Ok, Ok, I know there isn’t such a thing as the perfect cue or catalog but Mark at Partners In Rhyme had a great idea for a topic and that was the best title I could come up with.
In “The Perfect Music Library” topic Mark said: “Along with your suggestion list for library owners maybe start a discussion of how composers can best build their catalog and submit their music, what genres are popular, what types of edits and packages sell well, how to title and describe your music, etc.”
I would add to that.
1.) Do Mp3s sell better than wav or aiff? Anthony at Music Candy mentioned that Mp3s sell very well, even for broadcast.
2.) As for edits and lengths: 120, 60, 30, 15, DnB, loops, stings and/or buttons? What’s the best combination?
3.) Structure: Rhythmic intro (some editors cut picture to music) how many sections? Sections in the clear to make it easier to cut? Rhythmic sting ending? Some generalities I know and a very broad brush but something to start the conversation going.
I’ve had clients slice & dice my tracks into as little as 12 seconds and as high as over 2 minutes. Better to leave it up to them unless they give you exact times – IMO.
on 30’s and 60’s. I have placed several tracks with a major “pay up front” library, and was a little surprised to see that they created the 30’s and 60’s from the final mixes (about 2 minutes long, two mixes). In other words, they are basically doing what a good music editor does- hacking the full mix up, making it sting out at 30, then throwing some reverb over the hack marks! I have since vowed to never spend much time on a 30 or a 60 of any of my tracks- from now on I will just do it like a music editor would and not like a composer. (I have also done enough work directly with ad agencies to know that it is highly unlikely they are going to be exactly happy with the 30 of track they love anyway.) If any of you more experienced composers on here think differently, let me know. thanks
My experience is exactly the same with the 30 and 60 edits. Maybe low budget local TV commercial producers prefer the edits done for them, but the bigger budget ad houses seem to like to cut music themselves. You don’t want to miss the gig / license because the client doesn’t like the way the music is edited!
Loops on the other hand, sell well on royalty free sites. They take a lot of time to finesse though.
I can only speak from a library owner’s point of view but 30 and 60 second edits sell really well. On http://www.musicloops.com we also sell ‘packages’ of edits and loops for a discounted price. These also sell really well.
I encourage all of our composers to create 15, 30 and 60 second edits plus loops for all of their tracks and most of them do.
Remember, creating edits may seem tedious at first but you only have to do it once and then you make money off of that small amount of work for the rest of your life.
It’s not like digging a ditch everyday for a living.
A discussion sprouted up here regarding filmmusic.net, or known as FMN SubmitDirect. I moved it to that posting here: https://musiclibraryreport.com/music-pitching/fmn-submitdirect/
If you are a frustrated composer, please read this: http://www.sonicscoop.com/?p=2199
I’ve noticed that a lot of trailer guys and editors ask for, and are good with, 320kbps MP3’s. Weird
Most sales from music libraries result directly from the search engine on the site.
The search engine algo generally uses the title, description and keywords to find appropriate tracks.
This may seem an obvious point but you would be surprised at how many composers upload their tracks with short descriptions like “fast techno tune”,
if you do this you are shooting yourself in the foot before you ever get started with selling your music online.
In my blog at http://www.royaltyfreemusicclips.com I list lots of of suggestions in regards to creating and uploading music catalogs. Here’s an excerpt for things to think about with your song descriptions.
If you answer most or all of these questions in your description plus add a little flare and creativity you will end up with a great description that compels the customer click on the play preview button.
Things to convey to the customer
what genre(s) it is: jazzy, fusion, latin, rock, speed metal
what tempo: uptempo, slow,
type of feel: funky, laid back
instruments used with descriptive adjectives: real guitar, swirling synths, majestic strings
emotion: sad, lonely, happy, soulful, lost,
what type of use: children’s show, wedding video, corporate presentation, hollywood blockbuster
structure: is there a bridge, is there a chorus, is there a breakdown, etc?
sounds like?: name some bands that the music might be similar to.
Many of our musicloops composer go so far as to visually describe a scene from a movie that the music might be appropriate for;
“The road lies ahead, a new adventure, and in the rearview mirror we see familiar
places fading in the distance. The radio plays this happy and somewhat nostalgic
tune driven by 12 string acoustic guitars. The main theme is played with more energy
and additional electric guitar the second time around.”
Hope this guideline helps.
– Mark
Personally I can’t hear any difference between an mp3 or a wav file. Though I always send wav files to the music libraries – just in case they can hear a difference.
Agreed! Most people likely can’t hear a difference until you get below 160kbps. However, when the music is being used in a website, and being ’embedded’ in Flash, it definitely matters because Flash compresses the music again (essentially an mp3 of an mp3). It also does this video. Perhaps there’s a way to avoid this, but my experience with websites so far has proven otherwise.
I’m wondering if the library owners find their customers asking for hi res mp3s, wavs or aiffs. Do they also need the music at 44.1K, or 48K? Web developers would likely need mp3s or wavs (being PC based) at 44.1K (some PCs have a hard time with 48K playing on a website). Also, loops don’t play properly when they are mp3s – the compression leaves a tiny amount of silence, which creates a ‘hiccup’ in the loop.
Mac based editors would likely prefer 48K aiffs, as that’s what Final Cut Pro uses. Not offering that format requires those mac customers to perform the extra step of converting the music files.
“Also, loops don’t play properly when they are mp3s”
Exactly. Music loops break when converted to MP3 which is one of the reasons why we do not deliver anything in MP3.
All of our files are delivered in 44k, 16bit WAV.
We also don’t deliver in MP3 because there are so many user defined variables in the conversion process that it would be impossible to make everyone happy with the delivered product. We instead send directions on how to easily convert to any format the customer wants using iTunes. No complaints so far.
We used to offer a choice between AIFF and WAV but as our library grew it became impractical to keep all versions online. Our Mac customers have never mentioned anything as I am sure they are used to dealing with WAV files at this point.
Lots of customers have trouble with 48k and or any bit rate above 16 as their powerpoint, etc. programs seem to choke on them.
I’m a composer, but from my point of view, it seems like the upbeat exciting stuff – pop rock a la Coldplay / U2 sells the best.
I’d be really interested to hear from library owners regarding the significance of 44.1K vs 48K, wav vs aiff or mp3.