Recording Metadata
Credits, performers, master ownership, and technical details for recording versions
Recording metadata lives on the recording version, not the song. This is because the same can be recorded multiple times with different people, studios, and ownership structures. For composition-level metadata like songwriters and publishing, see Song Metadata.
Credits
Credits are the liner notes of your recording — who did what. Every person who contributed to the production of a recording should be credited with their role.
Common credit roles include:
- Production — Producer, Co-Producer, Executive Producer, Vocal Producer
- Engineering — Recording Engineer, Mix Engineer, Mastering Engineer, Assistant Engineer
- Songwriting — Songwriter, Composer, Lyricist, Topliner, Arranger
- Instruments — Guitar, Piano, Drums, Bass, Violin, and many more
- Vocals — Lead Vocals, Background Vocals, Harmony Vocals, Choir
- Programming — Beat Programming, Drum Programming, Synth Programming, Sound Design
Credits serve as a historical record and are used by streaming platforms, liner notes, and industry databases. They're about attribution — making sure everyone who worked on a recording is acknowledged.
Non-Featured Performers
Non-featured performers are musicians who performed on the recording but are not the main or featured artist. This is a specific royalty concept — in many countries, non-featured performers can collect neighboring rights royalties through organizations like SoundExchange (US), PPL (UK), or Artisti (Canada).
When you add a non-featured performer, Songkeeper tracks:
- First and last name — Required separately for collection society registration
- Instrument — What they played on the recording
- Member of band — Whether the performer is a member of the primary artist's band
Credits vs Non-Featured Performers
These two concepts overlap but serve different purposes. Credits are about attribution — who did what on the recording. Non-featured performers are about royalty collection — who can collect neighboring rights income from this recording.
A session guitarist would typically appear in both: as a credit (for attribution) and as a non-featured performer (to collect royalties). But a mix engineer would only appear as a credit — they're not a performer and don't collect neighboring rights.
- Session guitarist — Credit (Guitar) + non-featured performer (collects royalties)
- Background vocalist — Credit (Background Vocals) + non-featured performer (collects royalties)
- Mix engineer — Credit only (not a performer)
- Producer — Credit only (collects royalties through different channels)
- Mastering engineer — Credit only (not a performer)
Artists
Each recording version has one primary artist and can have multiple featured artists. This determines how the recording appears on streaming platforms and how artist royalties are split. See Artists for more details.
Master Ownership
Master ownership defines who owns the to this specific recording and their royalty split. Each owner has:
- Name and entity type — Individual, company, or label
- Royalty percentage — Their share of master recording income (must total 100%)
- — For identification in rights management systems
Master ownership is separate from publishing splits, which live on the song. A songwriter might own 50% of the publishing but 0% of the master if they didn't fund the recording.
Technical Details
Recording versions also track production metadata that's useful for organization, distribution, and rights registration:
- BPM, key signature, time signature — Musical properties of this recording
- Genre — Primary and secondary genre classifications
- Language — Language of the vocal performance
- Label — The releasing label for this recording
- Studio — Where the recording was made
- Recording date — When the session took place
- Date of first release — When this recording was first made public
- Country of mastering — Where the final master was produced
- Explicit lyrics — Whether this recording contains explicit content