Creating a Release
Select New Release from the Releases main menu - or to edit an existing release hover over it and click 'Edit'.
The Edit Release screen contains a number of tabs down the left hand side of the page, the first one 'Release' contains all fields relating to the release level metadata, such as the release title, catalog number, label etc.
When creating a new release only the 'Release' and 'Tracks' tabs will be visible - however you cannot add any tracks to the release until you have first entered all of the mandatory release level data and saved the release.
Most of the fields here shouldn't need much explanation, but we will go over a few things worth noting below:
- Label - Select which Recording Label you wish to release this product through using the 'Label' drop-down selector. You can create new labels from the labels screen
- Cat. No. - It's important to give a unique catalogue-number to each specific release you put on the market. It can only contain letters and numbers.
- Language - At release level this should be the language the metadata is in i.e. the language the release title and artist names are written in.
- Artist - Artists should be listed individually 1 per dropdown - you can create new artists by clicking the + button next to the dropdown, extra dropdowns will appear to select additional artists after you have made a selection from the existing ones. If there are more than 3 artists on a release select 'Various Artists' instead. DO NOT list featured artists at release level, they should only be listed at track level in the 'Featuring' field.
- UPC Code - If you are an Gallery Vision distribution customer, leave this field blank and a UPC will be auto assigned when the release is saved to 'final'.
- Preorders
A select number of retailers offer preorders of releases prior to the official release date. As preorder availability and options vary between retailers, we have chosen the following criteria to best fit with the range of retailers available:
- The preorder date must be between 14 and 28 days before the general release date
- If Song Previews is set to Yes - the public will be able to listen to preview clips of the tracks during the preorder period prior to general release.
- Beatport does not allow opt out of Song Previews - as such setting Song Previews to No will result in the preorder not going live on Beatport.
Artwork
You can upload the products cover-art using the 'Cover-Image' upload function.
- Artwork should be 3000px x 3000px in size & the format should be .JPG - smaller image sizes may be resized before sending to retailers causing quality issues, larger images may fail to upload.
- Artwork must meet iTunes style guidelines - including not using 'generic' artwork, not including website urls and any titles and artist names on the artwork exactly matching the title entered on Gallery Vision.
- Artwork should use the RGB colour format - uploading CMYK-formatted album-art will create colour problems and the final product may not appear as expected.
- Uploading any image with a DPI of higher than 72 can also be rejected by your retail partners, so be careful that images you upload conform to this.
Once you have entered all of the release details click the 'Save Draft' button at the bottom of the release (you can't make the release final until you have uploaded all the tracks).
If you have missed any mandatory fields when completing the release data they will be highlighted in red and the release will not be saved, simply complete any missing details and click 'Save Draft' again to move to the next step.
Adding Tracks
Once you have saved the initial release details you will now be able to click on the 'Tracks' tab in the left hand column - click the 'Add new track' button to create a new track.
You can add tracks previously created on other releases by clicking the 'Add existing track' button. This will allow you to include tracks from another, finalised product into a new one. This may be useful if you have previously released a version of a track which you wish to re-use in a follow-up or compilation album. The song is still located on the server with the correct metadata, so why upload it again? If you want to build a fresh compilation album from scratch - take a look at the Compilation Builder.
Track Details
Upon clicking the Add new track button, a new form will open for you to enter all the track level details, as shown in the screenshot below.
The first tab titled Main Details contains all the important track level metadata that will be sent to stores. We will highlight a few of the more important fields below:
- Featuring - List any featured artists here, you should NOT add featured artists using the Artist dropdowns (or at release level) they should only be listed in this box. Separate multiple featured artists with commas.
- Remixer - List any remixers here, you should NOT add remixers using the Artist dropdowns (or at release level) they should only be listed in this box. Separate multiple remixers artists with commas.
- Artist - Artists should be listed individually 1 per dropdown - you can create new artists by clicking the + button next to the dropdown, extra dropdowns will appear to select additional artists after you have made a selection from the existing ones. You must NOT enter Various Artists at track level, each artist must be listed separately.
