Petcord gladly accepts submissions by musicians that meet minimum requirements concerning production, encoding and - naturally - music quality. What criteria are considered relevant shall be discussed in this article. But apart from that, it is also meant as a general guide for a better production and therefore maybe of interest to those, who do not have any plans to release on the Petcord netlabel.

• Petcord considers itself as a niche label, with a focus on experimental electroacoustic sounds, but also extending to Dark Ambient, Laptop/Computer Music and everything inbetween and beyond that does not emulate typical dance or mainstream stereotypes. Music in general has good prospects if it contains a wide range of dynamics and sounds, cannot be accurately described with genre keywords and has distinctive and original features not heard anywhere else. Whilst these are my personal preferences, the most important condition is that I like the submission. So even if you are unsure whether you fit into the concept, you still can try, as chances are that your particular way of creating music is what does the trick.
  
  
• Petcord as a non-profit netlabel can only accept submissions that fall under a Creative Commons licence which at a minimum grants the right to share, copy and present the music for noncommercial purposes. Without profits, there are of course no royalities to be collected, thus if "monetising" your work is a primary concern to you, you may find Last.fm's royality programme for musicians more suitable for your needs.
  
  
• When mixing down your master to 16 bit/44100 hz stereo, you should make sure that your loudness levels are adjusted in a way that no clipping occurs, otherwise your production may sound harsh and distorted. Too much limiting or compression can severely impact the music's dynamic range and make it appear flat, distorted and mushy. Also, heavy usage of limiting or compression is a sure way to introduce issues with humming tones that were not supposed to stand out. Depending on the music genre, the best bet is to use an RMS value located somewhere between -20 and -16 dBfs.
  
  
• To avoid unexpected results in your final mixes, you are well advised to use high quality earphones that are capable of reproducing a transparent frequency spectrum throughout the audible ranges. Mixing down a production by means of speakers may falsify its acoustic properties because of room specific resonance and reverberation. Additionally, the speakers themselves may omit or overemphasise some frequency ranges, leaving you unaware of low frequency rumble or otherwise disturbing hum. This precaution alone can save you from wrongly adjusted sound and frequency levels which can cause considerate unease or even totally spoil your production for listeners.
  
  
• Another critical process is mp3 encoding: As a rule of thumb, "standard" does not really make it ;-). You surely want to use the best possible quality levels and invest in more encoding time to have a more ear-pleasing result in the end. Using Lame, an open source encoder that is generally acknowledged to produce the highest quality mp3 files, this would involve the "-q 0" switch and for vbr encoding "-V 0" as additional option. Another highly recommended setting for Lame is to encode with separated stereo channels as an additional sound quality boost. This can be specified with the "-m s" switch (for both CBR and VBR encoding). VBR encoded files should make use of the highest quality settings, whilst CBR encoded files should have a bitrate of 320 kps to avoid audible flanging artifacts at passages with a broad frequency spectrum. I am also happy to accept flac, wav or aiff files in case you feel more comfortable with leaving the encoding work up to me.
  
  
• You need not submit an entire CV, as I do not particularly care about qualifications or prior achievements, but solely about your music. Nevertheless, a brief description of yourself can vastly improve the quality of your information page and release liner notes. I need both a working email address and links to your music, because after all that is the reason you contacted Petcord in the first place ;-). In case you have no possibilty of uploading your music yourself, individual arrangements are possible, too.
  
  

• The preferred way to contact Petcord is via the contact form using a meaningful subject line and a message that consists of more than just a link or promotional slogan one-liner. Please do not claim to like the label's music and be a good addition when your message has been simultaneously posted with the same content to hundreds of other contact forms. Not only is this dishonest and offensive, because it implies that label owners are stupid and don't know how to read server logs, it also makes you look like an untrustworthy person. Petcord reserves the right to ignore messages which are essentially indistinguishable from spam, thus it is in your best interest to keep your message at a sensible level. In case I am interested in your music, you should receive feedback within three days. If you do not hear from me after three days it either means my reply was placed into some spam folder or I was not interested at this time.
  
  
• During the preparation stage, I try to keep you informed about drafts (artist description, liner notes, cover art) and shall be open to your suggestions, so that the final product is acceptable for everyone involved. For cover art suggestions, it is vital that you own the copyright of the images, else this would open the label up to legal liabilities (copyright infringement). For this matter, the Petcord will reject any image that is of unknown origin and not known to have been released in a way that allows its usage for cover art. Further, the Petcord netlabel seeks to maintain its typical look and feel with lavish high-quality artwork, thus I reserve the right to modify any "raw materials" to reach that goal. Much of this work is about finding a compromise that suits everyone involved and people who are incapable of accepting compromises or trying to extort me may have their release cancelled altogether.
  
  
• Petcord does treat submissions equally by abiding to a simple "first come, first served" principle. A potential release is queued by the time I accept a submission and the artist confirmed his intention to release on Petcord within three days after my initial message. After three days passed without a confirmation, I assume an artist is no longer interested or went for another label and move on to the next in line. If things should unexpectedly take longer than anticipated, I shall let you know about it, including what led to it and what can be done to resolve the problem (if applicable). Vice versa, if for some reasons you prefer a later release date, for example to revise one of the selected titles or add a new one, just let me know and I shall try to arrange it accordingly.
  
  
• A final release will be accompanied with complete liner notes, immediate announcements at various locations and considerable airplay on my Leftob netradio station. Whilst this basic promotion is provided as part of the "package", you may wish to extend the degree of promotion for your release yourself. It is a good idea to comply to the terms of forums, newsgroups or services and their restrictions concerning promotional activities and to be responsive to inquiries by community members, moderators or adminstrators. If people know you from other postings where you proved to be a useful member, your announcements will carry more weight and credibility. I also recommend to contact review sites that are interested in submissions, because you can build up and maintain relationships with these authors no matter what label you wish to release on.
  
  

The Petcord netlabel hopes you found this description useful, however in case there are questions left not dealt with in this document you are welcome to contact me and ask for clarification.