How to Release a Professional Beat Tape Riley Weller (GratuiTous)

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After releasing 8 beat tapes on Spotify (as of Dec. 2018), I want to share my valuable insight to my workflow of putting together a professional beat tape. (My beat tape series is called: BEAT TAPES By GratuiTous.)

Over the years, I have talked about why releasing a beat tape brings way bigger benefits than releasing single beats.

So, I finally decided to create an in-depth course covering all aspects of putting together a beat tape from:

- What All Goes Into Releasing a Beat Tape
- Tips and Strategies to Save Time and Actually Complete the Beat Tape
- Setting Yourself Up with Templates to Speed up your Workflow
- Releasing, Marketing, and Promoting Your Beat Tape
- Putting Together a Physical CD Version of Your Beat Tape

The knowledge you will learn in this course will help you to stand out and stay professional, all while not getting burned out, and still having the burning passion to create your music.

A beat tape will take your productions to the next level because it forces you to complete a big project. Just think about the amount of practice you’d obtain through the process!

If your beat tapes contain 10 beats per release you’ll not only learn the mixing and mastering for each track, but also learn how to blend each song into each other as your listener goes from track to track on your beat tape.

The course first starts with explaining:

Why even consider creating a beat tape and how much value it brings you as a producer:

The amount of practice, branding, and experience you will obtain is immense!

It also forces a lot of those producers who have troubles finishing a project. This gives you an end goal, as well as an amazing portfolio to present to any potential clients.

We then step into your mindset before jumping into creating a beat tape:

You have to think, if you’re going to be creating multiple beat tapes, it’s important to take time out beforehand to set yourself up with various techniques I talk about.

This will save you TONS of time and also keep you structured down the road for future releases.

Next topic is about actually creating the beat tape:

You get to see one of my personal beats which I have mixed, and a whole walk-through of how I’ve set it up and prepared it for the next stage, which is mastering. (Note, we do not actually mix and master tracks in this course, I do however walk you through a real-example and cover my settings and mindset.)

We jump into the mastering, where again, you are walked-through a real-world example of a beat (Keys for Christ) which is actually on Volume 7 of my BEAT TAPES by GratuiTous series! We talk about my mastering chain, why I’ve ordered plugins the way I have, their parameter settings, and what your end goal is with mastering for your beat tape.

We even talk about best export settings, ISRC codes and what they are, and the fade ins/outs of your songs so listeners can experience the most emotion if listening to your beat tape from start till the end.

I’ve also snuck a section in about folder structure for proper backing up:

It’s very important you stay organized because this is no longer just a single beat. You are creating a series for your fans to follow. If you have missing sounds years down the road, you will be very disappointed in yourself for not staying organized!

I’ve also included a video on ID3 tagging your MP3’s in case you offer a free download version of your beat tape on your website. This makes your MP3’s look professional with the proper information being in them, as well as your beat tape’s artwork displayed as they play your song in their media player!

We then talk about online distribution (DistroKid, CDBaby, Tunecore, etc.):

To get your music onto steaming platforms like Spotify or for sale on digital stores like iTunes, you need to use an online distributor.

And if you’re like me, you’ll notice there are TONS of online distributors available. However, sometimes when there’s so many options, it makes it hard to know what’s the best choice.

I explain my personal thoughts and suggested resources for finding the right online distributor for you.

I even include a video of actually uploading a beat tape to my online distributor so you can fully see the process!

I then give you some suggestions and tips about marketing and releasing the beat tape I’ve tried over the years:

Everything from what kind of platforms and tools you have available to release/market your new beat tape, to some good and bad real-life stories I’ve experienced through my own marketing attempts.

Creating your Artwork:

Finally, we talk about your artwork.

I explain how to set up a template, how I’ve approached my artwork, and we also get into how you prepare your artwork if you were to create a real physical beat tape to get printed to hand out!

This course contains so much information I would have loved to have had before creating my own beat tapes! (The amount of time, effort, and mistakes I could have saved myself.)

But hey! That’s what this course is for!

You’ll save yourself from making these same silly mistakes and set yourself up on the road for solid beat tape releases.

Each release you work on will just get easier and easier!

I hope the best with your music! (Let your music do the speaking for you when it comes to revealing your skills!)

# GratuiTous

Riley Weller (GratuiTous) has worked with a GRAMMY-Nominated recording artist, and has been producing music for over 10 years now.

With over 18 music production courses created, 3 books written, being the host of the podcast 'Music Production Made Simple', and releasing 8 beat tapes + 4 albums to popular streaming platforms, his goal is to empower producers to branch out and be them self.

He loves to teach best practices and bring awareness to powerful techniques, while encouraging individuality. The most common feedback received from his students is that "GratuiTous is able to break down complex topics into easy terminology to understand".