Signal - Demo Submission Inbox for Record Labels with AI Detection and Artist Signals
Signal is Forward's demo inbox for record labels. Artists send a track through your own submission page. Signal checks its origin with authio, reads the artist's public momentum and places the track against your own catalog. A person still listens and decides: Signal never scores, ranks or rejects a demo on its own.
From submission to decision
What Signal does with every demo
A demo inbox tells you a track arrived. Signal tells you what is in it before you press play: whether the audio was made by a person, how the artist is moving across platforms, and which of your own releases it sounds closest to. Every finding says where it comes from, and anything Signal could not read is shown as unavailable, never as zero.
Your label's submission page
A share link at submit.fwdmusic.com/your-label, or an embed for your own website limited to the domains you allow. Set the theme, accent, headline, intro and consent text, preview it on desktop and mobile, publish it, and pause submissions whenever you need to.
Verified artists only
Before uploading, every artist confirms their email with a 6-digit code and declares their Spotify, TikTok, YouTube and SoundCloud profiles, or states they have none. Files up to 100 MB in WAV, AIFF, FLAC or MP3 are checked from their actual content, not their file name.
authio on every demo
Each track is analysed by authio, Forward's AI music detection with 99.42% accuracy across a 12-model ensemble. You see Human, Hybrid or AI, the generator when authio identifies it, a forensic map of where the artifacts sit, and a downloadable PDF report. Nothing is rejected automatically: flagged demos go to review.
Momentum, not follower counts
From the profiles the artist declared, Signal reads public numbers such as Spotify followers, popularity and release cadence, YouTube views and SoundCloud followers. It reads them again every week while the demo is under review, so you see a trend over up to 56 days instead of a single snapshot.
Roster memory
Signal compares the demo's audio with your own catalog and shows the four closest releases, why they match (BPM, energy, danceability) and what each one earned in its first four settled months. It is audio similarity inside your label, not a commercial score.
Decisions on record
Accept or Pass with a reason, add an internal note, and keep a history that stores the evidence as it was when you decided. An accepted artist receives an invitation valid for 14 days. Audio is deleted on a schedule: 14 days if undecided, 48 hours after a pass.
What we can tell you
A brief for the listen, not a verdict
For every demo Signal writes a short brief: what the evidence shows, what it cannot show yet, and where the signals disagree, such as strong audio similarity with a thin public footprint. It ends with a question to answer while you listen. It never recommends a signing. Your A&R does.
Signal is a demo submission platform for record labels, built into the Forward Digital distribution platform. Labels publish a branded demo submission page or embed the form on their own website, and receive demos only from artists who verified their email. Every track is screened for AI-generated music by authio, with a forensic map and a PDF report, and compared with the label's own catalog by audio similarity. Signal reads public artist data from the declared Spotify, TikTok, YouTube and SoundCloud profiles and follows it weekly while the demo is under review. Decisions are recorded with reasons, accepted artists receive an invitation, and audio is deleted on a fixed schedule.
FAQ
Signal is the demo submission inbox built into Forward Digital. Each label gets its own submission page. Every demo is checked by authio for AI-generated audio, compared with the label's own catalog, and paired with public numbers from the artist's declared profiles, so the A&R team listens with context.
No. authio classifies each demo as Human, Hybrid or AI and shows a forensic map and a downloadable report. Demos that need attention are flagged for review, but every decision is made by a person at the label.
Only the profiles the artist declares when submitting: Spotify, TikTok, YouTube and SoundCloud. Signal never searches for an artist by name. It keeps the public numbers it reads, not the raw pages, and shows a value it could not read as unavailable rather than zero. Artists can object or ask for deletion at hello@fwdmusic.com.
Signal analyses the audio of the demo and of your released catalog, then shows the closest releases with the reasons they match and what they earned in their first four settled months. Comparisons stay inside your label and need at least five analysed releases.
Yes. Use the share link at submit.fwdmusic.com/your-label, or embed the form on your own site. The embed only loads on the domains you list in Settings > Integrations > Signal.
Audio is deleted automatically: 14 days after submission if no decision is made, 48 hours after a pass, and 7 days after an accepted artist responds to the invitation. The decision history is kept.