[Alan]

would you start considering going full time now?

I don’t really have a day job to quit. I have a military retirement pension and a good paying part time gig has a house sound engineer. I think 30-40 tracks a year is about all I can do and keep my sanity.

you also seem bummed out about your exclusive venture…

I think it was a mistake, but I’ve learned I really won’t know for 5 years. They all have a reversion clause, so the bright side is I’ll have a large batch of Non-Ex tracks to send out in 3 years. Most are reality TV types that probably won’t do well, but a couple have potential for long term income.

are you still making $$ now from your first 50 tracks 6-7 years ago?

Absolutely. The old non-exclusive tracks are the majority of my income. Those are the ones that also get the occasional 4 figure sync fee too. I should mention that 4 figures in PRO income from from a track reality TV is possible, it just takes a long time for me (5+ years). That was the reason I did all those exclusive tracks last year, for long term steady PRO income. My January ASCAP just hit the bank today. It is by far my best January payout. Maybe those exclusives will do something after all 😉
Cheers…

[Alan]

Happy New Year all!
Here is my 7 year update as requested by boinkeee2000

Total income – $26K
Breakdown:
PRO – $10K
RF Sales – $10.5K
Sync Fees – $5.5K
Track Count – about 280. I only did 28 tracks this year due to lot a couple of deaths in the family and other “life” stuff.

Thoughts. I should be pretty happy about my progress, it would look great as a graph, but I’m feeling a bit discouraged. I tested the exclusive waters this year and I think it was a mistake. There were a couple of doom-and-gloom threads about the state of the industry by some seasoned vets here on MLR that got into my head too.

I hope to get a fresh start this year and I’m going to focus on writing the highest quality stuff I can, regardless of how many tracks I do.

[Alan]

Art, where on Tunesat are these add-on services? I can’t find any internet option on the account upgrade page.

[Alan]

Wow, that’s a nice new feature.

[Alan]

(Little known factoid. I was the guy playing Kermit’s banjo in the original movie.)

That’s cool Art! You just moved up two rungs on the “Art is my hero” ladder 🙂

BTW let’s not steal Alan’s thunder. That’s a nice placement.

Definitely no thunder on this placement, probably no money either, ha.

BTW, I played my $100 craig’s list banjo on my track, haha

[Alan]

.in the meantime, im dreading the time consuming task of bouncing all my midi tracks to audio (sigh)

Precisely. Presumably at some point in the future Sonar will no longer function. How do I want to archive my tracks? Pre-FX or Post-FX audio tracks? Stems? If this is 6+ years down the road, do I even want to bother taking on that massive task just so I have the ability to edit or rework old tracks? I will have to think long and hard on that question.

[Alan]

This is devastating news for me. Arrrgh!

[Alan]

I use these a lot.
https://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products.php

[Alan]

I don’t have a set cutoff. When I finish a track I immediately upload it to my proven performers. On days where I don’t feel particularly motivated to write, I will go back through my recent tracks and submit them to the so-so performing libraries and/or the ones that have a tedious submission process.

[Alan]

Thanks Art,
The promo is for a CBS show, but is has not aired on CBS. I has aired on just about every cable channel though. Over 100 times in the past 48 hours.
It is plugging that the CBS show is moving to a new time slot starting tonight, so it will end shortly. I’m not overly excited about it, just curious.

[Alan]

I had a similar problem. I created a YouTube video with my track for audio. It was just a word doc that said:
“Song Title”
by Me
Copyright 2014
I own all right to this music, it should never trigger a YouTube copyright infringement claim

“Claimant Name” does not own any rights to this music.

I uploaded it and it was immediately blocked. I disputed it and never had trouble with it again. I also sent a link to the video to anyone who had trouble with it. It made for easy resolution.

[Alan]

I brought in a couple of friends as co-writers because they are excellent guitarists.
Before we did anything we agreed to do a 50/50 split on everything, including alt’s that didn’t include their guitar playing. We also submit each track exclusively. This was just to keep it simple.

They had to sign an agreement with the publishers. I did all the uploading/tagging etc through my account and listed them as 50% owner.

[Alan]

I do 90% of my edits from the stereo masters Chuck. I used to have the same trouble with nearly every track, but have learned to be mindful during the composing process to leave myself “wiggle room” for my edits. For example, I pretty much stopped using pick-up notes to the melody. It is almost always on beat one or after. I’m also careful not to have any decaying cymbals hanging over the start of a new phrase.

If I really want to break those editing rules for the sake of the composition, I will isolate those elements that may be problematic by putting them in a separate track, note lane, bus, etc. early on and make them easy to find. Then I mute them and bounce down a cutdown version that is only used for making those edits. Did that make sense?

BTW, I think I probably sell more edits that full tracks. So I take the time to make them sound as seamless an natural as possible.

[Alan]

I keep a spreadsheet that mirrors the series name and cue sheet count for each one. When I get about five or so new ones I will reconcile against my spreadsheet to see what is new. I also keep a sheet with all my Tunesat detections so I can compare and make sure cue sheets were filed. It’s a bit tedious but I have caught enough errors and had them fixed to make it worth the trouble

[Alan]

Congrats Abby! I hope the floodgates open for you. The only thing that might be even better is when your are watching a favorite show and you hear your music that you didn’t know was used. That happened to me with a PBS show. The money was nearly nothing, but the satisfaction was priceless.

[Author]

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