Blog Advertising

Blogs are essential to many. For labels, it is important to read up on what is going on in the industry. In this section you will see many blogs and news related websites so you can stay ahead of the curve, find out new artists (and free music), and tons more! Visit these blogs, contact them, and get involved today!

Symphonic Distribution Blog Partners (We send releases to these blogs)
ResidentAdvisor.net – www.residentadvisor.net
Beatportal.com – www.beatportal.com
Danger! Danger! – www.dangerdanger.org
Big Stereo – this.bigstereo.net
Data Sapiens – www.datasapiens.net
Discobelle – www.discobelle.net
DJnoDJ – www.djnodj.com
Juno Plus – www.junodownload.com/plus/
FTW – www.fuckthatworld.com
Brap.FM – www.brap.fm
Bass Music – www.bassmusicblog.com
Bass Ache – www.bassache.net
Gigabeat Records – www.gigabeat.us
The Fat! Club – www.thefatclub.com
Life Support Machine – www.lifesupportmachine.co.uk
Big Up Magazine – www.thebigupmagazine.com
URB.com – www.urb.com
Pitchfork – www.pitchfork.com
The Hats And Friends – www.thehatsandfriends.com
BeatJunks – www.beatjunks.com
Electro Station – www.electrostation.net
6 In The Morning – www.6inthemorning.com
Badical Beats – www.badicalbeats.com
Deep Rhythms – www.deeprhythms.com
That DJ – www.that-dj.com
Gotta Dance Dirty – www.gottadancedirty.com

Promote Symphonic!

We take great pride in promoting you on our website, social networks, and brands Noiseporn.com, EverythingMedia.com, and JamVana.com. If you want to return the favor, below you fill find our logo and other marketing related images that you are free to put up wherever you’d like. This is definitely not mandatory but it doesn’t hurt to ask! Click on each image to view the full file available for download.

Magazine Advertising

Advertising is an essential piece of marketing.  We have compiled these magazine websites as great resources for you to contact and consider advertising in.  Who knows, maybe a full page ad might get you the attention you need for your releases!  These may correspond to online or print!

URB Magazine – http://www.urb.com
DJ Mag – http://www.djmag.com
Big Up Magazine – http://www.thebigupmagazine.com
DigitalMusicNews – http://www.digitalmusicnews.com
Pitchfork – http://www.pitchfork.com
Spin – http://www.spin.com
Noiseporn – http://www.noiseporn.com
DotMusic – http://www.dotmusic.com
Blender Magazine – http://www.blender.com
Filter Magazine – http://www.filter-mag.com
Paste Magazine – http://www.pastemagazine.com
Beatportal – http://www.beatportal.com
ResidentAdvisor.net – http://www.residentadvisor.net
Chart Attack – http://www.chartattack.com/
Exclaim! – http://www.exclaim.ca/
Popjournalism – http://www.popjournalism.ca/magazine/
Spill Magazine – http://www.spillmagazine.com/
Beat Magazine – http://www.beat.com.au/

Internet Radio

Internet radio is not only a great source of entertainment but it is also a great source to use to send your music to! Imagine if some of the DJs in these stations were playing the music you release on stores worldwide? Or better yet, if you have an artist, why not try and get them a radio show? Check these out today! If you know of a radio station that should be featured here, let us know!

www.shoutcast.com – Directory of Thousands Of Radio Stations
www.slacker.com
www.di.fm
www.unitedbreaks.fm
www.filth.fm
www.technobase.FM
www.frenchkissfm.com
www.pulsradio.com
www.housetime.fm
www.ah.fm
www.electricFM.com
www.ibizaglobalradio.com
www.fusionchicago.com
www.ibizasonica.com
www.javabeats.fm
www.gremlinradio.com
www.blitzradio.fm
www.live365.com
www.play.fm
www.soma.fm
www.afterhours.fm
www.odu.fm

4 other ways to #win

SoundCloud is an audio platform aimed towards audio creators helping to share their creations across the web. SoundCloud Tips is a series of informative posts with Symphonic Distribution for some quick tips of how you can make of SoundCloud as a label and for your artists. The fourth and final part in this series is about four other ways to win at SoundCloud you may not be aware of from a kickass profile, to engaging your own audience and ther artist’s audiences.

Have an Awesome Profile
So you have an awesome track making its rounds on the interwebs but what do your fans learn about your label or artist when they come to your SoundCloud profile. Remember you can include social links, plus tour dates with our brand new Songkick integration, direct to your profile to follow your trail across the web and to your next show. Plus if you want to make sure one specific track is first to be seen our spotlight feature allows you to pick what tracks and sets are the forefront of your profile. Have an awesome profile, read this post!

Audio Tweet
SoundCloud is an audio platform so it’s important to think of the audio you can share with fans can be more than just your music. SoundCloud recently launched a record function. Accessible via the website or SoundCloud app for iPhone or Android, the record feature enables anyone to capture sound on the move and then, in the embeddable waveform player. SoundCloud app is an ideal way to push out a quick audio message to the web – you can easily record your audio tweet to your SoundCloud profile. On tour? Tag your location and create an audio tour diary! Find out more about audio-tweeting.

