Resources
It’s a lot of work to create, market, sell, and track your music, and still enjoy what you’re doing. Many tools and organizations to help musicians are only a Google search away, but it still might help to be pointed in that direction. So, here are some things that you might find useful.
These resources are provided in accordance with our affiliate policy.
Music Rights & Funding
One thing you should do for yourself is sign up for a performance rights organization (PRO) so you can collect royalties when your music is aired. Besides that (if you are so inclined), you can apply for funding of your projects and promotion through an organization like FACTOR.
SOCAN
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada is what you call a Performance Rights Organization (PRO), which represents the performing rights of Canadian songwriters, composers, and music publishers. Simply put, SOCAN collects and distributes royalty money when your music is played. Essentially, this is how your Spotify (and other) streams turn into money.
See what SOCAN does and start collecting your royalties.
FACTOR
The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings provides support to Canadian recording artists, songwriters, artist managers, music publishers, etc. through numerous funding programs. So, in a nutshell, FACTOR adjudicates and distributes money to Canadian applicants for the purpose of recording or promoting their music. This means you can receive funding toward your album recording, marketing, or tour.
CMRRA
The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd is a music licensing collective representing music rightsholders who range in size from large multinational music publishers to individual songwriters. Together, they own or administer the vast majority of songs recorded, sold and broadcast in Canada. On their behalf, CMRRA issues licences to individuals or organizations for the reproduction of songs on various media, as described below.
MUSIC CANADA
Music Canada represents Canada’s major record labels: Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada. They also administer rewards for best-selling recordings and share technical information and statistics regarding Canadian music.
Music Distribution and Licensing Services
You already know that you need to get your music out there. Here’s a place to start when you want to get your music on all the different platforms, and perhaps even in stores, and then be able to track your progress from there.
TUNECORE
Prepare & promote your music with Tunecore. Sign up and upload your music and let Tunecore send it to digital music services all around the world. Use it to get paid for your streams on Spotify or to sign up for their sync licensing program.
DISTRIBUTION SELECT
Manage and monitor your musical market activity with Distribution Select. Distribution Select is a Montreal-based music distribution partner offering distribution and tracking for digital (e.g. Spotify) and physical (retail) locations.
YANGAROO (DMDS)
YANGAROO specializes in the distribution of music to promotional outlets like radio and television.
Build Your Own Music Website
A website has the potential to be the most important promotional tool you have.
Easily upload, sell, and track your music using free or relatively inexpensive online tools (like website hosting, WordPress, and Google Analytics), and the only real hurdle involved is that you have to put in the work. You can also build your website visually which means you don’t even need to know any code.
To get started, you only need website hosting and a few hours to learn how to put it together. For example, this website uses Canadian web hosting through Web Hosting Canada, and the Elementor Pro website builder. There are lots of tools out there but these should get you set up.
WEB HOSTING CANADA
Web Hosting Canada is based in Montreal, Quebec. WHC is the #1 domain name provider by the .CA registry, and they provide affordable, quality hosting to thousands of Canadian businesses. Get hosting for about $4/month for your first term (up to 3 years).
ELEMENTOR PRO
Over 5 million websites use Elementor and it’s probably the easiest way to get your own website up and running. Build and customize virtually every part of your website with Elementor’s visual builder. Elementor is free but the much better (pro) version starts at about $50. There are also hundreds of tutorials available on YouTube.
SONAAR MP3 PLAYER
Want a sick MP3 player for your new website? Sonaar’s player is highly customizable, easy to use, and comes with an Elementor module (that means it’s very easy to set up using Elementor). The paid version (about $40) looks amazing and lets you track your plays and downloads. They also have a sweet music producer theme (template) for your WordPress website.
Handy Audio Tools
VOCAL REMOVER
Isolate vocals from any song using this free online tool.
Vocalremover.org uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to separate your uploaded song into the instrumental (karaoke version) and acapella.
Also includes about a dozen other applications including MP3/WAV converter, tempo finder, and more.
AnalogX Tap Tempo
AnalogX Tap Tempo is a basic tap tempo program for windows that allows you to determine your tempo by pressing spacebar to the beat. It’s very simple to use and free to download (no ads, either).