[Alan]

Is the Cooking Channel part of Scripps?

[Alan]

PeteJ,
Thanks, I work hard on my sound since my chops are very limited at this point. My opinion is that your best chance of getting solo classical guitar music licensed quickly would be with public domain Christmas tunes. I suggest you write your own arrangements or be very certain the arrangements you record are also in the public domain.

I’m a trombone player (let the pizza delivery jokes commence) and did a few brass choir xmas tunes. They didn’t take long to make and have gotten some decent results. Several were even accepted and one placed through Crucial.
If you do submit to Crucial, email them that you submitted Xmas songs. I did that and they were nice enough to fast track the review process so I had a chance for the next xmas season.

[Alan]

I think it is a good idea PeteJ. I started classical guitar lessons a few years ago as a hobby and got addicted to the thing. I hope to do just what you plan, but I’m not good enough yet for anything but simple stuff. If you can play well and make high quality recordings (neither is easy with that instrument) you may get a few licenses.
I recorded one simple little etude about a year ago (Moderato by Giuliani) and it was licensed for a YouTube ad that made me $250. I laughed very hard that someone paid $500 for my mediocre performance. But heck, it paid for a few lesson, haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDEd9tVTfzo&index=4&list=PLA78v5O065_XhR8NCTt-MBjyOtWtVxZ3L

I would suggest submitting your best, well know PD stuff to the big exclusive libraries first. If you don’t get any takers that look into non-exclusive. Holiday music might be a good idea too. Also check out Crucial Music to see what classical guitar stuff they have accepted.
Good luck!

[Alan]

@MichaelL, Ha, actually it’s heavier than my tenor “pea-shooter” trombone, a good 4-5 lbs! Now the bass-bone is heavy, and gets heavier every year ;~)

After my bass harmonica honeymoon is over, I will likely spend a day recording each note and loading it into sampler. It will save a lot of time in the long run. I did that with an early 1900’s banjolin and that sample patch has done pretty well for me.

[Alan]

I think you should definitely resign from your PRO. On the outside chance that there is some future back end, would you mind terribly if I registered your titles with my account?
🙂
Sorry, couldn’t resist…

[Alan]

Back on topic:
Last week I was contacted by children’s book author via an RF site. They “loved my music” and were in the process of creating an interactive children’s iPad type app for the 1st time, can I edit music?
The author is successful (amazon. Barnes & Noble, etc) I REALLY want to break into this market so I agreed to do it for a very low price, although still much more than if they had just bought a couple of RF tracks. So far I have edited/sliced/diced/looped other composers tracks they bought. We agreed on a payment schedule and they paid in advance for step 1. I am confident I will get paid. My young adult child is doing the voice over/singing for the game, I will pay her a generous % of the $500 fee. So far it has been simple audio editing. I will throw in a track or 2 of mine if they want, it would actually be easier editing since I have all the stems.
The author is clueless about multimedia, so it was a rough start due to communication problems. They hired an elance.com person to put it all together.

Am I a fool for doing this mostly editing gig for $500?
My thoughts are:
-After it is done I hope to be this author’s “go to guy” for music
-Convince them that buying RF tracks for a game is like using stock photos for illustrations, They should hire me for a custom work for hire, ha
-Hopefully get connected with their publisher
-Breaking my kid into the Voice over business

All said and done, It will probably be 40 hours work.
Thoughts?

[Alan]

A little off topic but, for the record, the track is in several RF sites under the same title. The producer could have bought it for $50 and been done with it if he spent 5 min on google. He chose to honor his FMN call for music. I respect that and was happy/honored that he chose my cue for his movie and paid me with a slice of his pie (assuming it gets used, it’s not released yet). This time, it was about creators supporting creators. The movie does have a composer listed on Imdb, so this reply is really about an incidental track placement.
If I make anything from it, I’ll consider it Karma, ha

[Alan]

I had an indie film producer contact me about an FMN submission. Just a single track he wanted to license for a percentage of the film. I thought “what the heck” and did it because he has a good track record. I’m the proud owner of 0.25% of his most recent film, currently in post production. I can’t wait to see where this goes. At least I’ll get my name in the credits plus writer and publisher back end if there is any

[Alan]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

[Alan]

Wow Scott, that is really great and highly motivating for me. Thanks for sharing that

[Alan]

Do you also create edits and/or variations? If so, are those all counted separately or as one track in these numbers?

For me a track is a title. I will make from 3-10 alt mixes/stings/loops per title.

How many libraries are you currently in at the end of Year 5 (excl. and non-excl.)?

Thanks!

Some of my older tracks are in many (15-ish) non exclusive libraries.
If I finish a track today it will go to about 5 libraries. Some of those are RF, some mainly for TV use.

I just signed an exclusive agreement with an very successful and popular library that used to be non-exclusive. I plan to submit mainly co-written tracks to them. I’ll likely do some 30 sec or less reality TV type stuff for them too. Only things that don’t take too long.

How many libraries are you currently in at the end of Year 5 (excl. and non-excl.)?

Thanks!

[Alan]

Right click on a cell
Choose “hyperlink”
Choose existing file (or something like that)
Navigate to the audio file in your browser. Be sure to choose “all file types” because the default is office files only

If you have trouble hit F1 and search hyperlinks

[Alan]

I vote for a real uke and a mic. I have a Lanakai one, under $100 hanging on the wall. Very handy and it looks nice too 🙂

[Alan]

So sorry if I came across as heated keithl. That was not intended at all. I only wanted to explain to D.I. why the program wasn’t a good replacement for my current system. If/when my library gets to 1000 tracks, my excel spreadsheet will be very difficult to manage, so I really need a good database. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Cheers!

[Alan]

“Alan, how big is your library?”
Not very big yet, about 150 titles, 500-ish of you count alts/loops.
Putting it all into a database would take what, a week? Two?

My library Excel spreadsheet can tell me:
Title
duration
tempo
Date started
Date completed
Total Income generated
File names/location
PRO Registration data
Date submitted to each libraries with accept/reject date
# of placements by library
license income and PRO income by library
link to play file
link to open a tags/metadata word document
list of all placements and payouts per PRO statement
link to master title list (all titles link back to their track sheet) that shows total income, total number of placements, and number of placements per track by library “at a a glance”
link to master placement list which provides air date, network, episode, duration, track title (that links to track spreadsheet), placed by publisher, tunesat detection
I also made a cue sheet data sheet I reconcile with my ASCAP cue sheet counter. This is so I can quickly find new cue sheets when they are added.

I’ve developed/tweaked it for over 4 years to fit my needs/wants. It would take a good product for me to abandon it, though I gladly would if I could buy something as good or better.

[Author]

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