Yes, Music Gateway does support the distribution of Waterfall releases and it’s currently a trending release format for artists, particularly on Spotify!
This type of delivery will allow the “latest release” on the Artist page to be replaced by multiple single bundles over time as more get released. In a waterfall release, each release will be its own product, having separate URIs. Rather than one album having tracks released at different dates, we prefer a series of single bundles being released during the campaign.
The best way to do this is:
- Deliver release A as a Single – release A goes live.
- Delivery of release B (Single 2 + Single 1) as an album under a new UPC—release B goes live. Please make sure track metadata + ISRC for “Single 1” is an exact match to previously delivered releases. This should be easy as you can attach the previously created and released single to your album.
- When track linking happens on release A (Single 1) and release B ( which contains Single 1) then you can issue a takedown for release A.
- Continue this process each time you want to add a single.
In the example above, you should synchronise the end date/time of release A with the start date/time of release B. As the track linking process could take at least 72 hours, you must deliver B far in advance of its start date/time.