- Track Number - These are set automatically based on the order of tracks listed in the release. You can change the order by clicking on a track within the list displayed to the left and dragging and dropping it to a new position
- Length - You can leave this blank and it will be pulled in when you upload an audio file. If you wish to enter it manually the system will validate the length matches that of any audio file uploaded at a later date.
- ISRC Code An ISRC acts like a unique identifier for each and every recording, almost like a barcode, and is used to identify the track in sales reports. If you are using Gallery Vision distribution you may leave the ISRC field blank for new tracks and one will be assigned for you. If you are using your own distribution ISRC codes must be entered manually - if you do not do this Gallery Vision will assign a placeholder ISRC code for use in accounting, you should NOT send these placeholder code to stores.
- Contains Vocals?- Select 'No Vocals' if the track does not contain any vocals in the audio, otherwise select 'Contains Vocals' - selecting Contains Vocals or Vocal Sample(s) will cause the Audio Language dropdown to appear below. Note that for Apple Music – tracks that contain even a single word sample count as containing vocals, as such if you select ‘Vocal Sample(s)’ this counts as ‘Contains Vocals’ and the language must also be entered.
- Audio Language - This is the language of any vocals present in the audio, and may be different to the metadata Language listed at release level.
Preorder Type
If you select Preorder Yes at release level, an additional dropdown will appear at track level to select the type of preorder to be applied to each individual track, there are currently 3 options, note that not all options apply to all retailers:
Standard
The standard tracks can be downloaded as part of the pre-ordered album on/after the release date.
Pre-order Only
The pre-order only tracks will be downloadable only during the pre-order period, and not after the regular release date.
You may offer any number of tracks on the pre-order album as pre-order only.
Pre-order only tracks will not be available for purchase after the album sales start date.
NOTE: The pre-order only tracks must appear as the last tracks in your release.
Instant Gratification
The instant gratification track will be downloaded immediately after committing to purchase the pre-order album, and afterward through the album purchase fulfilment at the sales start date.
NOTE: To choose an Instant Gratification track, Song Previews must be set to YES at release level. This setting may be applied to one track per album only.
Once all details have been completed click the 'Save Track' button at the bottom to save your changes.
Uploading WAV Audio
Once you have input the metadata for your tracks, you will want to upload the finished master versions for delivery and promotion.
Remember, any music files you upload should be delivered as 16 or 24 bit, 44hz .WAV masters - if you decide to use any other formatting, you may encounter errors.
When in the tracks view you will see a blue button labelled 'Click to Upload WAV' (note this is not visible if you have the Edit Track form open) - click the button to take you to the upload form shown below.
Gallery Vision offers two ways to upload audio, either via FTP (your username and password will have been supplied in your welcome email) or via web upload. We recommend using the FTP option as this tends to be faster and allows for multiple uploads at a time, as well as resuming uploads if they fail due to connection issues.
You should upload all WAV files to the top level of the FTP - do not put them into sub folders, or upload any additional files. Once fully uploaded to the FTP files will appear in the list under the FTP Upload tab. Simply tick the checkbox next to the file you wish to use and click 'Use Selected File'. It may take a moment for the system to process the upload while an mp3 version of the track is generated in the background, you can continue to upload other tracks to the release while this happens.
Gallery Vision recommends the free FTP client 'FileZilla'. It is a well respected FTP software and available for most operating-systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) free of charge. Note that using the Quick Connect boxes at the top of FileZilla generally will not work, instead you should select 'File' > 'Site Manager' from the top menu, and create a New Site using your login details, make sure to select 'FTP - File Transfer Protocol' as the Protocol, and 'Only use plain FTP' as the Encryption (this may be called 'Plain Text / No Encryption' or something similar for mac users).
If you prefer to use the Web Upload option - select the Web Upload tab from the Upload dialog, then click Select File to choose the file from your computer, and click 'Upload File' to complete the upload. Note that the web upload may take some time to process depending on the size of the file being uploaded, you should not navigate away from the Release page or close the browser while the upload is still in progress (you will get a popup warning if you try to do this by accident).
Watch the instructional video for a detailed step-by-step guide