mixtape/demo

me and my buddy are going to release a little mixtape in the next month and i was wondering if anyone had any advice to offer besdies our plan of just handing it out to as many people that will take it for free.

we were also going to make some artwork for it and what not, but any ideas? ive never released a completed mixtape before.

drop off mixtapes at your local record stores, shoe spots, clothing, gear stores. Talk to the people that work there and see if they would interested in throwing them into bags with X amount of purchase or just for free.

Very important to have a clean cd package with artwork and contact info.

Go to shows and live events and pass them out there. (Also skate parks and places like that.)

Drop some off at media schools (if any in the area) usually a place to put flyers and promotional disks ect.

also colleges and studios in general.

Get in contact with some blog owners and see if they will host your mixtape on their blogspot for free download ( alot of traffic at places like that)

Get some interviews done and posted online

And all the obvious online stuff

Good luck

also just to add to the college thing ... try and talk to college radio stations. Or better yet try and find someone you know that has some time on college radio (all broadcast majors usually do) You would be suprised all the people from high school you forgot about doing there things now adays.

thanks for the reply...this should be interesting.

like dope said. you just have to throw it at literally anything you can see. maybe even sell it to whoever possible, to cover a little of the cost. but mainly throw it at people, children if prefferable. if they like it they'll support you. if they hate it, your never going to recover.

expect to lose money now, if your shit is HOT then in the future you'll recover that moneys. put 100% into that mixtape though, man. make it basically an albulm.

i was thinking 6-8 tracks at most..dont want to over do it and have a 20 track cd no one will bother listening to you know?

i drop mixtapes of my own music all the time. I put around 18 tracks on a cd and people seem to appreciate the fact that they are getting so much original music for only 5 bucks

i dont even think ill be charging...probably just throwing it at people at first.

you think its a good idea to have hooks in the songs or should it be just that a "demo" of what we can do?

epiffeny wrote:i dont even think ill be charging...probably just throwing it at people at first.

you think its a good idea to have hooks in the songs or should it be just that a "demo" of what we can do?

hooks, lyrics, song structure and whatever else you think will attract people to your talent. make it really good and people will want more, whether it be just lyrics, added hooks or fully pledged songs.

think about what you would want to hear from someone else's mixtape. maybe download a few and get a good idea, check out immortal technique 'third world': fully mastered songs (hooks, verses, bridges, whatnot) with terrible rewinds throughtout. if he cut the rewinds out it would have been awesome. it doesn't have to be such high quality to be awesome, though. make it awesome.

thanks for the advice everyone. when its done ill post it on here for dl so you guys can critique it.

epiffeny wrote:thanks for the advice everyone. when its done ill post it on here for dl so you guys can critique it.

good idea, looking forward to that

The packaging is very important fam. Make sure that you got legit artwork and same goes for the CD. Make sure the CD is labeled in some other way besides the usual Sharpie. People are more likely to take your music serious if your mixtape looks serious.

Its the 1st impression they will get of your work so make it count.

yeah i was thinking of getting cartoon versions of me and my friend on there, real vibrant colors. you think its alright to just use regular writable cds?

epiffeny wrote:yeah i was thinking of getting cartoon versions of me and my friend on there, real vibrant colors. you think its alright to just use regular writable cds?

Its all on you fam and your $$$

The better the packaging looks the more people will take your music seriously but the bad part about it is that its going to cost you and if your not selling these mixtapes you aint getting that money back.

yeah im thinking the only way people will listen is if i give it out free. i dont think i can charge money yet...