r/CDBabyArtists

It was my first time releasing and I went with Cdbaby basically because of the simple pricing plan.

How it went:
- I scheduled the release three weeks in advance and it was delivered and published in time.
- The release review by Cdbaby took 5 business days.
- The timecodes on ig and TikTok were messed up. I haven't opened a ticket yet, maybe I'll give it a try to solve the issue through cdbaby support.
- After the release date it took about 2 days to get access through cdbaby to my Spotify Artist account.
- Its one week after the release and I still don't have access to my Apple Music Artist page. I created a ticket but the support replies were just ai summaries. I found the release on the distributor and applied to claim it myself.
- The webpage ui/ux feels pretty outdated and I got a few spammy marketing emails from them.
- I haven't decided if with my next release I will use cdbaby or ditto.

Hi guys, I’m about to release a song and I’m pulling my hair. Mainly CD Babe language in Addendum “..you herby grant to us the exclusive right as explained below and to our Licensees;
Reproduce, distribute, publicly perform,promote, sell and deliver Your Content as Digital Masters..”

My understanding is they own my masters.

Since CD Babe was recently acquired by UMG it looks like they are acting now like a regular record label. I don’t want to lose my ownership that early in a game. Are there any better aggregators I could choose from?

Hello fellow CD Baby users!

There is currently a site wide issue where u/CDbaby is incorrectly delivering files to TikTok with the wrong start times. Instead of the times users specify all songs start at 00:00. This was first reported in the following thread -

https://www.reddit.com/r/CDBabyArtists/comments/1szv2e7/cdbaby_did_not_put_the_correct_tiktok_preview/

Since my album was released one week ago I have submitted two tickets about this issue and after a few days both of the tickets were closed and marked as "solved" by someone named Hosam Hassan. Whether that is a real person, I wouldn't know as the only response I ever got was canned AI responses to escalate the issue. Obviously the problem still persists, and it's a headache because unlike Instagram and YouTube Shorts which have the entire song you can choose from, for whatever reason TikTok only has a minute. And the hook usually isn't in the first 30 seconds.

Today I submitted my THIRD ticket about the issue which I have included. The three tickets all had different issue topics because none of them seemed to truly fit. I also don't know if they are looking at the topic I select and just saying its solved without reading a single word I type to them.

My first ticket issue was - Music not showing or looks wrong > Irregular or artificial streaming notice

My second ticket I had the issue as - Upload, Edit or Manage my Music > Edit or remove a track or release

My third (latest) ticket has the issue as - Upload, Edit or Manage my Music > Replace my audio or artwork

In the last ticket and latest ticket I have included screenshots to the reddit thread I mentioned above where many users have reported the same issue with their release.

Is there any more people experiencing the same CD Baby delivery issue with their recent release? Do you have a ticket open or has any action been taken?

I'm very curious, but based on their support I have my doubts much has been done. I've even DM'd the CDBaby reddit account like in a months old thread the user said to do with issues and naturally have gotten no response.

Hope your release isn't being the pain that mine is!

https://preview.redd.it/1uo7i4e3k72h1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccce2595070bcbdca9e990a10506817eb079d42e

https://preview.redd.it/pdfisqp4k72h1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efb5c75aa45dd9773ff5e1c5a6a6eb3676e2f41a

Man, dealing with AI only is a PITA, so I guess I just have to appreciate how cheap CDBaby is.

I released a single and it has been released and has an ISRC. I submitted the album at the same time and it is in the queue. Now that the single is released I want to make sure the ISRC on the album is the same. There isn't a way to "request" it and by asking the chat bot I have just gone in a AI loop that says I can "request" the ISRC from the single be put in the album.

Has anyone found a way to deal with this? And does CDBaby even have one employee? It seems like an ai machine. I'm glad it's on $10 for a single, but you sure get what you pay for - or don't get what you don't pay for.

Hi so I know cd baby not with YouTube music anymore and I noticed recently that my band YouTube music account somehow got swapped with a guy YouTube page . Is there anyone to talk to get my account back ?

Can someone explain to me why one of the biggest and IMO best players in the DSP market is incapable to add the feature of adding collaborators. Why is this not possible? We live in the digital age with AI coding. This can not be so hard to be able to add a session player to my distribution.

This is constructive feedback. I love what you guys do but come on not being able to mention other artists or even offer proper splits etc. is very backward and blocks many people from using your service. I would love to advocate more for you guys. I really do. I think you are great, but also, you can improve.

Sending Love. I am a label owner, producer, artist and mixer.

Normalmente CDBaby paga los días lunes, pero hoy no llegó nada, quisiera saber si alguno de ustedes le pasó lo mismo

For context:

I have my first release in four years upcoming, trying to do the whole release plan etc etc - paid for expedited distribution so $50 in total.

I made sure I put my Spotify ID in correctly, my artist name was spelled and capitalised correctly, the lot.

I check Spotify for Artists and nothing is in my Upcoming. I reach out to CDBaby and they tell me the following:

The reason behind your release not showing up on the Upcoming tab is due to an incorrect tagging of your Spotify artist ID to your release. You can request an artist separation directly through Spotify for Artists here once your release goes live, but we unfortunately have no way of reinstating this back to your artist page and, in extension, your Upcoming tab.
 
We know this is not the best outcome, but please let us know if we can assist you further.

———

I responded ensuring that I did upload my Spotify ID number correctly (it’s even tagged correctly on the release page) as well as my artist name. I explained if it wasn’t possible to change this, then I want to pull the release and have the amount refunded - because this has really messed with my release plan in terms of pre-save/ability to pitch to editors etc.

I was then informed that once a track is distributed to stores (even if they’re not live) refunds are not possible.

I’m confused - the issue only happened once my track was distributed. Also, it wasn’t my mistake. How else was I supposed to go about this other than pre-empt they would make a mistake? The fact they don’t seem to show any remorse for the fact this nullifys artists ability to create a pre-save campaign and/or pitch to Spotify playlists is also insane.

Anyone has any advice on alternative distributors and/or getting a refund I’d be grateful. If nothing else, just some words of solidarity for how shitty CDBaby customer support is.