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Newbie Questions

One of our readers, Ev, came up with the suggestion to have a section devoted to newbie questions regarding music libraries, music licensing, copyright, music publishing etc. There a lot of experienced people on this site and many are happy to share their wisdom. So, if you are a newbie (or not), and have a question, try leaving it here.

Of course many questions have already been answered here. First try searching in the search bar in the upper right hand corner. Also Google is your friend! I have found one of the best ways to search a site is use site specific criteria at Google’s web site. In other words, to search for a specific keyword, say “contracts”, type it in at Google like this “contracts site:musiclibraryreport.com”. Do not use the quotes.

If you still can’t find your answer then leave a comment here and someone will most likely come to your rescue!

1,260 thoughts on “Newbie Questions”

  1. I have been asked to provide a library with a composer cue number and Publisher cue number for my music. What are these numbers? All i have are tunecodes and my own CAE no.

    • The IPI/CAE number is an international identification number assigned to songwriters and publishers to uniquely identify rights holders.

      IPI stands for: Interested Parties Information

      CAE stands for: Composer, Author and Publisher

      You can find these on the site of the PRO you signed with.

    • If you’re talking about music you’ve already registered then they are probably talking about the registration number. Each time you register a new works it’s given a number. Look up your titles under you’re PRO.

  2. Hello everyone,

    first off thanks for this site – it is extremely helpful!

    I recently joined BMI and was wondering under what name to register my tracks, since I have all these different versions and cuts of the same track (like “Tracktitle 60 sec Cut” / “Tracktitle full length” / “Tracktitle piano solo” etc.).

    Do I register all these different versions or just “Tracktitle”?

    Thanks a lot for your help!

    • Nope you do not have to register your “edits” with BMI ( I’m a BMI member ) just the title will do

      however ….. if you are adding your edits to your library catalogs make sure you add your

      IP , CAE, & ISWC numbers to your edits

      you can simply log in to your BMI account, look in your works catalog, click on the title and it will look like this:

      Work Title: blah blah blah

      BMI Work #: 12345 ISWC: T-12345

      Date Registered: month/day/year Registration Origin: Works Registration

      Songwriter/Composer Current Affiliation Shares IP #
      your name BMI 100% your number 12345

      Publisher Current Affiliation Shares IP #
      EXCESS WRITER CLEARANCE NA 0%

      Work Title: BLACK WIDOW S HOLIDAY

      BMI Work #: 12345 ISWC: T-12345

      Date Registered: Registration Origin: Works Registration

      Songwriter/Composer
      your name and account number Current Affiliation Shares IP # 000000000000

      Publisher Current Affiliation Shares IP #
      on this one if you do not have a publisher it will read:
      Excess Clearnce but don’t worry about that BUT if you have been placed and broad cast
      it will state the library’s publishing company name so don’t freak out because that is how they collect their end

      Hope this helped

  3. Does anyone here use Taxi? I don’t see any info about it here. I joined a few months ago, but really haven’t did much with it yet. Do they bring in any big deals for composers?

    • @ Synth Player

      There were threads here discussing Taxi and other A&R companies but Art removed them due to threats of legal action from one of the companies (I don’t think it was Taxi). You can read a recap of my first year with Taxi (and in production music) here: http://forums.taxi.com/topic27376.html

      Taxi don’t get you any deals as such. They present the opportunities and you come up with the goods to land the deals. Personally, I’ve found their forum invaluable. I’m ambivalent about their services as a company. They are now also arranging listings from very large advertising agencies, so the potential for extremely lucrative deals has risen. In terms of music library deals, I’m having success with my own marketing.

      • So Taxi sued this site? There must have been some pretty awful reviews about their service. Probably came from disgruntled members. That kind of makes Taxi cool.

        • Good God, did you not read the comment!

          Taxi did NOT sue this site. Another company threatened to sue. I didn’t feel like fighting them even though (I think) Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the strong Anti SLAPP legislation in California would have protected me.

          Please go back and read the comment. THINK before leaving a post here!

          • Hey Art,

            Run “synth player”‘s name through the IP scrubber, I bet he’s Yadgyu

            • Good idea. He’s been here before as “Jimmy Boy”, equally innocuous comments. I’ve already deleted one of his comments (again flogging the Taxi thing) and put him on moderation.

    • Taxi indeed has some very high-profile clients. I was with them a year, and had nothing placed. I stopped, as paying their yearly fee was getting me no return on my investment. You may want to try for yourself to see how it works for you.

  4. HELP PLEASE
    Am new to using non-exclusive publishers that retitle
    Have just joined BMI and wondering whether I need to register my own works if I am just planning on sticking with non-exclusive retitle type libraries.
    eg. If I have a set of songs with a library/libraries and they are registering them (retitled with their prefix) with ascap/bmi is there any need/benefit of me going through the process of registering those track names (without the library prefixes) as well?
    Any help appreciated.

