FREE RELEASE TOOLS

Check your metadata against the store rules

Featured artists in the title, version information in brackets, search terms in the artist field — these are the rejections that arrive on the Friday before release. Type in what you are about to submit and find out now instead. Everything runs in your browser.

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Everything on this page runs inside your browser. No file, image or text you enter here is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere, and no account is needed. The checks reflect published store requirements, which change — always read your distributor's current rules as well.

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How this works, and why it matters

Metadata is how the world finds you

Your artist name is a key, not a label. Spelled one way it joins your catalogue, your followers and your listener history. Spelled a different way — an extra space, a changed capital, "The" moved to the end — it creates a second artist who happens to have your name and none of your audience. This is the most expensive small mistake in independent releasing, and it is entirely preventable by writing your artist name down once and never typing it from memory again.

Featured artists never go in the title

The rule is explicit on every major store: featured and collaborating artists must not appear in the track or product title. They go in their own artist field, at track level, with the role set to featured. Put them in the title and three things happen — the release can be rejected, the featured artist gets no credit on their own profile, and the algorithmic link between the two artists is never made. That last one is the real cost, because that link is how their listeners find you.

Version information has its own field

"Radio Edit", "2011 Remaster", "Live at Brixton, 2019" — all of these belong in the version field, without brackets, one version per field. Not in the title. And an original version carries no version information at all, which means "Original Mix" is not a version; it is a rejection. This trips up electronic producers constantly, because the convention in that scene is the opposite of the convention the stores enforce.

What stores treat as a search term

Anything describing the music rather than naming it. "Sleep Music", "Study Beats", "Best Of", "Greatest Hits", "Music for Concentration" in an artist field are rejected as attempts to capture search traffic. In a title, cover-version disclaimers like "Made Famous By", "In the Style of", "Originally Performed By" and "Tribute to" are rejected for the same reason. So are dates, instruments, affiliations and label names in the artist field.

Capitalisation, emoji and the small things

Titles in English are capitalised on the first and last word, with prepositions of four letters or fewer left lowercase unless they are part of a verb phrase. All capitals is normalised unless it is genuinely your styling. Emoji are rejected. Double spaces create a different string, and therefore sometimes a different artist. None of these will ruin a career on their own, and all of them together are the difference between a catalogue that looks professional and one that looks improvised.

Questions and answers

Is anything I type here sent anywhere?

No. The checks run entirely in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, logged or stored, and there is no account.

Whose rules is this checking against?

The published metadata style rules used by the major stores, which are broadly consistent with each other. Rules change without much notice, so treat this as a strong first pass and read your distributor's current requirements as well.

How do I credit a producer?

In the contributor credits, not in the title. "Prod. by" in a title is a common habit from mixtape culture and it does not survive contact with store metadata rules. The producer credit belongs in the production role field, where it also feeds the credits panel listeners can actually see.

What if my artist name is genuinely in all capitals?

Then keep it. The rule is that stores normalise all-capitals text unless it is the artist's actual styling. Be consistent about it: if it is capitals, it is capitals on every release forever.

Should the artist name be translated for different countries?

No. One artist name, one spelling, everywhere. Alternative scripts and translations belong in dedicated alternate-name fields where your distributor offers them, never side by side in the main field.

Does any of this affect royalties?

Indirectly and significantly. Metadata is how a stream is matched to a recording and a recording to a payee. Inconsistent artist names split catalogues, wrong or reused identifiers misroute matching, and missing writer credits leave the publishing side unclaimed. The money follows the metadata.

Apply for review
Read the full technical referenceMusic Release Metadata: The Complete Technical ReferenceThe checker tells you what is wrong. The reference tells you why, with the standard quoted and linked.

Metadata clean. Bring the record.

Correct metadata is what keeps a catalogue together. A reviewed roster is what puts a team behind it.

Apply for review

Free to apply. No account is created; a human reviews and replies by email.

Going deeper

Two engineering tools for when the basics already pass.

Mastering analysis
LUFS, loudness range, true peak, PSR, spectrum, mono behaviour and a real codec round-trip.
Immersive master inspector
Reads the BW64 container and ADM metadata and checks it against the published delivery specification.

The other free tools

Free, no account, nothing uploaded. Everything runs in your browser.

Check your master before the stores change it
Free browser loudness checker. Measure integrated LUFS, true peak and loudness range to ITU-R BS.1770-5, and see what Spotify's published normalisation will do to your master — every other service's figure is labelled as reported, not published.
▣Check your cover before it gets rejected
Free cover art checker. Check dimensions, aspect ratio, colour mode and detail against store requirements, and preview your artwork at the sizes listeners actually see.
⌘Check your ISRC and your barcode
Free ISRC and UPC/EAN validator. Check the structure of an ISRC and verify or calculate a barcode check digit instantly, in your browser.
Work backwards from your release date
Free release timeline planner. Enter your release date and get a dated working back-schedule from master delivery to the editorial pitch deadline and the first month after launch.
◇Find out what actually reaches your bank account
Free calculator. See what US tax is withheld from your music royalties by treaty country, whether you need a US tax number, and what each distributor that publishes its figures actually costs you — with the arithmetic shown.
See the verdict before you apply
Free. Run, on your own device, the checks a reviewer can settle from the file and the fields — cover, master, codes, credits — and see exactly what would come back to you before you send anything.
⚖Agree the splits while everyone still remembers
Free. Write down who wrote the song and who made the recording, as two separate sheets with two separate sets of percentages, and share it through a link whose contents are never sent to our server.