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[From Moderator: This topic started as a question about music libraries that might pay, upfront, for a cue. It quickly devolved into a debate about how many cues one could/should write per day. Topic was closed because it is a question with no definitive answer.]
I’m starting to work with more libraries that are in the PMA or represented by those in the PMA… I’ve worked with a few so far. With one of the libraries, I got $250 upfront for the first cue I signed. They said that they don’t pay upfront anymore, but signed a few more cues with them recently anyways.
I’ve also started an album for a WPM library, and they don’t pay upfront…
It seems like upfront fees are virtually non-existent except for a really select few of the libraries. Is that true? If so, why?
Others on here are more knowledgeable than I am on this, but I think that unless you are a pretty big hitter, the days of upfront fees are gone. Technology has created an over-supplied, saturated market.
Absolutely 100% on point. Upfront fees are gone, in most cases. In other instances, the fees are so low that you can easily make as much in 6 months, or less, from RF libraries, and more from there on out. So, why bother?
As a result of technology, we are in fact a dime-a-dozen lot. With sample libraries, like East West, offering cheap subscriptions, even crappy composers can “sound” great.
Pop genres, like hip hop, trap, EDM are over-represented and, in some cases, do not sell that well. For example, EDM seems to outsell hip hop in RF libraries.
This business has changed radically. But, for perhaps the top 1% or 2% there is NO holy grail.
For most, the paradigm has shifted from the potential to make a lot of money from relatively few tracks to the necessity of making a little money from an enormous number of tracks.
I don’t necessarily believe EW libraries or any other quality software is necessarily going to make a crappy composer sound great. Just make it sound like crappy music done with good software :). Even if so, consumers would soon become acclimated to the difference.
For Trackmaster, and I know this is true of some composers, if you are putting out 1-2 world class quality tracks a day, would you mind posting some links. Because it’s all I can do to put in 16 hours or more a week to put out what I would consider “decent for me” tracks and even then I don’t always believe I hit that mark.
Sorry , to get back on topic, as a daily reader of these forums for going on three years now, the disappearing upfront fees theme has unfortunately been a constant here.
Yes they work. You can also pm my soundcloud page if you prefer. Thanks !
I think with 2,000 tracks circulating in bigger, exclusive libraries, you can definitely make a decent living.
2,000 was roughly the number of tracks that I had in mind, and I was thinking of RF libraries.
For many people, that is an enormous amount of tracks. If they have a day job and only produce one or two tracks per week, it could take a lifetime.
Not sure “bigger” PMA exclusives,like Megatrax, that generally brief and curate tracks, would absorb 2,000 unsolicited tracks. They usually conduct research and are very specific and regarding what they release, when and why.
If you mean no money up front non-WFH libraries, like JP, that’s a different story.
Reality TV composers still pay upfront, but they’ll take some of the writers share.
You can still find libraries that pay upfront, but the libraries that pay well ($800+ per track) have a very high standard of production, and it gets higher every year. They’ll also take all the licensing.
When I started out, I was pumping out 1 – 5 tracks a day. I ended up having 3000 tracks out in the world. Turns out though, today I make more from a track I spend a couple of weeks producing than I do from dozens of ‘assembly line’ tracks. With an ever increasingly crowded market, quality stands out and allows libraries to charge large license fees.
Hey there, Like many others the 1-2 tracks a day kind of makes me wonder. I also am curious to hear some of your music! (Don’t hesitate to PM me too !)
You mentioned you make 25-30 tracks per song… Your initial song must be incredibly rich to squeeze out 25-30 unrelated tracks. Maybe you are talking about edits… I sometimes manage to squeeze out two distinct pieces from 1 song but never more.
Each separate piece come then with their bunch of edits. So in the end, an initial composition sessions can lead to anywhere between 5 and 20 Edits (D&B, 60s, 30s, loops etc.). Is that what you are talking about?
It has been 2 years I produce music as a composer, and now I have 60 tracks out there, and 15 more ready to submit (So 75 in total). In terms of edits, I must be approaching 700-800, but I can’t sell / consider these as separate tracks.
I’ve never heard anyone spending days on doing 1 hip hop, ambient or electronic track for a production music library. That would be stupid…
Well a completed track (composed, mixed, mastered, tagged) and its edits takes me about 20-25 hours of work…
Trackmaster,
I do not question the quality of your music or the passion you put into it. I’m sure you make great stuff and get joy out of it. I was just talking about me. I would never be able – or willing – to do 1 or 2 tracks per day, no matter the genre. I think I would get bored, or stressed out – or both – pretty quickly. It’s just my approach to music making (even if it’s production music), to what music means to me, to what writing music means to me, to what I get from this experience. It’s just me.I just want to be clear: I wasn’t criticizing you or the McDonald-like approach to music making. It is McDonaldization, though. One track per day is super fast, compared to what music making used to be (in the past, but not too long ago). It is fast food. Quick, easy, cheap. Nothing wrong with that. I LOVE a good burger. I just don’t mistake cooking a burger with creating a gourmet meal. Some may prefer the former, some the latter. Sometimes you want one, sometimes the other. But they are different things. Very, very different. Besides, I think I can do it too. In fact, I did. As an experiment, one day I decided to put together a track from scratch in 4 hours, not a minute more. As a sort of “challenge” to myself. So I did. It came out nice, actually. I used a bunch of pre-made loops and samples of course. I even made a few bucks out of it. Did I enjoy it? Not really. More like eating a burger. Putting together pre-made parts and ingredients. Once in a while, it’s ok. It may serve a purpose. But in the long term, it will kill me, just like burgers. It will kill my inspiration, my love for music, the joy I get out of it. I need vegetables and vitamins too … 🙂
Again, it’s just me.If, going forward, that will become the only way to make a living making music, well, I won’t be part of the game. I’ll find something else to do. Maybe I’ll work at McDonald 🙂
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