Turn the Tables, become the Journalist
Why not switch things up a little and conduct a few informal interviews on the fly – consider interviewing a bunch of different artists at shows, grab an audio snippet of their tour experience and share it between both sets of fans! Cross promotion is a great way to open up your fan base so being a content creator with all the inside information will be a great starting place to putting your music in front of new audiences.

Takes Questions
Your artist has an audience and wondering how you can interact with them further. Engage with your fans or friends in a simple-to-use and expressive way via our social audio site, Takes Questions. Answer whatever you want, wherever you are and share your response with the world. Also, it’s free and fun, plus if its set up with your twitter it will automatically send a reply response to your fans’ twitter when you answer their question, Genius! Find out more about Takes Questions.

To keep up to date with SoundCloud follow us on Tumblr or check out the SoundCloud Blog.

Promoting Your Own Music – Part 2

Pavement once wisely sang, “hey, you’ve got pay your dues before you pay the rent,” and truer words were never spoken. In Part 1, we discussed ways to get people to take notice of the music you’re making, without the help of a record label. But by now, you are probably wondering how to address the problem that money seems to be flowing in one direction – right out of your wallet. You’ve put in your time, paid your dues, but that rent bill keeps popping up every month, and if you’re going to keep this up, you need to pay it. The good news is, you can sell your music yourself, and the better news is, since you’re doing it by yourself, (almost) no one else gets a cut. How to begin:

Expand Your Website
Hopefully by now, you have been taking every opportunity you can to invite people to your website – mentioning it at your shows, including the address on all your promotional posters, emailing your mailing list on a regular basis, and maybe even buying some cheap advertising space in magazines. Good, keep that up. But now you want to add a page to your website on which people can buy tracks from you, both as MP3s and on CD.

There are a few ways to do this. First, you could put a credit card function directly on your site. You would do this by getting a merchant credit account from a bank and downloading their software to allow your site to process the cards. Remember to check out what their fees are, and make sure their security is top notch. For more info, check out

Cybercash.
An easier way to do it would be to find a host for your website that can offer you credit card processing service. You can find dedicated arts hosting networks, like Simbiotic, that will not only process your credit cards but have the added benefit of sending some customers your way, since they are the gateway to a number of music related sites. They can even fulfill your snail mail orders, if you like. Even if you don’t decide to use one of these services, they are good resources for gauging a fair price for your songs.

In addition to your own site, make use of sites like iTunes, Napster, eMusic, and any other digital distributor you can find. These sites will offer you a non-exclusive contract to distribute your music through their network. Find out from them any ways they have to give your music a push, such as getting a “featured artist” profile on the site.

Continue reading this story by clicking here:

Online Club Experience? Turntable FM is getting there.

Turntable FM, a hot new topic in tech circles, distills the DJ concept down to a fundamental level. In an open MIC style room, 5 DJs play songs one at a time (with no mixing) and a crowd of strangers provide instant feedback on how much they like the music. This format seems to be highly addictive with Facebook levels of engagement and an exploding base of users (360k FB signups in the last few weeks). The site may have some interesting lessons to teach us about DJing and the future of music technology.

ONLINE CLUBS?
B@ TV is a popular site that provides live video streaming from club events from around the world so you can “be at” any club in the world. Even if that means sitting on the couch in your skivvies with a massive hang over on a Monday afternoon – yes you too can be in the hottest club in the world and never pay a cover charge. The site is addictive and gaining steam but you are probably wondering:

Will the club experience go on-line in the future? Well, Turntable FM and B@ tap into two core human desires:
Social Observation – AKA Girl lurking (Be@) and people watching (Turntable FM).
Power (controlling the room, sharing your personal tastes, being “the” man).

Right now the online experience lacks two critical elements Darwin vs the machine points out in his research. Read more by clicking here.

Promoting Your Own Music – Part 1

It used to be the case that unless you convinced a record label to take a chance on your music, your odds of getting anyone to hear your stuff was a very slim to a more likely none. The internet has changed all that. A few clicks of the mouse can cut out the middle man and allow you to engage in the musical equivalent of “For Sale By Owner” – but if you build it, how do you know they will come? There are a few things you can do to help increase your profile, and increase the chance that someone will come looking for your songs.

Build a Website
And this does not mean a profile on MySpace. Your website doesn’t have to be fancy – the most important thing is for your website to inform people about you, your music, your upcoming shows, your upcoming recording plans, a way to join your mailing list – all the things you would want to know if you were visiting a band’s site. Update it regularly. Let people download tracks from your site…and let them download the songs for free. Adding a “buy a track” function to your website will come – later. Right now, the idea is to build a name for yourself, so when the time comes to turn over some cash, the people will be happy to oblige.

