Hello - I'm after some advice if possible.

What are the essential areas to cover if you decide to release your own music? I'm surprised at my own lack of knowledge here. When we decided this was the option we'd like to take, I thought I'd expand my existing knowledge, do a bit of research and throw in some common sense. It turns out I'm no wiser after a month of research.

I'm looking for information on the practical side of it. How far in advance of release to send promo copies to press, whether to use Bancamp/Itunes/both/other, what pit falls should I be mindfull of...

We're thinking of doing it as a download only, as we can't really justify the cost of doing a run of cd/vinyl when you can entirely negate the manufacturing process and save money. Is this wise?

We've got a modest amount of money together to make sure we can pay for stuff, but where should we look to focus and where can we do stuff on the cheap?

Any info much appreciated.

As a side note. There's two of us and we have recorded an e.p's worth of material ourselves (synth, strings, bass, guitars, drums, vox, lots of backing vocals, percussion). So to play live and recreate the sound of the e.p, we'd need to put together a decent sized band or rely very heavily on sequencing/backing tracks.

What's the general consensus on bands that release something, then only do a scaled down live version of the music they release? Would you feel ripped off hearing a layered, detailed recording only to see it done as a a stripped down, completely different sounding proposition?

Many thanks in advance for any pointers.