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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”

  2. What is the best exclusive library to join, in your opinion? By “the best” I mean the one that brings the composer the most profits. The genres I make are – acoustic guitar positive music, corporate music with electric guitars and electronic corporate music, dramatic orchestral.

    Thanks!

    • Let me start by saying my experience is based on how things work with exclusive libraries here in the UK :
      Unfortunately it’s not a question of “joining” an exclusive library. Working for exclusive libraries is very, very different than working for non-exclusives & royalty free.
      First off, if you want to even get through the door, you need to have some music that they don’t already have and it needs to be brilliant, both in terms of writing and production. Go take a look at their catalogues, do something different and you might just get someone’s attention. Then the fun really starts 😉
      Best of luck !

  3. How Many is Too Many?

    Just had a thought lately guys. I know some people market their tracks on hundreds of websites non-exclusively, and some people just go exclusive. Is there such a thing as having your tracks on too many websites in your opinion?

    • “Is there such a thing as having your tracks on too many websites?”

      Possibly. If you have a bunch of the same songs in a bunch of non-exclusive libraries and I’m a client who deals with, say 5, libraries that you have your music in and I hear your song five times. If I want it I’m probably going to go with the library that offers the cheapest rate on your song (probably a royalty free library) which means your song won’t earn as much as it could. As a client, I’ll make it my business policy to expand the number of libraries I deal with and purposely find the same songs from the same artists then see who offers the better deal. Let’s not forget this is business like any other.

      In addition, the libraries may not choose to deal with you if they know that your same songs are in 50 different competing libraries.

      Instead of blindly shotgunning tracks into any library that will accept them the wiser will thoroughly research any library they are contemplating sending material to. Not just the contract details but the cliental of the library. Does the library deal with overseas clients, cable TV, Network, Internet, and/or all of the above.

      • My thoughts exactly. Once someone discovers your same tracks are popping up on a number of sites, it’s very easy for them to comparison shop. All they need to do is google your name and the name of the track. Then there’s the watering down of your ‘value’ or ‘name’ to think about, if the same tracks pop up pretty much anywhere.

  4. I was wondering how popular are music pieces 60 and 30 sec in length. I read somewhere where they like those because they are more time efficient as far as the time supervisors save getting right to the best parts of a song vs having to dig and edit. Also wondering if any composers actually only write 60 sec and 30 sec pieces instead of whole songs and editing them.
    Just wondering if there’s a niche market for that.

    • So far, I have always written for exclusives. 90% of the time I am asked to provide a full-length track, a bed track (no melody), a :60, a :30 and sometimes a :15.

      In the non-exclusive world, I imagine it would increase your chances of sales / placement.

      • For me with exclusives, 100% it’s : full track, underscore, 60, 30, sting. Though now and again for promos/commercials projects it can be just the edits. But thats down to the publisher.
        But i’d say same rules apply even to non-exclusives.

  5. I think I understand the copyright issue now. Thanks guys for your help on that.

    Now onto a different topic. When a library places a track, does the composer receive any credit from the placement? For example, if one of my tracks gets placed on a TV show, do I get a credit from the show?

  8. Hey Guys,
    Do any of you have experience with this site: http://www.musicxray.net/ ??
    They seem to do placements (among other stuff) but it looks like they might charge for each “oppurtunity” submission. Just wondering if anyone on here has tried this out before??

    Thanks!
    -Mark

  9. Can somebody give me a clue about how loop libraries work, what do they look for and if there’s any decent ones?
    Are the the loops 4 bar measures of stand alone patterns that sound like they could have been from a song or what? Just wondering if that’s another worthwhile avenue.
    Thanks

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