Your first release: a quickstart

A release takes one sitting if your files and your credits are ready, and several frustrating ones if they are not. This is the short version of the path, with a link at each step to the article that goes deep.

The release wizard saves as you go. A half-filled release is a draft you can leave and come back to.

Have these ready first

• Your masters, lossless. WAV (16, 24 or 32-bit) or 16-bit FLAC, 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz, stereo, at least a second long, up to 2 GB per track. MP3, AAC and other lossy formats are refused outright, and a lossy file re-saved as a WAV gets flagged. See Audio requirements.
• Your cover, square. At least 3000 × 3000 pixels, no transparency. See Artwork requirements.
• The real names of everyone who worked on it. Song credits are legal names, not aliases, and every track needs a performer, someone credited for composition and lyrics, and someone for production and engineering. See Credits and splits.
• Publishing splits, if you are setting them. They are optional, but if you enter any they have to add up to exactly 100.
• Any licence or clearance. A cover needs its mechanical licence, a sample needs its clearance, a remix needs written permission from the rights holder. See Covers, remixes and samples.
• Your codes, if you have your own. Otherwise Run assigns the barcode and the ISRCs for you. See ISRC and UPC.

Mastering (Upcoming)

Mastering is Upcoming and is not yet available in the workspace.

Mastering (Upcoming) explains its availability. Mastering is optional; you can submit your own finished master now if it meets the audio requirements.

The run

1. Check your artist profile. Setup offers to create one; if you skipped that step, add the artist from Artists first. If the artist already has Spotify or Apple Music pages, connect them now rather than after delivery, so the release lands on the profile you already have. Connecting your store pages.
2. Start the release. New release. If the music is already out through another distributor and you are moving it to Run, import it from Spotify instead and the details come in pre-filled for you to check. Import from Spotify.
3. Fill in the release. Title, type (single, EP, album or compilation), release date, primary genre, the barcode if you have one, and the cover. Say whether the artwork was made with AI, and set the ℗ and © lines if you want something other than the defaults. Distribution is worldwide, so there is no territory step. Create a release and Metadata rules.
4. Credit the artists. At least one main artist and at most 4: stores treat more than that as a compilation. Featured and remix credits go here too, in the order you want them displayed.
5. Add the tracks. Upload each master, then give it a title, an explicit setting, a language, the song credits with their roles, any splits, and the two AI disclosures (one for the recording, one for the composition). AI disclosure explains what each level means; get it right, because under-disclosure is caught in review.
6. Choose the stores. Every store is on by default and you can switch any of them off. Content ID stays off unless you opt in and confirm you own the recording outright. Stores and Content ID.
7. Review and submit. The wizard shows anything still missing or wrong before it lets you through. You confirm you own or control the release, and it locks.

What happens after you submit

Automated checks run first: metadata, the audio itself, the cover, and content matching against music already released. Anything flagged goes to a person. If something needs fixing you get it back with reasons, and you reopen the release, fix it and submit again. What review checks and Editing and resubmitting.

Once it clears, the release goes to the stores in under 24 hours, on the release date you set. Each store confirms separately and the release page shows which ones have. How long a store takes to publish after that is its own process, not Run’s. Tracking delivery.

A few first-time traps

• Leave room in the release date. If the release comes back for a fix, you need time to sort it out and submit again before the date you promised people.
• Bounce from the source, not from an MP3. A lossy file re-saved as a WAV is still lossy, and the audio checks flag it.
• Use the artist name the stores already know. A different spelling reads as a different artist and creates a second profile.
• Do not leave the credits until last. They are the step that needs other people’s real names, and a track credited entirely to AI contributors is refused.