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I agree with LA Writer, but I also think one needs to ask his or herself, “Can I write/record/mix music that is as good, if not better than what’s out there in libraries?” If the answer is no, then you need to do what you want to do, for fun, or for a iittle extra dough. I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow” again, and it’s a great read for the business minded. He basically says, if you are not doing your job better than your competition ( or not doing it in a remarkable way), your are already sunk. In the modern business climate especially, there is no time for “average”. And these days it’s even harder with all the thousands of composers you’re competing with. Don’t want to poo poo on anyone’s dreams, but sometimes we all need a dose of reality. The days of slamming out cookie cutter cues and making a living are over. My theory is, if I’m not making money, I better be enjoying what I’m doing.
I bought a Warm Audio 412. 4 Channels of pre right under your budget. I do mainly acoustic stuff, and the difference from my stock Apogee Duet pres is considerable. More 3D, more analog. I’m also keeping an eye on their Neve 1073 channel strips. You could get 2 channels of pre and eq for your budget. Best of luck!
Highly recommend the Warm Audio mic pres. I just got the WA-412 (4 channels) and feed 2 channels of it into my Apogee Duet. Huge difference, VS the duet pres. Night and day, everything is more 3D. You can buy 2 freestanding Wa-12’s in your budget. Will make even cheap mics, you don’t like much, sound much nicer!
Sure, upload them. I have all of my exclusive stuff up for Tunesat detection. It’s not like if you are detecting it in one account, and it won’t come up in another. It’s your music, you still own the writers share. I see nothing wrong with it.
It’s just Amazon asking for permission to sell your songs on their version of iTunes. No money has been collected, you haven’t sold anything.
You get around $.01 for roughly every 250 plays as a writer. As long as you are the sole writer and publisher. CD Baby should have nothing to do with it, BMI collects the money from Spotify that I’ve seen. Granted my Spotify money was from songs I wrote, but didn’t perform.
I’m at around 400 cues and been writing TV stuff for 6 years. I really figured at this point the income would be much more significant. I don’t put in 40 hours a week at composing, but I have invested a good portion of my time. From what info I gathered early on, at around 500 cues, you could make a living, and that’s definitely not the case. I think like Art said the slices of the pie are dwindling. I make less than a quarter of my living from composing. I’m sure if I put in 40 hours and hustled I could make a living, but it’s too much of an uphill climb for me at this stage. I got into composing as an outlet for my writing, and to make some passive income, and it has done both for me. The hardest part for me right now is finding libraries for my cues. Don’t want to do exclusives without upfronts, and it’s hard to find decent non-ex libs. Hate to be a doomsday guy, but I think the glory days of composing (like most of the music business) are behind us, and it will be interesting to see what the future holds.
Discovery already has their own music library, might be another nail in the coffin. Time will tell.
Best thing for me is to make a deadline. Give yourself an hour ( or whatever time limit works) to finish a track, and set a timer. You will use whatever time you have, be it, 2 hours, or 16! Treat it as a challenge. It forces you to make hard and fast decisions on everything, instrumentation, mixes, etc. Even if you don’t beat the timer, it definitely makes you get to work!
You don’t need the session files to do timed 15,30, 60 sec edits. I do my edits from the main stereo mix anyway. If you wanted to do stems, then yes, you’d need Protools, but I’d check to make sure the latest version of pro-tools can open them. Doubtful all your plug ins and etc would still work the same as when you mixed them. I’d say do the timed edits, and let sleeping dogs lie. These days it’s a good idea to print individual stems to future proof your cues.
Well, that sucks! Mine was used under a segment about pouring the perfect pint of Guiness. Should have really been a commercial payment! hehe! Just another way the composers get the short end of the stick. Thanks for the info Art!
Hi Art,
Wondering if you ever go paid for this, or was it considered ephemeral use? I had a cue for 2:18 last year (2016) on the same parade and haven’t seen anything yet. Thanks!Sounds great. Congrats!
With a little research they CAN discover you work with RF libs, I think the important thing is, that if they google your real name, that the first hit isn’t an RF library. The ones I have worked with, never asked or cared. I just try to keep both sides as separate as possible.
I took “High End” library to mean those libraries that pay a handsome upfront fee. Those libraries are exclusive and will not be interested in your NE cues. Yes, you should always keep ownership of your writers portion. These libraries are in business to make money too, and will not be paying their normal $10,000 fee for 15 of your favorite NE RF cues, they want EX. That being said, I would use a pseudonym even with no upfront NE or EX “mid tier” libraries.