Play Your Music Live
Whenever you get a chance, get out there and do some shows. Play at your local club, open mic night, unsigned band night – whatever. Whenever you have a show planned, contact the local radio stations and the listings guide(s). Put up posters promoting your show. Invite local journalists to come along and review your performance. At the show, have people sign up for your mailing list, and keep them informed about where they can see you next. Do whatever you have to to keep your name out there – and take every opportunity as a chance to send more people to your website.

Once you have mastered the hometown crowd, it’s time to tour. It is important to spend some time playing out of town to spread the word about your music. Look at tour dates of bands you like, contact the venues they’ll be hitting, and find out if they need an opening band. Or, find out who books the bands at those venues, and see if you can get a show. Promote those shows as you did the shows in your hometown – contact their local media, send some posters to clubs and record stores. Promote your website. But think of this as an internship – you are doing this for the experience, not the cash right now. You might not get paid anything at all; you will probably spend much more money than you make even if you do get a small fee. You’ve heard the saying “you have to spend money to make money” – this is especially true of music when you’re doing it yourself. Be patient, it will be worth it in the end.

A side note on touring – behave yourself! A good rule of thumb is don’t throw the TV out of the hotel room window before you can at least afford the TV. Nothing will ruin your chances faster than getting a reputation for behaving badly. No one will want to work with you, and sure, people may watch, but for the same reason the best part of “American Idol” is the bad auditions. That’s not what you’re going for.

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help
If you’re making music, then you love music. You know of musicians you admire, labels you love, producers you think are great – approach them! Send them an email and ask for advice. Send them a link to your website. Add them to your mailing list. The worst they can do is ignore you, and you might be surprised how willing to help some of them will be.

Even if they do ignore you, remember that they have been in your shoes. Read their bios, look at the places they have played, and take a page from their book. To continue reading this helpful article, click here

The Effects Of The Internet: Music Distribution

One line I’m well known for is the following: In The Modern World, The Internet Is King.

This relates to much more than the piece that it was originally written for. The music business is one thing that definitely falls under the category of “recently influenced by the internet”.
The Internet is an incredible tool, allowing instantaneous connection between multiple people from absolutely anywhere in the world. File sharing, broadcast and internet marketing have given musicians the tools that they need to break into the world of modern media, sell albums and songs to an entirely new market and generally just get themselves out there.

This is a phenomenon often examined, but one thing that’s rarely highlighted is the affect that internet distribution has had on record labels. Instead of only being able to sell CDs in dedicated music stores, supermarkets and catalogue superstores, singles are now available for sale via iTunes, and multiple other music manufacturers. This keeps things both fresh and available to a worldwide audience; a group much larger than those that the bands of old would have available to them. If you had an album on vinyl, how exactly do you tell your friend across the ocean what your favourite band is like.

Record labels have always made a decent amount of money. If you look to the example of the British rock bandDeep Purple and their management team of Edwards and Colletta, the management was making almost all of the money from every album and tour. In addition, the band were required to put out more albums and EPs than any modern band seems to be able to manage. While some modern bands take three to five years to make one follow up album, Deep Purple was knocking out three albums a year while touring to no end. You would think that the money they earn, in comparison to your modern band, would be more than enough to make up for it. Shall we correct this idea?

As the career of Deep Purple was on the rise, after several albums and tours, their guitarist,Ritchie Blackmore, was being interviewed. He was being interviewed on the bus to his own gig, because he couldn’t afford to have a car or a helicopter sent. He had his equipment with him too. In the attempt to show the interviewer how he wrote music, the song Highway Starwas conceived, right there on the bus, surrounded by people.

Do you honestly think that your typical musician of the modern era would take a bus to their own gig? Can you see Madonna, Matt Bellamy or the Black Eyed Peas taking a bus anywhere?

Before the internet, and back in the days when labels and bands were making less money, artists could honestly say that they weren’t in it for the money. They never made any; all that they made was music. The major downside of the internet, as described by most record labels and artists, is illegal file downloads. Record labels and artists are all losing money every time somebody illegally downloads one of their tracks.
Yet, somehow, they’re still richer than ever before. Is it just me, or does it sort of look like they’re not being completely honest with us?

Written by Tom Colohue of Dotted Music

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Source: allindiemagazine.net

Its A Promo Thing affiliated with Symphonic Distribution for a special priced promotion discount.

“It’s A Promo Thing” is a cost effective record promotion company who specialises in getting your releases in the hands of A-List, Tastemaker & Radio DJs Worldwide. In addition, they also regularly hold plugging meetings with the likes of Radio 1, Capital FM, Kiss FM and more, as well as offer an Ibiza elite promo service.

Through this package, Symphonic Distribution has negotiated a 10% discount on all ALL IN PING campaigns and will not take any fee from a label to ensure every record label has the ability to promote their release effectily.

If you want us to spread the word on your release, email marketing@symphonicdistribution.com, which will then be forwarded to It’s A Promo Thing to enable you to qualify for your discount. For more information, check out www.promothing.co.uk