Starting your own techno label can be an exciting yet challenging journey. As the electronic music scene continues to evolve, a well-run label can serve as a powerful platform to showcase innovative music and support emerging talent. Whether you’re a seasoned producer or DJ looking to create an outlet for your own releases or aiming to discover and promote new artists, understanding the fundamentals of how to start and run a record label is essential.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about starting a techno label, from defining your label’s artistic vision to navigating the legal aspects, signing artists, distributing their music, and promoting them effectively. We’ll also dive into crucial topics like handling contracts, collecting royalties, and managing sales, ensuring your label is both artist-friendly and financially sustainable.
By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of what it takes to build and run a successful techno label in today’s digital landscape, helping you determine if you’re ready to take on the challenge.
What does a record label do?
A record label plays a pivotal role in the music industry, acting as a bridge between artists and the public. Whether it’s a major label or an independent one, a techno label takes on several key responsibilities that help artists grow and reach new audiences. At its core, a record label is responsible for discovering talents, signing artists, and facilitating the production, distribution, and promotion of music.
Apart from distributing an artist’s tracks onto streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Beatport, or into physical formats like vinyl or CDs, they also take care of marketing and promotion, ensuring that artists get visibility through social media campaigns, press releases, and public relations efforts.
Artistic vision
To start a music label, the first essential step is to have a name and a clear vision. To succeed in a niche genre like techno, it’s important to understand from the outset how you will position your label and therefore your brand within the broader market. You need to think about what your label stands for and what message you want to convey. This includes not only the name and the type of music you want to release but also the artwork, the logo, your presence on social media, your website, and so on.
Your corporate identity needs to be consistent and coherent, creating a clear image of what your label represents and ensuring it stands out from other labels. In the techno genre, the artwork is an especially important part of the artistic vision. It can say a lot about your label and easily differentiate you from others. In my opinion, it’s worth developing an outstanding concept for your catalog and collaborating with graphic designers or other like minded artists.
Register and legal status
Once you have a name and a vision and are ready to get started, it’s time to think about how to officially register your new venture. If your label becomes successful, you’ll likely use services such as mastering, distribution, or marketing from external partners, and you’ll also need to handle payments and contracts with artists. This means you need to be able to issue and process invoices officially. You also need to register your record label officially if you want to join collecting societies or industry associations. More on that later.
Of course, this will depend on the country you live in, but regardless of location, I recommend starting with a small business registration or something equivalent in your country. You don’t need to establish a limited company or LLC if you’re running the label alone and don’t have employees. In the beginning, you only need to be able to issue invoices. If the business grows and you need employees or office space, you can always upgrade the small business registration to a more formal structure later on.
Finding and signing artists
Now that you’ve established your artistic vision and registered your business correctly, there’s nothing stopping you from signing your first artists and releasing music. If you’re not planning to release only your own music, you’ll need to scout artists and then have good contracts to secure the master rights from the artists, which are essential for distribution and promotion.
For this, you need to understand which rights you’ll need from the artists to release their music, and what types of contracts and durations are common in the industry. You can read more about this in my blog post on how record labels essentially work.
To draft a suitable label contract, you can start by using templates provided by industry associations and adapt them to your needs. In Germany, for example, you could refer to templates from the Association of independent music entrepreneurs (Verband unabhängiger Musikunternehmer*innen) I’m sure similar associations exist in other countries and languages. Alternatively, you can consult a music lawyer to help you draft a contract or review your template, ensuring you’re offering something fair and legally sound to your artists.
Distributing music
Now that you’ve found the right music for your label, it’s time to release it. In today’s digital age, releasing music mainly means mastering tracks and getting them ready for upload to digital service providers (DSP). DSPs like Beatport, Spotify, iTunes, or Bandcamp for example make your music available for streaming and download. To get your music delivered to these stores there are many digital distributors specialised in this task. While they all essentially upload your music to online platforms, their services vary when it comes to marketing, support, contract terms, and revenue share. It’s worth comparing different distributors to find the one that best fits your label’s needs and music.
A good digital distributor is characterised by their ability to deliver your music quickly to stores, maintain strong relationships with DSPs, potentially secure placements in playlists, and offer personalised service – ideally, you’ll have a dedicated product manager as a point of contact.
If you plan to distribute your music not only digitally but also physically – for example, on vinyl – things become a bit more complicated. You’ll need to find a distributor that can handle vinyl distribution, and you’ll also have to think about pressing, packaging, and so on. Typically, this requires a significant upfront investment since minimum order quantities for vinyl pressing often start at 100 units. So, unless you’re confident you’ll recoup the costs, it’s usually wise to begin with digital distribution and see how things progress.
Promoting your music
Now that your music is distributed and everything is set for the first release, it’s time to focus on marketing and promotion. In my opinion, this is the most crucial task of running a label – getting your music out there. You need to conduct market research to identify who your audience is and determine which marketing strategies work best in your genre.
Identify key players and mechanisms that resonate with your target audience. For example, in the techno genre, this could involve sending promos to well-known DJs or organising premieres on suitable channels on SoundCloud. But also a good social media campaign or a release review in a music magazine could come into play. Creativity is essential here, as you’ll need to find ways to present your music to a wider audience, especially if you don’t yet have a fanbase or following.
Managing royalties and finances
Once your music is released and you start seeing sales and downloads, it’s crucial to have a detailed overview of your finances. This includes tracking sales from all stores and managing expenses related to releases so you can pay your artists their agreed-upon share when you start making profits.
Depending on your sales performance and the channels through which you sell the most, it may be beneficial to join a performance rights organisation (PRO) such as the GVL (Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten) in Germany. These organisations can help ensure you don’t miss out on any royalties that stores owe per sale. Make sure to research and find out which PRO is relevant for your location to maximise your revenue.
Conclusion
After reading this blog post, you should have a good understanding of what it takes to start a techno record label. While this guide covers many key aspects, it’s important to note that it doesn’t address every detail involved in the process.
One crucial point to emphasise is that a record label, while deeply connected to music, is still a business aimed at generating profit. Given the unique nature of the music industry, it’s essential to be clear about your goals and reasons for starting a label. Regardless of your motivation, conducting thorough market analysis is vital to understand the specific mechanisms of the creative industry and to effectively position and promote your product – the music.
