Dart Music Specializes In Classical Streaming

Classical music hasn't fared well in the digital music age, but a new service called Dart Music aims to change all of that.

Dart is like a TuneCore for classical music, with an annual rate of $20 for a single musical piece, $40 for an album, and a 100% royalty payout to the copyright owner. The service then submits the music to online retailers like iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and others.

The difference between Dart and other aggregators is that it pays special attention to metadata. While most other aggregators include metadata that identifies the artist, song and label at a bare minimum, entering other metadata can be a tedious chore.

Classical music requires additional metadata like conductor, ensemble, and performer, since there is so much more featured collaboration in a classical piece that needs to be identified. This is where Dart is said to shine.

While incomplete metadata is an industry-wide problem, Dart is trying to solve the problem as it specifically focuses on this market niche. Find out more at dartmusic.com.

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Get Your Metadata Right

One of the major reasons why artists often don't get paid is because of missing metadata from their songs.

No matter if you're submitting to an aggregator like Tunecore for digital distribution, directly to a digital distributor like Soundcloud, or even a music supervisor for consideration, it's imperative to have the following metatags filled in.

1. Name(s) of artist(s)
2. Names(s) of composers
3. Name(s) of performers
4. Song Title
5. Album title (if any)
6. Label
7. Publisher
8. Year Released
9. Track Number
10. Genre
11. Producer
12. Contact (yours/management)
13. Performing Rights Society Affiliation (ASCAP, BMI, etc.)
14. Mood
15. BPM

Mood and BPM might seem incidental, but they're really important for music libraries and music supervisors, so take the time and fill them in.

Yes, filling in all the metadata takes some work, but not only does it ensure you'll more easily get paid, but it will give your song a better shot at being placed as well.

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10 Audio Metadata Editors

The other day I wrote a post on why creating the proper metadata for a song or album is so important. A number of readers wrote in asking for suggestions for some metadata editors, since many DAWs don't provide extensive access to many of the metatags that are needed. Here's a list of 10.

iTunes - There's a nice metadata editor right within the app.

Metadatics - This is Mac only and costs $9, but it also covers a wide range of file formats.

Tag - A fairly simple Mac only metadata editor that's free.

Tuneup - This is a Windows and Mac editor that has both a free and premium version.

ID3 Editor - A simple Mac editor that provides most of the metatag needed. Free.

Musictag Editor for Mac - free to try up to 10 times, then $5.99.

Musicbrains Picard - This is a pretty geeky editor that cross platform, but it's very extensive if you get down inside it. And it's free.

UDTE-ID3 - Another PC only editor that supports a wide range of file formats.

MediaMonkey - An iOS tag editor that supports multiple file formats.

WaveAgent - A very cool Wave file editor for both PC and Mac.

If none of these 10 seems to fit your needs, there are plenty of other audio metadata editors available. Just do a Google search and find the one that suits you best.

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A Search Engine For Radio

Have you ever listened to the radio and wished that the station would play a song that you can't wait to hear? You had to wait until either the song was played, or search for another station where the song might be playing and risk missing it on the original channel. Of course, if you're near a computer you can dial that song up in a second on any number of streaming services or YouTube, but if radio is your thing, that meant that you were stuck with the way we've listened for nearly a century. But that's changed now with the a new service called Radio Search Engine.

Radio Search Engine, the brainchild of Michael Robertson (who's also responsible for DAR.fm and way back, MP3.com), allows you to search for a song or artist, and the service will find a station that's currently playing it. It gives you a list of popular songs that are playing, and poses suggestions of other songs and stations after the search engine has found your query. You can think of it sort of like Google for radio.

Radio Search Engine works pretty well but it's not perfect, probably because it depends upon song metadata. If the metadata is incorrect or incomplete, a song could be playing but RSE won't find. That's not RSE's fault, but it's something that does come up. Then there's the fact that, as stated before, you can use one of the many streaming services to do the same thing.

One area where Radio Search Engine can help an artist is by searching to see what songs are being played on radio and where. While there are other ways to measure airplay, there's nothing like hearing it yourself as the ultimate aircheck. Check out the video below on how it works.

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The New Music Grammar Guide

Most industry pros now agree that metadata on digital tracks is way more important than the average artist realizes. After all, it's there to help listeners find your track, and to provide the digital equivalent of liner notes to the song. Now the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) have released a sort of "style guide" to help artists and labels alike avoid problems with all the meta data required on a digital track.

