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Monday, July 8, 2013

DistroKid.com Part 2

Sorry for taking so long to continue this experience. I had to make up some album artwork. I decided for generic, using a photo of a Les Paul Recording model that I have written a good bit of game music on.

Anyway, I uploaded the album art and a wav file of "In Hiding," a song from Duke Nukem 3D (Episode 3, Level 1: Raw Meat). It wasn't long before I received two "Good News" automated emails from DistroKid advising that the artwork (format, size, etc.) and the audio (format, bitrate, etc) "is good." Both emails included a link to more details about further processing of the files. That page stands static, reflecting that both artwork and song are "processing."

It seems that this is going to take a while.

I decided to refresh the page after waiting 10 minutes or so, and it reflected that the artwork was "Good." For the album, it listed a UPC, with an IRSC for the song. Pretty cool!

I also received another email. There's a problem with the way the system handled the one song. The Album title, which I listed as "Music from Duke Nukem 3D" is listed as "In Hiding," the song name. Will I be able to put this song with the others when I upload them? We'll see.

The good news is that the "album" has already been submitted to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon.

There's an interesting paragraph about how long the stores take to make an album live:

  • iTunes: About 1 day, sometimes within hours. A small percentage of albums go through manual review at Apple, which takes an additional 16 business days.
  • Spotify: 1-3 days.
  • Google Play: About 3 days.
  • Amazon: 4-6 weeks (still beta testing)
I'll check these stores to see what actually happens. And I'll make a new post regarding further developments.

4 comments:

  1. I tried out Distro Kid today for the first time and did not enjoy the experience at all -- my music uploaded fine but it would not accept the artwork (which, according to their standards, should have been acceptable)....my main gripe is that they don't list a support link anywhere on the site that you can contact and get help. As far as I know, my music is in limbo.

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  2. There is an email address on the home page. Unfortunately, you have to sign out of your account to see it. Of course it should be in the footer of every page: support@distrokid.com.

    Additionally, you can tweet @distrokid -- I don't know what good either of these methods are. I never received a response to an email I sent weeks ago.

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  3. What I need, Bobby, is guidance as to what those darn controls do on my Les Paul Recording!! ;)

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    1. Dear Mighty Fat Man -- congratulations! Les' favorite guitar. I've send you the schematics and manual. Hopefully they will clear up the mud. Thanks for asking for guidance. I now better understand the controls after actually reading the manual :-)

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