Making and release

Making music
Once you've chosen your character and registered it in the civil registry, you're good to go and you can start playing. Bear in mind that this is a roleplay server so that's the aspect we invite you to focus on, this is not just a sales simulator. That said, let's look into the process of making music and subsequently release it.

Recording
To record your music, you have an array of possibilities:
 * Booking a session in one of the studios;
 * Setting up a home studio;
 * Recording the songs yourself;

Booking a session in one of the studios
The easiest way to get some perks related to the recording process is to book a session in one of the three studios available in Apollo's Heights (Nerick Studios, Quatford Studios and Mayflower Studios). These studios offer different prices and bonuses: To book a session in one of the studios, buy one in the store and contact the staff to check its availability and choose a month to record in. If you can't afford a session in the studios, you can ask your label to buy one for you. Some labels might also offer dedicated studios which fall into the home studios category, however the policies to record in those studios might vary depending on the label. Also keep in mind that if you have a manager, they have to book the session for you and they can decide the studio for you, which is not necessarily the one you want to record in.

Once you've booked your session, go to the corresponding studio (check the threads in the studios channel) and roleplay your recording sessions. You can record a maximum of 4 songs in these studios so plan your sessions wisely, since you can take 1 slot a month for each studio.

Your albums can get the Metacritic and promotion boost as well, but at least 50%+1 of the album must be recorded in the studio you want to get the boost from. If the album was recorded in more than one studio and it doesn't meet the 50%+1 requirement, you'll get the lower boost available. Example: You have a 12 tracks album and you recorded 6 tracks in the Nerick Studios, 3 in the Quatford Studios and 3 in Mayflower Studios: You will get the Mayflower Studios' boosts in promotion and Metacritic because they're the lowest available, since 6 tracks is only the 50%. (To get the 50%+1, just add 1 track to the 50%, so 6+1=7 in this case).

Setting up a home studio
If you're rich enough to afford such an investment, you can choose to set up a home studio in your property. This option is quite convenient when you are an established artist and you want to optimise your recording sessions, since you can record as many songs as you want in your home studio, with no monthly limit and with a few perks. Label studios fall into this category, so they share the same perks.

Recording the songs yourself
When you can't afford to book one of the studios or to buy a home studio, you can resort to a DIY recording session. This type of session should be done in one of the roleplay channels (1, 2 or 3) with no monthly limit and it won't give you any perk whatsoever. It can be a quick and easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy method to record some music right away, giving up some benefits in order to release as soon as possible.

ASCAP Registration
When you're done with the recording process, you need to register your song and/or album in ASCAP. This is mandatory and if you don't register your music, you're not getting royalties from it. The registration is very simple, all you need to do is buy one in the store and then go to the ASCAP channel to post it. You can ask your label to buy the registration for you. Follow this template, which contains all the information needed: Title

Songwriter: (Who wrote the song/album?) Producer: (Who produced the song/album?) Studio: (Where was the song/album recorded?) Publisher: (Label) Performer: (Name of the artist(s) or band) Reference: (Link)

(Attach a cover for your song/album) For more information about songwriters and producers, check Songwriters & Producers.

Releasing music
Now that your music has been recorded, you can proceed to the next step. First of all, in order to release and submit your projects, you've got to roll their sales. To do so, go to one of the bot channels (1 or 2) and type the command  . This menu will be very important for all of your stats and you're going to use it a lot.

The menu has several buttons, but let's focus on four of them for now: 💿 Single, 📀 EP, 💽 Album and 📅 Monthly Stats. The first three buttons are self-explanatory and will give you the weekly sales of your project, however keep reading to learn more.

Monthly Stats
Every month you'll get the chance to increase your listeners, your subscribers and your followers. All you need to do is click the button and accumulate your monthly amount of interactions in the monthly stats channel. These stats are necessary for your releases, since you're going to use their total for the digital sales, streams and visual views of every single one of your projects. Monthly stats are applied to your account and not to a specific character, so they are the same for every character of yours.

Once a month you will be able to use double monthly stats for one of your releases, which means you can apply them twice. If you decide to do so, make sure to inform your label who will report it in the management channel or just report it yourself if you're independent.

Singles
There are 3 types of singles: regular, promotional and radio single.

Regular singles are the most common release and they allow you to get pure sales, streams, 2 official videos and airplay.

Promotional singles only get streams. They are still eligible for promotional activities and they can get 1 official music video. You can decide to turn a promotional single into an official single after at least 5 weeks on the charts. You will get to restart from week one and keep the total streams, but you won't get presales.

Radio singles are less important than international singles and more important than promotional singles. You can select one country where you would like to release your radio single in. Technically speaking, they're in fact singles so you can't turn them into an official single like promotional singles, because they already are. They only get streams and airplay, no presales but they can still have the same amount of videos as singles.

Remixes
You can remix your regular singles for a maximum of 2 remixes per song (3 if you have the Roleplayer role). If you do, you can roll additional sales and add them to your original single's sales.

