[Carles]

Thanks abellboy and Steven.

Re. trailer music, I’m working with Gothic Storm, but I’m not good on the sound design part of it, so in order to get into a higher level I need to co-write with someone to add the modern elements.
I mean, I can add some risers, whooshes, etc. but I’m not aware if these may sound dated or not (and in the trailer industry the sounds that worker a couple of year ago may sound very outdated) so better to let that to the “sound design head” guys 😉 I have not a good sense for that.

Nothing against co-writing, but I’d like preferably to find the way to write profitable music by my own, so I write mostly drama and fantasy music, which is getting placed, but payments are pretty low, so I’m wondering if other styles may work better (always within the orchestral restriction).

Steven, in there you can find really different production styles and qualities. Hard to figure out which of these tracks are selling better.
In big catalogues like Universal you can find a huge amount of orchestral music but equally the fact that all that music is in there doesn’t mean that all of it getting placed.
I think the best way to know what could get placed and what not comes from personal testimonials (and even like this, same genre and style can work well for a given guy with a given library while not working at all with many other…).
This biz is indeed complicated and even randomness or good luck have a role play in this game, but at least the personal experiences from other guys in the same boat may help a lot.
However, find interesting that you’ve pointed to a RF library as I have no experience with those.
RF sites are working great for some people while other tell horror stories about (I’m working with exclusives only so far) and vice-versa, for other guys, exclusives not placing their music it’s been their horror story… (I’m getting placed, but I need higher payments).

There are many different markets and it’s hard to know where to drop your music.
For instance, I have 40 classical renditions in AudioSparx.
Only 3 of them got placed ever, but… from those 3, two only got sold once, while one of them is making a few hundred a few times a year. Is not unusual to make more with a single sale of that classical rendition than a whole back-end PRS quarter (not that the rendition is paid so high, but back-end being too low). However having more classical renditions do not increases sales (why that specific rendition is selling well? who knows).
Crazy business! While most people do recommend to write “big sounding” orchestral music (I can easily produce that big orchestra+choir sound) so far my best selling track is a kind of “magical” waltz about witches :/
Honestly, at some point I have no clue what type of music should I write and where to offer it.

[Carles]

Applicants to the content ID system must have exclusive rights to the material they submit. So no, they shouldn’t be asking that in order to register your material themselves, because they have no right to register your material themselves.

As you said, there are cases where non exclusive libraries just go ahead and do so anyway. But it appears google is making this harder, I see this on their support page, and don’t recall it being there before:
“Applicants must be able to provide evidence of the copyrighted content for which they control exclusive rights.”

Thanks Michael. Good to know.
Let’s hope that time will sit everything on place. Certainly the current lack of better regulation is bringing quite a few headaches to clients and composers. Not a sustainable situation, and the worst is that in mostly cases the income for the composers is more than laughable.

[Carles]

Thanks Michael and PerBoysen, that’s absolutely true, although I read otherwise in more than one source, Content ID at CD-Baby is certainly not compulsory but just an option.
No problem then (I mean by my side) I can reassure that I did my best to avoid any issues between libraries.

[Carles]

Thanks Art and Michael.

That seemed to me by reading Michael posts, and so glad to know that there is a lawyer amongst us, but unfortunately I cannot invest any money at the moment (did spent already way too much on virtual instruments crossing the line a while back so currently I only can invest work/time).

But indeed I keep an eye on Michael for the future.

If some libraries do that (is not the first time I read about) then it’s beyond our control anyway as contracts are never specific regarding exploitation/usage.
Is then when MLR comes so useful as people can warn/advice other according their own good/bad experiences.

I don’t think I’ll go with many libraries as I’m excluding RF ones so there are no many NE non-RF left, and some are in the graveyard. I think
3 or 4 will be all what I get as from those few not every one will be interested.
I’m possibly more hesitant about aggregators actually. With CD-Baby seems that I cannot opt out, but not sure if the other aggregators could also have deals leading to Content ID too or these are safe (other than CD-Baby).

I don’t know if should I go the Bandcamp way (which I’m told that’s simply a storefront) and forget about aggregators. Anyway I do not expect make any money releasing as music for regular listening, just a complement more on the personal side.

[Carles]

@Michael, Thanks for pointing to my work 🙂

@bplogic, Consider though, that my public domain tracks were not produced with any profitability in mind, but those were exercises to learn orchestration (by forcing myself to read the scores and find what’s in there), learn how important expression is (CC controllers fine editing/articulations), and/or for testing and balancing templates.
Some of those mockups took more than a month of work!
Once I’ve realized that gathered quite a few tracks, is when I thought why not try to make some profit from it. (and in fact my only placement so far comes from one of these :D)
If you are in similar case, working on classical renditions for educational purposes and as a secondary thing profitability then it would be fine. Otherwise I think is not deserved the time that producing a well refined rendition can take. And producing low quality renditions would be also a waste I think, as it’s too plenty of these. Consider also that classical is not a good seller genre at all.
An original piece which takes a fraction the time to produce would be much more profitable, or as Art and Michael says, do some sort of arrangement (also quicker to produce) to unusual instrumentation (children/humouresque, rock, electronic, etc.).
just my 2 cents.

[Carles]

Art, not intended to initiate a discussion about any library but just to figure out who are you guys talking about when using those abbreviations because I’m not familiar with them.

Sorry, I could not suspect that the forum “music-library-questions” is more appropriate for my question as it looks to me like a specific libraries forum rather than a general one (I’m quite new here and if you have a look in there now you’ll find that mostly posts are fully specific, so that’s misleading), thus didn’t find it wrong by asking here as it’s looking more general to me. Apologies.

@Mark: Thanks, that’s very helpful.

[Carles]

I guess if you are starting on this and you can get into a library with top reputation would be a good reason.

