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Dogged – you’re welcome! Your mileage may vary with AS, but off the top of my head, they seem like a good place to start.
I would *NOT* rule out exclusive music libraries. Many of them are exclusive ONLY to film/TV pitches or only exclude working with other music libraries. It is very common to have music in an exclusive library and still be free to sell the same tunes on CD’s, iTunes, etc.
You would need to be very careful though, i.e hire a good entertainment lawyer to look through the exclusive contract. An exclusive contract essentially hands over ownership of the music. If the band is destined to become a huge hit, it might be very difficult (or expensive) to get the rights back to the songs.
It’s not a big deal to us instrumental composers, but to a band, with all those co-writers and other potential income sources and pitfalls, fighting over who owns the copyright and / or masters could get really messy.
It’s a tricky position to be in, to try and monetize tracks from an unknown band, but also keep the ‘perceived value’ of the music high should the band suddenly become huge.
I think your best bet would be to work with libraries that: actively promote their artists (who knows, maybe they’ll get discovered that way), aim for higher end licensing, and give you the option of pulling out your music at any point. Audiosocket comes to mind – they’ve been pretty good to me, but others on here bashed them a bit. Your success with them, just like with any library, depends on what their clients are looking for, and how much music you can give them.
Hey Sean, I checked out your tracks and although they don’t have the 3 act structure, they’d be a good fit for TV. Good luck with it! (great country rock tracks BTW)
Do you also provide alt mixes for those companies?
Some of the companies I’ve worked with ask for very deep stems, i.e. practically every instrument on its own audio track, so that a top notch mixer can give it a pro mix. As you can imagine, it’s hours of work (listening back to each stem, naming it using a specific naming system for that client or mixer). Others that don’t hire a mixer still ask for each section stemmed out (strings, brass, synths, drums etc) in case years down the road a change is requested by an editor. I also provide alt mixes to these clients, like no choir, no drums, etc.
And one more question if you don’t mind and its a little off topic, but what do you noticed the licence fee is after the split with the library you get most of the times?
There’s a huge range in trailer music licensing, anywhere from $2K for a very short amount of music in a TV spot to $30K+ for a full length license for all media. It also depends on the company – they all have their own rates (at least in the US – the UK does things differently).
Libraries that don’t pay their composers upfront typically give 40-60% (50% is most common) of the license fees.I thought the 3 acts was usually made up from several different cues and not just one unless custom composed?
You’ll find that most trailer music companies want a composer to give them a 3 act piece, in the hopes that it will get used in its entirety for a trailer. When that happens, they can charge their top rate.
But you’re right, usually there are several tracks used in a trailer.
While most trailer tracks are 1:40 – 2:30, I don’t think length is particularly important to getting licensed in trailers (libraries might insist on a minimum length though). Some of my most licensed tracks are less than 1:30. Anything over 2:30 is probably a waste – trailers don’t run longer than that.
What matters most is that you have a solid 3 act structure:
Act 1 the brooding beginning for when the audience knows nothing about what the movie is or what’s about.
Act 2 being the part where things start to ramp up and we learn what the conflict is, but the music is still usually underneath dialog.
Act 3 is the ‘balls to the wall’ fortissimo last 15-30 seconds that gives the trailer its climax, where the music is often out in front with no dialog on top.The hardest part to produce by far is the 3rd act – it requires coming up with thematic and production material that is strong enough carry from a small beginning to explode out in all its glory. It tests a composer’s skills in arranging, production and mixing to the extreme.
A unique and evocative opening 1st act and a well produced, exciting and original 2nd act might get licensed on their own, so those are still important. However, those are the ‘easy’ bits…very few composers can produce a solid kick-ass 3rd act and ending. Get that part right and you’ll be invaluable to trailer libraries and editors.
FWIW I’ve been doing trailer music for 7+ years, and I’ve still got miles to go, every day learning new ways to improve my 3rd act production and composition.
If you’re:
1) regularly delivering music to a library / libraries, and..
2) they get their catalog used on 1st tier cable and network shows, and…
3) your tracks are appropriate for those shows,
then you should definitely see a steady increase in royalties checks.
Spikes in the upward curve will happen when you get a nice chunk of music used on a network show, or you get a track used as a theme.+1 for what MichaelL said about “evergreen” tracks.
Damage is pretty big – loads of cool one hit samples, both processed and natural sounding (kits, toms, ‘damaged’ drums and impacts). There are a lot of somewhat similar sounding loops too, maybe that’s what they play in the demos. IMO overall it’s great value for money, just for the sheer usable content. Usually I’m lucky to find 5 usable patches in a sample library… I have at least 15 Damage tracks in the Logic session I currently have open!
I use Damage and 8Dio’s epic taiko ensemble a lot in my trailer music, FYI they’re pretty nasty on the processor for just drum samples. Not as bad as Hollywood Strings though!
Once you make over $100k a year, the general consensus is that the tax benefits of incorporating outweigh the fees and accounting costs.
We have one but that’s because we have a corporation. I think (maybe wrong about this) you need to at least be a registered partnership, LLC or corp. You really should ask a qualified accountant about this stuff.
Here’s a link from the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Do-You-Need-an-EIN%3FTV and radio advertisements – the same reason that :15 versions are sometimes requested
Does that mean 1000 completely unique tracks, or total number of tracks though duplicated across a number of different libraries?
I would think unique tracks but it could be different depending on your skill set and “luck of the draw”.
Another way of looking at that – from my own experience, it took 1000 – 1500 tracks to get good enough to be able to charge more for each track. My music is much more polished now than it was when I started out and as a result I make more with fewer tracks. I don’t have to churn them out like I used to. Spending a lot more time on each track has helped accelerate the increase in production quality.
It was definitely worthwhile churning out as much music as I could for the first 4 – 5 years after I went full time as a composer. If you do this, not all your music will be great but you’ll learn from your mistakes and as long as you’re constantly challenging yourself, you’ll discover the skills you need to spend more time developing.
pre-packaged album
where everything is ready to go – 10-15 varied tracks within a ‘theme’ for an album. Mixed, mastered (maybe not so important), stems and edits.