If your song leaves the charts, you can still release a remix to bring it back. Just wait one week and then you can release your remix and the song will restart from division 1 (you keep your total sales and streams). While you can have maximum 2 (or 3) remixes, you can't revive your song more than 1 time, so make your decisions wisely!

If you have the Roleplayer role and the album the single is from has been released already, you can release a remix on the debut week of your single. If the remix is a collab and you don't meet the Roleplayer role requirement, this applies to your feature instead.

A remix can get 1 additional music video which is not within the 2 music videos limit for singles. To get one, just buy it from the store.

EPs
EPs (short for extended play) are like small albums, they have a minimum of 3 tracks and a maximum of 8 tracks. You can use presales, but you will need to submit the EP to ASCAP for registration at least 2 weeks before its release. If yours is a surprise release, then you will have to renounce to presales and promotion.

You can also release an Expanded EP if your EP has less than 8 tracks, for a maximum of 3 additional tracks; the limit remains 8 tracks, so if your EP has 7 tracks, your extended EP can only have one extra track.

EPs can be accompanied by a visual project, which is available for sale in the store.

Albums
To use presales on an album, you will need to submit it to ASCAP for registration at least 2 weeks before its release. Otherwise, it will be counted as a surprise release and it won't get any presale nor promotion.

Your albums can get up to a maximum of 2 deluxes. Deluxes work for albums like remixes work for singles, so you will get additional sales that you can add to the original album's ones. Deluxes get presales as well but the same rule applies, you've go to register them in ASCAP first; additionally, when you release a deluxe the album's division goes back to 1.

If an album leaves the charts, you can release a deluxe to bring it back. Just wait one week and then you can release the deluxe and the album will restart from division 1 (you keep your total sales and streams). Unlike remixes, you can revive your album up to 3 times (2 by releasing deluxes and if you're lucky enough, 1 by going viral).

Submitting
You've gotten your sales, so now you just need to submit them. Go to singles if you're releasing a single or albums if you're releasing an album/EP and you will find a link to a Google Form in the message that opens every week. Follow the instructions in the form and submit your projects, they will be sent to a spreadsheet where the admins can apply the formulas and calculate your sales, streams and all the other stats. You can access the spreadsheet for singles here and the spreadsheet for albums here. When you'll see your total sales and total streams there, you will have to do one last thing: submitting a short summary in the channels mentioned above, follow this template: Artist - Song Title Label Name/Independent Week #, Boost Percentage (Type of boost) ← TV Show, Award, Roleplay, etc. Remix # (If present)

Total Sales: Total Streams: All fields are mandatory, but you can delay the calculation of your totals. Once you’ve sent your project’s sales, you can consider it released, you can’t ask the staff to delete your stats but you can re-submit them in case you need to edit something. At the end of the week you will hopefully see it on the charts.

After the first week
You've got to keep track of your projects, that's why you've go to do the same procedure every week until you decide to stop the project's promotion. Your project will keep charting even after you've stopped promoting it, but it will eventually fall and be out of the charts.

Airplay accumulates every week! Keep your last week's stats for airplay, so you can put them in the form and accumulate them.

When your single reaches its fifth week, you've got to flip a coin every week to know if it will get pulled from the radios or not. Use the command   and if the result is: Heads → the single is pulled from radios; Tails → the single stays on the radio.

If the single is pulled from radios, you can't use nor submit the airplay anymore, not even in the following weeks. This will of course affect its position on the charts. This doesn't apply if you purchased a radio deal.

TEA and SEA
TEA (track-equivalent-album) and SEA (streams-equivalent-album) are two stats that allow you to make your singles have an impact on your album and EP's sales and streams. You can find these two in the spreadsheet and you can apply them to your album/EP every week. SEA corresponds to your singles' weekly streams. On your album/EP's debut week, you can apply the total sales of your singles combined as TEA and their total streams as SEA.

Music videos and visual projects
You can promote your single further by filming 2 music videos. You can get one in the store, with different pricing according to its quality. Once you've purchased a music video, you can get your weekly views by opening the   and click  after you've selected an option between Single, EP or Album. You can choose between a lyric video, a performance video and an acoustic video for your singles, while you can get a visual project for both your EPs and albums.

You can have max 2 videos per single. Remixes can have an additional video, so that means max 3 videos per single including the remix one.

You have to send your music videos/visual projects' views along with your single stats in the Google Form, adding them to your monthly YouTube subscribers.

Radio deals
Radio deals replace the regular airplay when they are used and they're intended as a form of payola to improve your performance on radios.

Once you've purchased one, click on the Radio Deals button after you've selected the Single option in the   and you will get your airplay and you can see if you got caught using payola: if you get a number between 50 and 200, you've been caught and you can't use it. This only applies the first week you're using it, so if you don't get caught you don't have to worry about that number anymore.

Promotional EPs
Promotional EPs, sometimes called chapters, are small compilations extracted from albums and they include songs that have something in common, like a specific theme or sound. You can release up to 5 promotional EPs and you've got to wait 5 weeks between each one of them. To release them, you will just have to click the Promotional EP button once you've selected the Album option in the  . Add these extra streams to your SEA.