One of the problems is that poor meta data, which includes the title, can be a reason that a song isn't easily discovered, or even worse, rejected by a music distributor like iTunes (always known to be picky about these things).

So what are some of these rules? A big one is proper capitalization of a title, since some artists get a bit too clever for their own good. "In da House" and "It's fo; Realz" get good marks, according to the guide, despite the intentional misspellings. "Intentionally misspelled words must respect the same title casing rules" as those spelled normally, states the guide. Random capitalization (like "a TIMe to love") violates the guideline, however.

Another one is to not use ampersands (the "&" symbol) when two artists collaborate unless they are inseparable as an act (like Hootie & The Blowfish). Yet another is using an excessive description when identifying an artist (like "Jeff Beck (Guitarist)").

Perhaps the most egregious act is to randomly include the name of a superstar in the meta data of a track where he may not belong in order to sell more product. That's not a good idea on many levels, the least is the fact that the people it attracts probably will get angry when they're favorite star isn't actually involved of what they're listening to.

If you're going to be making digital music and you want to give it the best chance of being discovered, it's probably a good idea to take a look at the guide. Rules are made to be broken, but you have to know what they are first.

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Why A Metadata Standard Is Important

The Nation Association of Recording Merchandisers recently announced that they would be having a "Metadata Summit" at their upcoming Music Biz 2013 Conference in Los Angeles on May 6th and 7th. This is the first of it's kind, and is somewhat of a turning point for the industry.

Metadata, or the data about the data, in this case refers to the information about the digital audio file. This can be everything from the name of the song, the artist, it's ISRC code, the publisher and the record label. The metadata can include so much more though, from when the song was recorded and published, the producer and songwriters, and the musical genre, and much more.

The problem is that there's no standard as to exactly what metadata should be included, which means that most digital tracks are woefully inadequate when it comes to these details. Hopefully, the Metadata Summit will be a first step in the right direction.

On the surface, filling in metadata seems like a somewhat mundane task, but it can play an important part in search. For instance, if there's an artist you like and you'd like to find everything that he's been connected with, metadata can be an essential piece to search. It would be great to find other songs that he's written or produced, but unless that metadata is included, you'll have to find the info some other way. That's an opportunity missed by the artist, the publisher and record label alike.

A second reason for filling in the metadata is it can make accounting easier by clearly delineating who owns the copyright of the song and who administrates it. Getting paid is always a priority and this is one way to ensure that it actually happens. The only thing worse than not getting paid is having your royalty held up in an escrow account because it wasn't clear who should get the money.

Even if you're a indie artist you can still be diligent about metadata. As you're making an MP3, ACC or FLAC file, be sure to fill in as much of the data as you can. Two that are frequently overlooked are comments and artwork, but both can be important in search and grabbing the attention of a prospective listener. It may take a few minutes more to load the info in, but you only have to do it once, and it can be very worthwhile, especially if new standards are created and music search engines begin to utilize them more.

So don't overlook that metadata. Your fans want it, it will help them find you, and help you get paid.

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Metadata And The Album Release

I recently came across an excellent article on the musicianswages.com website called The DIY Musician's Pre-release Checklist by Cameron Mizell. There were a lot of great tips, but the ones I liked the best were about the ever important metadata.

Metadata is data about your data, which in this case amounts to all the information about your album. The article suggested that you create a document that has all the information about the album in one place so it's easy to access when it's later needed.

This data should include:

The Album Basics:

• Album title
• Artist name
• UPC or barcode

The Track Basics:

• Track titles
• Track timings
• Writer/composer and publishing credits
• Performer credits if they differ from track to track
• ISRC (International Standard Recording Code)

The Rest:

• Performer credits for the entire album (however you would list it in the liner notes)
• Additional liner note credits inluding recording, mixing, and mastering engineers, designer, photographer, etc.
• The legal line, or the information that shows up in small print on the back of your CD
• The rest of your liner notes, such as thank you’s, essays, or any other words
• Marketing blurbs, or short descriptions you plan on using online or in press packets

The more information that you upload with your music, the more likely it will be searched for, which can bring you potential new listeners. You may not be the object of the search (it could be your producer, engineer or art director), but you never know how you can benefit from a search for them that brings them to you.

Also, a lot of this information can be embedded into your MP3 files, and should be. Never leave a field blank if you can help it, because anyone curious about your music will want this information.

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