How fast can a song be put up for sale

[LiveMusic]

Anyone have a feel for this? How fast could a song be uploaded and set up for distribution and sales? Days, weeks? Meaning, the song is already recorded and mastered and ready for distribution but that's it. Would have to get set up as an artist on iTunes and other sellers.

 

EDIT: This question pertains to getting one time-sensitive song set up to sell downloads.

[MikeRivers]

Fifteen minutes, maybe? Sing into your phone, do a couple of takes, a little editing, and post it on YouTube.

 

Really, it depends on the song, your level of professionalism (both what you can do and what you're aiming to do) and the distribution channel. There's an article in a recent issue of Tape Op about a place in Detroit, Third Man Pressing, with a branch in Nashville - or maybe it's the other way around - that's a studio, record cutting facility, and pressing plant, a project of Jack White's. In the article, he talks about a session that Jack White did in Nashville, recording straight to lacquer disks. The lacquers were carried straight over to United Record Pressing in Nashville where they were plated, stampers were made, and records were pressed within an hour.

 

In the 1950s, it wasn't unusual for an artist to go into a studio (which was often as not, in those days, a local radio station) and record a couple of songs in a take or two - usually, by then, to tape. Then the studio would cut a few acetates from the tape, and the artist or his manager would run around town passing them out to DJs to play on the air. It was all done in real time - 20 minutes to make the "master," 2-3 minutes to cut a side, so getting out the door with some ready to play records in an hour was about right.

[1001gear]

Time sensitive as in seasonal/current eventual/commissioned, or pirated/ trying to beat pirate ?