Music Distribution: Soundrop - thumbs down

In 2016 I found a new music distribution service, called LOUDR. They offered a subscription-free distribution of music and also took care of "cover" recordings, i.e. music composed by others. This seemed like a great idea for classical music which was still under copyright protection, because the composer was less than 70 years dead.

And so I published a few such "cover" recordings, music by Hindemith, Prokofiev, Kodaly, Poulen. It seemed to work well, and I got monthly statements about the statistics. Not many listeners, the income was just pennies. But these contemporary classical music compositions are just not so popular.

In the meantime, LOUDR changed their name to SOUNDROP. Fine with me.

When I started to consider again publishing my music in Jan.2024, I created a new release there. There was now a fee for each track: $0.99 . OK, I did pay for 7 tracks. And then I waited. In previous years the release had happened quite fast. But now, nothing. 

There was the statement "We’re currently in the process of reviewing your release to make sure all your metadata is correct." on top of the release page. After a week I searched Google for "Soundrop problems", and I found this:

Soundrop in 2023 - Slower than ever? , a discussion thread from July 2023. So it appears that Soundrop had big problems - musicians waiting for months to get their release out.

I then checked my other previously released albums with them. There were 4. Each had a UPC OK. But some did not have a "catalogue number". Tracks had an ISRC OK, but the setting "Automated Claiming" was not checked. And on the tab "Distribution" there was again that sentence "We’re currently in the process of reviewing your release to make sure all your metadata is correct.". There were 15 Music Services listed, some with status "live", some with "maybe live". They were all not checked, but this could just be a checkbox for selecting and doing actions. 

When I clicked on "Send to More", several things were not checked: 

• streaming/download services NetEase and Tencent, 
• Automated Claiming Services Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok,
• Curated Services LyricFind and Pandora,
• and YouTube Content ID.

So I checked them, clicked on "Send", and then came a message box "Artist names are too generic". Could ignore this, but then came another pop-up, asking if all the copyright has been cleared. Since originally I had specifically chosen LOUDR resp. SOUNDROP because they would handle such licenses of cover songs, e.g. the mechanical license for compositions under copyright, I was not able to continue with that distribution any further

That is a real shame! Now I am again stuck with having to wait until a composer is longer than 70 years dead.

I did also find that one release had the audio duration of its tracks set to 0:00 . WTF??? 

It seems that the Hindemith "Kleine Kammermusik für fünf Bläser, Op. 24, No. 2" is the only one which does have valid audio durations. But it is lacking a catalogue number.

The other three released albums do have a catalogue number, which is the UPC, preceded by a strange alphanumeric string:

• Digital Expressions: Music of the Early 20th Century
• Concerto en Sol mineur pour Orgue, Orchestre à Cordes & Timbales (single track, Poulenc Organ Concerto)
• Galántai táncok (Dances of Galánta), single track, Kodaly.

So these three releases appeared to have no music at all. There were, however, a few plays listed in the stats... I wonder where that came from.

This is all not satisfactory and is quite disappointing. I had hoped that Soundrop would properly take care of the mechanical licensing of cover songs. Such a license is necessary for downloads and CD tracks. But not for streaming. I may have to find a way of submitting these music recordings to streaming-only sites.

So summarizing here are the positive things about Soundrop:

• Positive with Soundrop is to be able to have several artists. It is, however, not quite clear how these should be managed. There was an option to have several artist accounts within one "main" account, but I found this then quite difficult to separate an d sort this out. And I think also that Soundrop is not quite comfortable with that - they mention in some of their guidance that one does not necessarily need to have different accounts for different artists.
• Nice is also that wherever possible they provide a link to the release on the various distribution platforms, so one can check if the music is there OK.
• Further positive is that one can have two genres for a "release".
• And they have a minimum requirement of CD quality, but the quality can be higher. This is useful for really high-quality streaming services.
• Revenues can be split according to the artists involved. 
• One-time fee of $0.99 per track is not too expensive.
• Reliable statistics and payment.

Negative things about Soundrop:

• veeeery long time until release is online.
• only 23 distribution sites (compared to 151 for Level Music), but sometimes even fewer.
• No proper handling of licenses for "cover songs" anymore.
• Not very clear management of the distribution sites.

Overall I am not impressed with the service by Soundrop anymore. I will need to look at other music distributors in the future which better supports the music distribution of the "cover songs" that I have produced. Soundrop appears now to be owned by CD Baby. I wonder why they are not learning from that new parent company...

I have waited now for more than 6 weeks now - my latest release has not yet been published on Soundrop. 4 weeks ago I deleted all the 7 audio tracks and uploaded only one new. This is the long one which has not been accepted at Level Music. I am wondering if I will get my fees back for the other 6 unpublished tracks...

Now this one new track can wait, if need be 2 months. Because the 6 other tracks are now already published - by Level Music. Within less than one week. 

Therefore my verdict for Soundrop: