What is the difference between a music production company and a record Label?

Shamiso

initiate
How is a music production company different from a record label or to put it, in other words, is a production deal the same thing as a standard record contract?
 
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A production company in the music industry is a business that has at least enough money to pay for beats (instrumentals), studio time, mixing, mastering, and final release to Spotify, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube music. They might have a little pocket change left for music videos and marketing (or promotion) here and there but that is not usually the main goal.

The main objective is about shopping an artist to a major record company for both distribution and of course, establishing a record contract. As you can see, a production deal if done in all fairness results in purposefully laying down the foundation from which future investments that come via a record deal should easily be recoupable without too many doubts about success.

Bla Jedza

apprentice
These days many production deals are literary 360 deals to the point where there aren't really different from a contract an artist will sign with a major record label. In contemporary times I'd simply say the difference is just a name to catch new upcoming artists off-guard by slapping them with a music recording contract. Hell, some production deals are set so greedily that they will even try to act as a music publisher for an artist on the come-up.
 

Black Panther

grand master
In general music production companies exist to facilitate the growth of an artist who they think has the potential to blow up as a huge superstar. They undertake an initiative financial risk by discovering and offering such an artist a "production deal" to make a number of singles, EPs, LPs, and mixtapes.

If the projects are successful and get more spins on the internet they will proceed to use that as evidence to convince a major record label to enable their machine (financial resources, connections, etc) behind an artist to push them further into stardom. If a major record label is happy with what they see and hear they will offer that artist a record contract.

For example, let's just say a 4-album deal while at the same time a production company will receive X percentage of income from that contract since they are the ones who built the artist from the ground. In a nutshell, production deals are about pimping an artist to a major record label. So obviously a production agreement isn't necessarily a record contract.

But quite a number of production deals are now set up in a similar way to a 360 deal. The onus is on the artist to understand what they are really getting themselves into. An artist should also give a production company a timeframe to say if they don't link them up with a major label after this period of time has elapsed they should be set free from a contract. No artist in his or her right mind wants to be stuck in a production deal.
 

Scorpio

grand master
A production company in the music industry is a business that has at least enough money to pay for beats (instrumentals), studio time, mixing, mastering, and final release to Spotify, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube music. They might have a little pocket change left for music videos and marketing (or promotion) here and there but that is not usually the main goal.

The main objective is about shopping an artist to a major record company for both distribution and of course, establishing a record contract. As you can see, a production deal if done in all fairness results in purposefully laying down the foundation from which future investments that come via a record deal should easily be recoupable without too many doubts about success.
 
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Scorpio

grand master
If an artist releases music while under a production company generally who gets to own the masters?

The terms of a contract in a production deal are what define the issue of master recordings. It all depends on the nature of the agreement because there aren't strict standards that are really followed. Every deal is different. Most artists negotiate a 50/50 split of both master and music publishing rights with production companies.
 

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