How to reuse tracks on multiple releases
Sometimes you want to reuse certain tracks; they can be a pre-release single and part of the final release (your EP or album). We'll explain how to set this up correctly in Make Waves, to make sure streams are merged across all different releases.
As soon as you know what your release plan looks like, so which tracks will be your pre-release singles and when they'll come out, you can go ahead and set this up in Make Waves. If you haven't set up a release before using Make Waves, you can first check out our Manual here.
Let's say the final release will be an EP and you will have two pre-release singles. This means that two tracks from the EP will be set up as separate singles in Make Waves, and they will be released before the final EP comes out. We would first recommend setting up the final EP. So you'll create all the necessary tracks, upload the audio files, and fill in the required metadata. Now you either have the option to assign your own ISRC codes or let the Make Waves platform automatically generate these for your tracks. These options are visible under 'Optionals' at the bottom of the page.
If you have used your own, then you will already have an overview of the ISRCs that are assigned to all your tracks. If you have chosen to have these generated automatically, these will become visible after the release has been delivered. So when all the required fields have been filled in and you have successfully delivered your release, you can go back to your catalogue, click on the release and find the ISRCs for each track.
If you then want to set up your pre-release singles, you simply create a new release, copy over all the track information, upload the same audio file as the one that is part of the EP and then assign the same ISRC code. These two steps are the most important, as this will ensure the streams of the tracks will merge.
If your first pre-release single is going to be 'Track two' from the example product that is shown above, the title of the first single will be 'Track two'. It will have the same artist(s), audio file and for the ISRC code, you will manually input "NL0012300060". When the first single comes out, it will start to generate streams, and by reusing your tracks this way, you can make sure the streams are merged when the final EP comes out.
In case you're interested in setting up your pre-release singles using the 'Waterfall' strategy, we can redirect you to our separate guide on this (see here). For any other questions, please reach out to support@makewaves.fm.