Composer Tips Archives

Is it a bard, or is it a bot? An AI-music survey.

At the time of writing, we are experiencing an unprecedented surge in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-related applications, platforms and ideas, including AI music. As humans, we find ourselves awash with novel notions concerning machine learning and creativity.

And as composers and musical professionals, we are not exempt from these challenges. Some aspects of the onslaught pertain to the business end of music, while others the creative process itself. In this article, I survey AI music, seeking some insights from a production music perspective.

Home » Composer Tips » Page 3

LUFS in Production Music

If you’ve been wondering, “how many LUFS should my master be”, then this article is for you. We will also take a look at the meaning of LUFS and a free LUFS meter you can use in your DAW.

LUFS Meaning

LUFS, which is an acronym for Loudness Units Full Scale, is the industry standard measurement of loudness. Previously, you may have seen RMS (root mean square) used to measure loudness. However, LUFS quickly superseded RMS because it accounts for how humans perceive loudness. The science behind it is quite nifty and worth a read if you are interested in understanding how it is calculated. There are many different pieces that make up LUFS. These include K-weighting, which imitates the sensitivity of the human ear to different frequencies, and also the Fletcher Munson curve. See more about those curves here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour.

Home » Composer Tips » Page 3

How To Make A Music Composer Website

Creating a music composer website is a great way to showcase your abilities through your past work and showreel. It also creates a presence for you online and helps to build a reputation, as well as allowing potential clients to contact you directly. Not to mention the ability to offer licensing and sales of your music straight from your own website. Overall you want to show that you have delivered high quality work and that you are easy to work with.

If you’ve been wondering, “how do I create my own music website?”, you’re in the right place. In this article we’ll look at some of the most popular platforms to create a website for your music.

Home » Composer Tips » Page 3

Work For Hire Deals Can Cost Composers

Buyout Deals

Buyout deals, sometimes known as a composer work for hire agreement or contract, involve an up front payment to the composer, for which the company owns 100% of future license fee income as well as the usual 50% of performance (PRO) royalties. The writer would retain their 50% “writer’s share” of performance royalties, but not in all cases as we’ll see below.

Generally the up front payments that we have seen range from $100 to $1,000 per track. Even the top end of this could be considered very low. As an example, imagine the company sells 50 licenses over the next 2 years for this track, with each license costing $50. (Even these numbers are conservative). The company would make 50 x $50 = $2,500 in license revenue, and the composer would get $0, since they signed away their rights to license income in the work for hire contract. Now imagine that goes on for another 30 years… And imagine that all the licenses are for corporate training videos with no performance royalties. A truly terrible situation for the composer.

Home » Composer Tips » Page 3

Using Tunesat and Numerator to Collect US Ad Royalties

Have you ever wondered how to track US commercials which are using your music? And how to make sure you receive royalties for them? There are steps you can take to maximize your chances of receiving royalties from US commercials. Once you know how, it’s not as complicated as it might seem. Read on below for how we do this with TuneSat and Numerator.

You will need to use two services for this:

TuneSat, or a similar tracking technology – Check out their service here
This is one of various digital fingerprinting services where you can upload your music for the technology to track its usage. While not perfect, it is very useful and can show you where your music is airing. In fact, you can see airings not just in the US, but also in many other countries as well, e.g. Europe. Competitors include BMAT and Trqk.
Vivvix (also known as Numerator or, previously, Competitrack) – https://www.numerator.com
These are market research or advertising intelligence companies. For reasons beyond the author of this article, PROs in the US (i.e. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) use their data to record and pay out royalties for music in US commercials. Specifically, the PRO will need what is called an ‘ad code’ from Vivvix / Numerator. Each commercial in the US has an ad code. This includes different versions of similar ads from the same company, running at the same time. US PROs use the ad codes to track airings and to pay out royalties.

Username

Password

Remember me


Forgot Password?
Join Us