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I would suggest checking out Audiosocket. I thought your tracks were really good. One piece of advice – try making them a little easier for editors to use. You might want to try adding in breaks (between sections). Also, if the track has a very long intro, you might want to keep it an ambient track. If you have drums and bass that come in heavy after a while, then consider shortening your intro. Your tracks might get skipped over if the person auditioning them doesn’t wait around for the rock groove to kick in.
Lastly, it’s always good to have a definitive, resounding ending. Editors will edit back from this, so it’s arguably the most important part of any library track.
I haven’t worked with Jingle Punks, but I’ve had a lot of experience with local TV advertising. There can be some royalties, but you have to be very proactive about it. I’m with ASCAP, here’s a page devoted to how to chase your advertising royalties with them:
http://www.ascap.com/members/payment/commercialPromoGuide.aspx
I would bet Jingle Punks received a license fee for the usage, as the royalty rates are very low on local TV (if you’re lucky to receive anything) – not worth a gratis license.
Ozone
Mick Jagger is also making a lot of money fairly easily these days. But most of us doesn`t gig with the rolling stones or write for an exclusive that will pay this kind of $.
It’s quite possible for a composer to make that much money a year from writing library music, but it doesn’t necessarily come from big upfront fees. If a composer is writing quality music in well used genres, and is working with well connected libraries, after a while (say five to ten years) they could be making six figures from performance royalties alone.
Aside from the larger upfront fees you can get from working with a big exclusive ‘buy out’ library, the vast distribution networks that they have in place make for huge potential in royalties income.
On the other side, I’ve found there’s even more opportunity (and risk) in writing for libraries that don’t pay upfront but share the licensing income. This is mostly because I’ve been moving into the competitive trailer music business over the past several years. Writing music in this no-money-upfront business model is a bit of a gamble, some tracks might not make you anything. Others might buy you a house : )
Very epic indeed!
A lot of my library clients prefer one word track names. Most of the trailer music tracks I’ve done are either the names of Greek / Roman Gods or a descriptor for fighting/strength/glory etc.
A long name makes it hard for extra info to be placed in the file name, like:
LIB23_Track Name_NO MELODY.aiff
Also, they might spell a complicated track name incorrectly on a cue sheet, potentially meaning you lose out on royalties.
Alan – you get paid more for US network airtime than Canadian airtime (if I understood your question)
Wow, would love to see that!
I don’t have a set schedule, I just try to write whenever I can, and take advantage of the times the muse is really flowing. Sometimes I’ll push through a dry spell to stumble upon a new idea that spawns an entire track.
I’ve found a great way to work is to not stop for the day until I have at least a germ of an idea, a theme or simply a rhythm, that will give me a great head start the next time I power up the studio.
I’m not as organized as Jay, but I like to take a break from a track once I’ve established the basic musical ideas and structure. The new perspective I get from taking a few hours away from the studio is priceless.
I try not to have more than one track on the go, basically following the rule I got taught years ago: ‘finish what you start’. Another couple of useful tidbits I’ve picked up along the way: ‘write when you don’t have to’, and ‘write something every day’.
I would think it’s a little out of date – no mention of Two Steps From Hell, who have tons of tracks in trailers these days.
The way ‘exclusive’ contracts look to me – which are often called ‘work for hire’ agreements, is that the ownership of the music is signed over. Changing just the arrangement, or merely re-recording the music wouldn’t normally be considered a separate piece that you then own, unless… the deal is merely for the ‘masters’ of the music. I’ve signed deals before for films where they owned the recordings as made for the film (the master recordings), but I was free to re-record the music and I would then own those recordings, and the copyright 100%.
I find the end of summer is always the quietest time of the year for where my music is. That said, I’ve had a nice surge over the past couple of weeks on a few sites, which I think is due to the fact that I’ve been adding new (better) tracks.
TV still runs 24/7 in the summer, so hopefully you’re going to get a nice PRO check next quarter : )
One difference I’ve noticed is that BMI doesn’t seem to do ‘surveys’ as much as ASCAP. From what I’ve observed, BMI pays for just about every minute of music on 2nd tier cable, while ASCAP only pays out on the music that shows up on their surveys (you get more if you show up, but zilch if your music doesn’t air during the survey). For top cable shows and network background instrumental tracks, the two PROs pretty much even out.
Hi Doug – would you say Source Audio is better suited to libraries that do needle drop licensing? I’m wondering about SEO for your clients as well, it would seem SEO is dependent on your site quite a bit. Wouldn’t all your clients be essentially locked into the same level of presence on Google, for keywords? Sorry – I’m not sure how it all works!
First things first, make sure you keep ownership of the music, unless they’re paying you well. They might need to be reassured that they can use the music without any restrictions, sell it within the film etc, through a ‘license in perpetuity’. The indie clients I’ve worked with have usually been fine with this type of arrangement.
This way you can recoup the loss (considering how much time it takes to score a film – it probably will be a loss in terms of preventing you from doing other paying work) by putting all the cues in NON-exclusive libraries. You just have to make sure they’re always non-exclusive libraries, and that there’s no adrev shenanigans involved.
Back to your question about deferred deals – by all means, ask for as much as you can, but there are a lot of ways film distributors can hide money through a stack of expenses, just look to The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson had to sue for his back end money). Also, independent production companies often fold soon after the film is released… that’s not to say that they’re all unscrupulous, but a lot of indie filmmakers form companies that only exist solely for the purpose of running a film, and naturally the company is dissolved after the film is done.