    • Hey Stuart, that question has been answered a number of times here. Search around and you should find a lot of info on this.

  5. Does Anybody here have Steingberg’s The Grand 3 piano vst? I need to know if you can drop it down an octave since my workstation is only 66 keys. I’m putting my Akoutik piano to pasture. It’s either The Grand or Ivory ( I actually like The Grand’s sound better ). I’m playing with the demo but I don’t see how to change octaves.
    tia

    • Nevermind. I decided to bite the bullet an ordered Ivory2. That wraps up by buying for a while.

        • Thanks MichaelL.
          I wanted one vst piano that would last awhile and was for the most part, a good bet. Should be a good match with Omnisphere and some of the other decent software I have.

  6. Hi,

    I have a number of tracks which are modern, atmospheric style pieces. I can’t figure out which library or who to contact to try and place them.

    I decided maybe it would help to post one on here so that anyone can listen to it and comment if they’d like to. If you have any suggestions as to where I could go with the track, they would be truly appreciated.

    Hope you like it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Q_39gRoqs

    Thank you.

    • Nice track – seems fine to me as is. Could easily hear that getting picked up.

      Alas I don’t think anyone here can wave a magic wand and say : Go here, to a specific library.
      What you need to do is decide which way you’re going to go : If it’s non-exclusive, then you have loads and loads of places to try, just have a look on MLR.
      If you want to try the exclusive route, you’ll probably need an albums worth before you even try touting it about.

      Best of luck.

      • That’s a really nice track Ben. I wouldn’t do a thing to it. Certainly worthy of any music library. Checked out your other tracks too – lovely stuff.

    • Hi Ben, I love this track… Cinematic… inner pictures… just add your dream…

      I would love to remix a version with tenor saxophone and woods, would you be interested in a collaboration? You can hear my style at http://ariel-kalma.bandcamp.com

      I submit non exclusively to libraries which appeal to me. Except a one time $150 from Pump/Getty nothing much coming yet but I guess we get exposure that way… (this is how I found you)

      This forum is great!

      • Thank you, I’m very glad you liked it. Ariel, I sent you an email through your site.

        Darkstar and Jello: from what I can tell you both seem like very experienced writers from the UK. I’m from the UK myself, and I’d like to try and go the exclusive route with these tracks, with a UK library if possible. So far, I’ve seen Audio Network, Royalty Free TV (royalty-free.tv, non-exclusive perhaps) and then I guess some huge ones like DeWolfe. Is there any one in particular out of those that you’d suggest (or others you know)?

        Please do feel free to email me through my website if you get a chance.

        All the best,

        Ben

    • Hi Ben

      The track is fine dont touch it !!! The other music on your site is great too. It certainly would fit into a lot of C4 UK programming , Dispatches and all of their factual based programming uses a lot of this kind of music. Might be worth looking up the production companies and approaching them directly. Good luck.

      http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tags/documentaries/4od

  8. I have to burn wav audio to DVD for a music submission. Is there a really straight forward way of doing this? Can I do this using Nero and keep the sound quality at 24bit 48khz?

    • @Hysteria

      A 24/48 wav file is not a CD file its simply data that needs a program to play it. Burn your DVD as data with these files in the same way that you would if you were burning any other file (Word/Excel etc)

    • Hey Art!
      What happened? It used to be that in the left column, you could click on the name of the poster and it would take you right to that post or am I losing it?
      Pat

      • That particular plug in stopped working because WordPress gets updated constantly but plug ins don’t. This was the best I could find that works consistently.

      • No you’re not losing it. I liked that much better too. It’s hard to follow conversations now. Also if there are 5 or 6 people in on one conversation on one topic, it clogs up the whole left side and you may miss out on other interesting topics.

      • Recent comments fixed. Clicking on the link will take you directly to the comment. Keep those donations coming in:-)

        • FYI Art.
          Tried twice to donate $5 Art. Clicked the donate button and it too me to paypal, logged in, I entered the amount and pressed donate (or whatever it was) and the paypal link shut down and I was sent back to MLR to a page saying “Error 404: The page or post you have been looking for does not exist on this website.”
          Pat

          • Just got the confirmation paypal email. Apparently the donation did go through for both attempts even though it acted weird but no problem. The sites worth it.

  10. Can anyone recommend a top five of Non-Exclusive licensing/library sites. Ideally ones that are relatively straight forward to use; pay per placement and/or provide good regular backend royalties; have a good metrics systems i.e. what tracks have been downloaded/placed etc; and get good regular placements in network TV and films??

    Thanks in advance

    • That really doesn’t work as different people have different success rates with different companies. Also it’s usually a long slog to find out what companies work best for your music.

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