him get to the big stage more than anything. Which is kind of my meaning and what I want my label to stand for. I don't want some douchey label where we steal your money and dick around with the music; Hell, my artist really only wants to do free releases because he's more about the exposure and I thought it was the greatest idea. And I still put my money behind it to promote it. That being said, I could be so picky behind the music I select to try and sign because I want people that I truly believe have the talent to "grow out of" my label.
A few things I've done so far that I'm hoping to turn out to be positives:
1. I have an insanely hot woman to send out my facebook message inquiries for me. This was a funny idea, but I think my logic behind it is pretty sound as sexist as it may or may not seem. So most of the club owners, promoters, etc are all stupid horny douche bags and they'll listen to or do anything for a hot girl. I mean hell, I'm a guy and I'm probably the exact same way. So a friend of mine I've known for years who used to be big into the club scene and is really really hot, has agreed to let me turn her into my messenger. She'll send out all of my e-mails, make phone calls, facebook messages and such so that essentially she's the "face" of the label until we get more established. I dubbed her signature in the e-mail I gave her "Supreme Executive Lady".
2. I did a somewhat successful prize giveaway. I lost some money on this one big time unfortunately haha, but I think ultimately it was good exposure for people to stick around with "liking us" I spent $150 on an audio interface and only got about 40'ish likes on the facebook page for it plus around $50 in the sponsored facebook posts. I was hoping to get at least more than 100, but I suppose it's really so specific the producers that it may have been a bit too specific. I plan on doing more giveaways, but I think this next go round I'm gonna target the fans a bit more and do some t-shirts, stickers, type stuff.
3. I'm trying to target newer, smaller, EDM related groups who are more willing to "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" type promotional things. I don't really care what they do, as long as my labels logo ends up on the promotional material.
I'll add some more stuff and trials and errors as I go along to help anybody else out. I'm always open to sharing experiences and knowledge as I don't see a need to hide it. You can know all the super secrets in the world and still not be successful. As a shameless plug, send your demos to demos@acedrecords.com and our second release (first one from me on my own label) is March 31st with another freebie so follow us!
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