For Designers:

I. SPECIAL SYMBOLS, COPYRIGHT, UPC CODES

On the back cover, please include the following:

the catalog number (e.g. GCM0023)
website URL goodchildmusic.com & artist website URL.
copyright information with appropriate symbols, © ℗

EXAMPLE: ℗©2016 Good Child Music, All Rights Reserved.

On the spine, please show the following:

catalog number
album title
album artist
good child logo

II. TEMPLATES

Please find appropriate design specifications and/or template from the company who is replicating your cds.
Unless specific arrangements have been made with New Focus, the artist is responsible for submitting the appropriate files in design templates to the replicating company of their choice, and managing the replication order (proofing, shipping, etc..). These template files are not the same files New Focus needs to submit the album to Naxos for distribution (see III.).

! Note: It is not advisable to do cd design layout in PhotoShop, instead, use QuarkXpress or InDesign, since those are specifically for press/print design. If you design your cover in photoshop, you can import that into your design program and do all of the typography there.

Once you complete the design, you will be using the Quark or InDesign built in tools to export to PDF, and you will need to send the PDF files to the artist for approval. Once the artist has approved your PDF proofs, you can preflight your files for replication and follow their instructions.

After the replicator sends you back the digital proofs, it is very important that you share those also with the artist. The digital proofs should be identical to the PDF proofs you generated from within the design program.

Keep in mind that once you send artwork into a replication company, or to New Focus for distribution submission, this is assumed to be final artwork. Any proofing should be done before uploading artwork to third parties. That proofing should occur between the designer and the artist. Most replication companies will charge extra money to generate more than one proof, or to make corrections on files.

III. DEADLINES

Deliverables to NF – Deadline 1st of the month, 3 months before release.
New Focus will share a dropbox folder for your release with you, and all of the design assets, audio files, and any other related info can be uploaded to that folder.
(i.e. if release is November, these items are due in August)

Digital Documents Checklist

DocumentResolutionFormatNotesFile name*

Digital Booklet3000x3000, 300 dpiPDFEmbed fontsUPCCode_booklet.pdf

Front Cover3000x3000, 300 dpiPDFEmbed fontsUPCCode_cover.pdf

Back Cover3000x3000, 300 dpiPDFUPC code must be in place.

UPCCode_cover_back.pdf

iTunes BookletSee iTunes spec. form at bottom of this pagePDFOptionalUPCCode_booklet_itunes.pdf

N.B. Please also prepare JPG versions of the Front and Back Cover from the PDF files to upload to our submission form, without these extra jpg files, you will not be able to complete the upload.

*For the file names, please replace the XXX with your New Focus catalog number.
UPC codes and image files with the code embedded can be obtained from the replicating company upon an initial deposit starting your order. If the release is a digital only release, you will still need a UPC code.
* Fonts in the deliverable files should be vector as opposed to rasterized. These deliverables will be generating digital booklets which customers may want to print or view by zooming in, so the characters need to retain their resolution no matter what the viewing context is.
* Please optimize the digital booklets so that they are no bigger than 10mb
* N.B. The booklets should include the front and back cover panels as well as any internal panels and the panels of the additional booklet itself if there is one. In other words, all panels in the physical design should be represented in the digital booklet, in the approximate order they appear on the physical disc (front cover first, back cover last, etc..)

All digital documents should be uploaded on the submission form.
For Artist:

Album information - this information must be submitted/uploaded on the google form.
Numbered Track List, with total time at the end, also submitted on the google spreadsheet link provided to you.
Performer bios (if many, just primary bios):
Liner notes (if you want them included on the NF site):

I. PERMISSIONS

If you are releasing works written within the last 75 years that are not written by you, you must obtain permission from the composers or their publishers before you can commercially sell those recordings.

That permission can come in several forms:

1) if the work is not published or if you establish direct contact with either the publisher or the composer and they give you written permission to record and release the work in the given quantity of physical units and approximate annual digital downloads

2) if the work is published, you can create an account and log on to Harry Fox’s database SongFile and search for a physical mechanical license and digital mechanical license for this work. If you don’t find the work listed on Harry Fox’s SongFile site, contact the publisher of the work directly and indicate that you are interested in obtaining a license to release this work on recording.

3) Naxos has a program called Ariadne that calculates and takes out license royalties (mechanical and digital) on a per sale, micropayment basis. Signing the album up on this service incurs a $10 fee from Naxos, and then they take the royalties out quarterly, and charge a 20% fee on those royalties, also assessed quaterly. If you would like to explore this option, please ask your New Focus contact for more info.

You will need to submit an IPR (Intellectual Property Form) to the replicator when you start the project with them. As long as you have secured licenses for any applicable works (see above), you can list “yes” to the question, “do you own the rights to the audio on this recording”.

II. PRESS

By the submission deadline to New Focus (1st of the month, 4 months prior to release) please submit any biographical and marketing information on the artists on the cd, and the recording itself, for the press release and sales sheet. Please provide this information in the google documents that your New Focus contact has provided you.

Also, please provide NF with a high res photo of the artist for the press promotion page. This photo can be uploaded to your dedicated dropbox that your New Focus contact has shared with you.

If you are planning a CD release event, please let New Focus know by the 10th of the month 3 months prior to release so this can be kept in mind with promotion.

Press lists will be made available to you for you to send promo copies out to reviewers after the release

New Focus will prepare a password protected press page on the back end of our website including a download of the album, streaming tracks, press release info, and a high res photo of the artist. This link can be shared with whoever the artist wishes to share it with.

For Engineer

Deadline 1st of the month, 3 months before release (please speak with the artist about the proposed release date)

Upload master audio in WAV format to the New Focus dropbox or provide a link to another dropbox or equivalent form of downloadable master.

It is required to submit all of the master tracks as individual files in 16 bit 44.1 khz resolution. This is the standard digital submission protocol. We do make HD audio available as well, both through our website for direct download sales and through Naxos HD distribution network. If you have HD audio, it can be submitted to New Focus for submission to Naxos in addition to the 16bit/44.1 khz files. We can accept 24bit files with any sample rate from 44.1khz to 192khz, but please list both the bit depth and the sample rate in the HD file name. Sample rates of higher than 48khz are recommended for 24bit files.

N.B. New Focus and Naxos cannot accept up-sampled audio files.

Naming convention for the audio files:

Each audio track should be named with this convention:
UPCcode_DiscNumber_TrackNumber_BitRate_SampleRate.wav

Where "Disc Number"= 1 if there is only one disc in the set, or whichever disc number it is for a multi-disc set

Where "BitRate" = 16 or 24
Where "Sample Rate = 441 (for 44.1), 48, 96, etc..
Where "UPCcode" = the specific code for your release, i.e. 637813839680_

Then please zip all the wav files up into one folder, named with this convention
UPCcode_DiscNumber_BitRate_SampleRate_WAVMaster_zip

Make sure to name the folder before zipping, so that the zipped folder unzips to the same name.

Note: ISRC codes will be assigned by New Focus before submission and should be embedded into the meta if possible.