The six bays of the entry desk
Each service below is a fixed working stage with its own inputs, its own checks and its own written handoff. A release normally passes through all six in order, though a single can skip a bay when the material already meets the check.
Demo Submission Desk
The submission desk is where every engagement begins. Artists send a private streaming link plus a short note describing the work, the intended release window and the collaborators involved. We do not ask for a full marketing package at this stage. What we ask for is a finished mix, a working title, a contributor list and a clear statement of what the artist wants from the desk.
On arrival, the ticket is checked for completeness by the intake lead. Files that are unlistenable, links that need a password we were not given, or contributor lists that simply say see attached are returned with a written note the same week. A returned ticket does not use a slot in the queue and costs nothing. We prefer a clean return on day two over a slow, vague review three weeks later.
Accepted tickets move to a listening pass. The intake lead listens twice: once on studio monitors and once on a phone speaker, because that second listen says a great deal about how the recording will behave in a playlist context. The written first reaction is stored on the ticket and becomes the reference point for every later stage.
Playlist Pitch Rounds
Pitch rounds run in fixed windows rather than on demand. The desk groups submissions by genre family and release timing, then prepares a compact pitch pack for each group. The pack holds a private listening link, a short written note built from the description supplied by the artist, and the release date with the regions where the artist is focusing promotion.
Each round is sent to a curated list of playlist editors and small programme curators that the desk has worked with before. We keep that list small on purpose. A wide scatter of links is easy to send and easy to ignore, while a tight round with a readable note gets a real answer often enough to be worth the care.
Every round ends with a written outcome, including the rounds that receive no reply at all. The desk records the date sent, the follow up date and the result. Artists see the outcome on the ticket, and the next round is planned from that record rather than from memory. We never resend the same pitch to the same editor in the same release cycle.
Release Logistics Nights
Two evenings each month the desk holds a late working night for artists who are close to a release date. The format is simple: one project group at a time, a printed timeline on the table, and an open laptop running the delivery checklist. We walk the release from the distribution handoff to the first post release report and write down every open item with an owner and a date.
These nights are useful for the things that are easy to miss at the end of a long project: the second contributor name that was never confirmed, the territory that was switched on in one partner account and left off in another, the lyric sheet that still carries a working title. By the end of the night the artist leaves with a one page plan and the desk has a set of dated tasks on the ticket.
Seats are limited because the evening is meant to be a conversation, not a lecture. A project that needs more than one night is welcome to come back in a later month, and the earlier notes are read before the next sitting starts.
Cover Art Reviews
Cover art is reviewed against the written requirements of each receiving partner, the physical print margins where a vinyl or CD run is planned, and the legibility of the artwork at thumbnail size on a phone. The review is returned as a short written note with marked up files, keyed to the exact area that needs attention.
Common findings are small but costly. A title set too close to the edge for a circular print crop. A contributor name in a weight that disappears at eighty pixels wide. An image that looks fine on a bright screen but loses its contrast on a dark one. We flag each of these with a suggested fix, and we do not redraw the submitted artwork ourselves without a written brief and explicit permission from the artist.
Where an artist needs new artwork, the desk can recommend an illustrator from its referral list, though the brief and the fee belong to that separate working relationship. Our review stage then runs again on the new files so that the release still passes through the same check.
Metadata Cleanups
Metadata cleanup is the least visible service and the one that prevents the most delivery problems. The desk builds a single source document for the release that holds every contributor name in its preferred form, every identifier, the split lines, the publisher references and the language codes. That document is versioned, and every partner upload is checked against it.
Most rejections we see come from a mismatch between what one partner was told and what another partner received. A missing accent, a performer credited under a stage name in one place and a legal name in another, a track order that changed after the first delivery: each of these can stall a release at the worst possible moment. The cleanup stage exists to catch them while there is still time to correct them quietly.
The artist keeps ownership of the source document. We hand over a clean copy at the end of the engagement so that the next release starts from a correct base rather than from a folder of screenshots and message threads.
Release Week Checklists
The checklist covers the seven days around a go live date. It begins with a pre save confirmation, moves through the final artwork and metadata confirmation, then covers the day before release, the release morning and the first post release note collection. Every line carries a short description, a due time and the initials of the person who signed it off.
The checklist window opens on Monday morning and closes on Thursday at noon. That gives the desk two full working days to confirm the open items with the artist and the partners before a Friday or weekend go live. A checklist is only issued once the artwork and metadata stages are both marked complete, because a checklist built on unfinished inputs gives a false sense of readiness.
The signed checklist is filed with the ticket and read at the start of the next engagement. Over time these filed checklists become the most useful working record the desk keeps, showing which steps tend to slip and where a project needs more time before the date than the artist first allowed.
Process overview
How the six bays connect
The bays are not a menu of separate products. They are stages of one working process, and the order matters because each stage depends on the record left by the one before it. A ticket opens at the submission desk, gathers its reference listening note, moves into pitch preparation, settles its artwork and metadata, and is then handed a release week checklist that reflects the actual state of the project.
Step 01
Intake and first listen
A ticket is opened, checked for completeness and given a written first reaction on two playback systems.
Step 02
Pitch and preparation
Pitch rounds are scheduled in windows, with a compact pack and a logged outcome for each round.
Step 03
Artwork and metadata
Cover art and metadata are checked in alternating slots, then versioned as clean reference files.
Step 04
Release week
A signed checklist is issued inside the Monday to Thursday window and filed with the ticket.
Start a ticket
Tell the desk what you have finished
Send a private listening link, a short note on the work and the intended release window. If a release is already scheduled, include the date so the desk can say plainly whether the timeline is realistic. Our address is 2306 W Monarch Dr, Farmington - 84025-0019, United States (US), and the working contact for all submissions is entry@ttopvibes.lat or +17407645873.