My original song sounds different

[KingSargon]

I'm a songwriter, artist and producer. One of my tracks was recently distributed to all the digital download and streaming platforms. The track quality is great on all the platforms except Spotify. The track sounds very different on Spotify. I don't men just quality as in non-premium subscriptions. Several instruments, drum fills, some background vocals are completely missing. Absolutely takes away from the beauty of the track. Also, at the very beginning of the song, there is now a 2 second delay before the music starts. This delay has scratching noise as if someone is putting the needle onto the vinyl record as the turntable is spinning. There is no 2 second delay or any missing instruments/vocals on any other platform.

As mentioned, on iTunes, Google, Amazon, Apple and other streaming sites, the song is exactly how it was recorded and produced in a pro-studio with professional mixing/mastering. Quality is as good as any major recording studio. The same .wav file was sent to, approved and distributed by CD Baby to all of these sites at the same time. What the **bleep** is up with Spotify??? Why are they changing this and other songs? There has to be a legal issue here.

Thanks,

KS

[MattSuda]

Hey @KingSargon

Sorry to hear about this.

I would suggest contacting your distributor to see if they can work with Spotify to fix this problem.

You can also contact the Spotify artist team here:

https://artists.spotify.com/contact

[KingSargon]

Matt,

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. I've already reached out to Spotify artists. Will call CD Baby today. I anticipate their answer being the same as usual and something to the effect of, "We have no control over what our partners do, Yada, Yada, Yada."

Thanks,

KS

[MattSuda]

Alright, hopefully your distributor can help fix this. You might need to re-release the song/album.

I have never heard of this problem before. I also have released music in the past and it sounds the same on all platforms including Spotify.

If you do end up getting this solved, post back. The user community here is a great place to post solutions so that when other users and artists search for the same problem it will help them out.

[KingSargon · Accepted solution]

Matt,

The problem is resolved. The track now sounds exactly as it should on desktop application, Spotify web site and all devices. However, I have absolutely no clue what I did, or what anyone else may have done to resolve it. No.... I wasn't going crazy. Several people, including the sound engineers at the recording studio, also heard what I was hearing (or NOT hearing) on the track. They freaked as well.

All I did was send a message to Spotify Artists and CD Baby. CD Baby came back with how they usually respond to these problems, that they had no control over this issue. Spotify asked me to update the software on my desktop app and devices. I did and magically, the problem was resolved.

Something here that made me go, Hmmmmm?.............

My studio engineers did some experimenting. They took one stereo channel of the track and crossed phases on that channel only. Then we played it. Several instruments and vocals were barely audible or not there at all when played over the studio speakers. They also mentioned the noise at the first 2 seconds of the track (before music started) sounded like someone moving a live/hot microphone in place, then clicking something. So.... we also put a microphone close to the speakers and recorded the track as it was playing. We favored the Mic on the side of the X-Phased channel. This time, it sounded EXACTLY like what we heard before the problem was resolved. Instruments and some frequencies were canceling each other out.

I cannot say with any certainty and not making any accusations here. But is it possible that someone, for some reason, did the same x-phasing, Mic recording and re-posted the track? Sort of like hacked it? If so, why would anyone do that? I'm still confused but at least the issue is resolved.

Thanks,

KS

[MattSuda]

Glad to hear this has been resolved! Surely a strange issue indeed.

No way to find out exactly what happened, but the Spotify artists team could have actually fixed the problem without actually saying they did.

In the past I emailed them when I changed distributors and even after using same metadata and release code, my releases were not linking to the old releases so that I could keep all my play counts and saves and playlist positions. After I emailed them, a few days later my releases were linked up but I never got a reply from them. So they might not always reply for some things. Strange, but if things are fixed, I can't complain.