It’s a different business, but I know lots of people that would be willing to work for free in the company I’m working on (Weta Digital) or even pay for it as far as they can get that in their CV.

Not in the CG industry because I’m many years on this, but regarding music, even having no share at all (for one or just a few tracks I mean) I’d be willing myself to “sacrifice” a few tracks to acquire a nice strategic position. After that you can tell that you’re in this or that library and also gather some nice credits (my music was used on this or that “well known brand” campaign) even with zero income as it could open other interesting doors. It could pay off in the future.

Nothing comes to my mind other than this specific scenario though.

[Carles]

Pixelee, not sure if is that as it seems to refer to a particular library rather than the internet slang word itself.

Mark (Petrie) in the thread “PRODUCTION vs RF Libraries” wrote:
“…much higher than sites like AS or even ML, and it’s no secret…”

In the same thread (BTW I should ask there rather than here, but that’s me… always in the wrong place :D) also “CM” and “SAS” by the context sound like specific libraries.

[Carles]

Thanks Danny, that makes sense.
I’m quite new to the business so still not very used to these.

In other thread (in just one thread) you can find these
RF (royalty free)
NE (non exclusive)

At some point feels like we need a glossary 🙂

[Carles]

And a dumb question here, what a PMA library stands for?

[Carles]

The problem right now is that there are so many desperate composers that are so eager to make any income that they make desperate deals with RF companies.

Not only desperate because wanting an income in reasonable time but also no many options at all if the decent exclusives do not listen to your music, ever.
The few exclusives I did (tried to) submit so far (admittedly quite high targets) didn’t listen to my music at all.
How I know? easy, the link I sent is private and has a play counter which has precisely 0 plays, so they hardly will ever known if my music is good enough for their library or not if submissions are systematically ignored.
On the other hand I have an album in a small exclusive and feels like I never will make any money with them, nor reputation.

Even if gaining some reputation, reputation won’t pay the bills, that’s granted.
Look I know well what reputation is because I work (as CG artist) in one of the best VFX studios in Earth, Weta Digital, so yeah I did work on The Hobbit trilogy, Men of Steel, The Planet of the Apes, Prometeus, Iron Man III, etc.
Guess what? I did make more in the past when I had less reputation in small studios but within a Supervising position than in a top studios as simple senior artist.

But within this business, in my short experience as composer, nowadays we are not talking about making more or making less, but about making something or making nothing at all, because with small exclusives most likely your tracks will be gathering dust and the big ones do not listen to submissions…
Indeed I think I go to choose the NE and RF path too as I’d like to make a living out of music some day and with these (unlike exclusive ones) at least you have a chance, with reduced income but at least a chance.

[Carles]

Thanks Mark.
Indeed this business it’s a bit tricky because its own nature and to make everything more complicated every library policy can drastically differ from other, and opinions from composers may differ a lot too.

Additionally, gender can make a huge difference too but people do not mention what gender/s one is mostly proficient on when telling “this library works great for me”. Some people can recommend this or that library but if they are not strong in your gender it might works really bad for you.
As a quick example let’s say that you can publish non-trailer music with a well known trailer house. You still can make no money no matter the reputation of the library because nobody is using tracks from them other than trailer ones…

I always heard that RF and non-exclusives are not a good deal but just a last instance, that one should target only exclusives with some reputation, but on the other hand I find that signing with an exclusive (often in perpetuity) might be a bad deal unless it is a top library because if they are small and they do not sell much then you might have literally trashed your work, so you’ve got no reputation anyway and either no money.

So, for short/mid term profit expectations seems that non-exclusives might work better but it also seems that working with NE and specially RF can close the doors to decent exclusives as it seems that the big guys are not keen to work with composers who went that way…

At some point, one don’t know what to do, not even from where to start :S

[Carles]

I’m quite new on this so please fix me if I’m wrong, but it seems that again semantics can be an issue here.
I think you should ask them back to clarify what exactly they meant.

Sometimes the deal is expressed as 100/100 and sometimes 50/50 but also you need to know what type or fee or royalties are being discussed as there are essentially two types of share.

If talking about how the -sync- fee is shared then I find that 100% should be the total, so they can get 50/50 or 60/40 or 100/0 or whatever (usually you can find that any upfront fee might exists in exchange of a lower percentage for your sync fee or even a full buyout meaning 0% for you).
When talking about back end royalties (-performance- royalties) then is not unusual to see 100/100 rather than 50/50 meaning they take 100% publishing share and you 100% writing share.

So the point is to find out what’s the deal regarding sync fees and what’s the deal regarding performance royalties.

Carles

[Carles]

Too bad 🙁

[Carles]

Again Thanks Mark.

Yes, I know about Thomas Bergersen but firstly this guy is extremely talented and second he’s got the LA/Contacts part of the formula, while I wish I could have half his talent and no chance for networking 🙁
Also concerning about TB is that his later work is not reflecting what I have in mind when thinking about his work (I met his work through EWQL demos, pieces from his early albums if my assumption is correct) and I have to confess that when he shared one of his latest works in certain forum I couldn’t stand listening that for more than 45 seconds, not because of a lack of quality of course but because such saturated mass of sound with no sense of dynamic at all.
Honestly based on his early music I’ve found at that moment that he cannot have such a bad taste as per forgetting that expression is essential for any creator, so why on earth he wrote something like that.
I guess that even such a talented guy has to work dictated by the market requests.
I really hope that his writing “evolution” has more to do with a lucrative interest than a need to pay basic bills because it would mean that his more “classical” music still has a place in the market as per making a basic salary, which would suffice in my case as I´m not after popularity or reputation (I already got some of that as CG artist and it doesn’t makes me happy) but just to make a humble living by doing what I really love, writing music.

[Author]

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