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@Kiwi
You may be over-thinking a bit too much. The exclusives that I’ve dealt with haven’t said we don’t want your music because you’re in royalty free libraries too. They serve two different markets. What some exclusives DO NOT like is writers who participate in the retitling model (because they are in direct competition).
I think that choosing to put music into a high end or low end situation is a business decision, and most sophisticated publishers will recognize that. People worry too much that putting music into RF libraries will some how tarnish their “brand,” like they’re the next John Williams. My advice is to take a deep breath, do a reality check, and then don’t pass up on viable revenue streams.
Howard Shore started out playing sax in the Canadian pop-rock band Lighthouse. When it came time to score Lord of the Rings, no-one said “sorry Howard, you tarnished your brand in the pop band.”
There are some very good writers, who do high end work, who have material in royalty free libraries, Mark Petrie and Jason Livesey, among them. If you are really concerned, use a pseudonym. But, in the end, it’s just business.
Prime candidate for lesser material under a pseudonym!
I personally wouldn’t do a deal with someone who is so unconcerned about the quality of their catalog that they wouldn’t listen for more than 10 seconds. That sounds like someone just trying to build up a “quantity over quality” library.
sometimes you have to weigh the fact that they might not listen against how easy it is to pull the track. for example, with MD, you put a track up, and it’s there. i don’t believe they listen at that stage. so your instinct might be to do the math, conclude that this library must be absolutely massive, and then decide it’s not worth it. but what i remind myself is that any track i want to have removed from there can be done in a month’s time which is very short; so for now, I’m trying it out with them. I’m not sure what the term length is of the library you have in mind, but that might be something to factor in.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. The fact is that nearly everyone with a computer and a copy of Garage Band is submitting cues to libraries. NO ONE has time to listen to it all.
Often, I’m in the editing suite when editors are choosing music for a show. THEY make decisions within 10 or 15 seconds. When I’m given tracks, I might listen to half a cue, tops. I can tell right away if it is or isn’t going to work. The first thing that I’m listening for is the sonic quality. Next is whether or not it “grabs” me.
No one is going to listen to an entire track to find out if you know the difference between a Neapolitan 6th and a Neapolitan pizza, or if the bridge is where the cue suddenly gets interesting.
The kind of library that you’re talking about just wants cues that meet a minimum level of sonic quality.
right – the creme de la creme will rise to the top, no matter the size of the library, or even if it’s listened to on the way in.
With all due respect there is a lot of difference between the end user (editor) making a decision in 10 sec regarding whether something works for their particular project and the supplier of the music (library) listening to 10 seconds of an entire catalog that he plans to represent. Your mention of pizza led me to a restaurant example: there is a difference between the customer taking one bite of something to decide whether he likes it or not and the restaurant owner taking one bite of a chef’s food and hiring him to cook 100 items on a menu. People make (good) quick decisions all of the time, but factor in motive on this one – there is a motivation in the music library business to increase quantity. That’s the point I was making.
@blind. I agree with you.
But…this is a many tiered business. It cannot be made up of just elite libraries with high end catalogs.
To carry through the food analogy, there are five star restaurants and then there’s fast food. They serve two different clientele. The low end is merely about volume. That’s just business. McDonald’s is about selling billions of burgers.
So, yes there are libraries that are very particular about who and what gets into their catalogs (and they pay for it). And then, there are the libraries that merely warehouse tracks. They are the musical equivalent of supermarkets. They are not going to listen to individual tracks, anymore than the president of Giant Supermarkets is going to taste every brand of soup it sells. They are merely a sales platform for commercially viable product. Someone on this forum once said that no matter how crappy your music is someone will buy it. At that level it is just a commodity.
Two very different worlds.
Edit: my personal feeling is that most composers need to think like corporations and create product for all levels of the market.
>”We listened and we love your music and we want to represent it”<
Is it possible that their critical listening comes later? For example, you do the paperwork and upload say 30 cues. They listen to your uploads and reject 15 of them? So this initial listening of just 10 seconds was only to get you to the next step?
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