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so intros are more or less useless?
I didn’t say that. If an intro has direction and purpose they are of course useful.
also build up, should you start with main theme and then make a break and rebuild, so client can hear main thing straight away?
This is a good question. It depends on the cue.
If it is a cinematic action/dramatic cue with hybrid orchestra, etc, then it would be appropriate to build up to a main theme. I think clients looking for this sort of thing are more patient and willing to see where the music develops.
If you are doing EDM then building and breaking down is what that music is all about.
If you are doing a 30 sec or 60 sec cue you kind of want to get to the point pretty quickly. Same with corporate music.I take it Music submission listeners are tuning by out after the first second of music they don’t like?
Unless you are Brian Eno or Duane Allman you will be hard pressed to get someone to listen to more than 15 seconds of your track before making an initial assessment let alone 11 minutes.
You can easily skip or cut it?
Not when it is mixed into the music you can’t.
Let the client add their own appropriate sound effects.
Why limit the possible uses of your cue?Does this also apply to risers and transitional effects in cues?
No. Just actual sound effects mixed into the music, like birds, wind, surf, etc.
Dance of the Freeman
Starting with a wind sound will turn off 90% of the customers. They don’t need sound effects in their music. It really limits what your music can be used for.
The intro before you get to the dramatic meat of the composition is not needed.
You could start this track at 2:18 and let it end at 3:00 and it would be a perfect cue.
8:30 is far far too long for a cue, especially with so many changes in feel. Cut it up!Arrival on Arrakis
Start at 1:55 and end at 3:30. It would make a good drama/tension cue.
Lose the wind sound effects. Sound effects will lose 90% of your potential customers.Celestial Vagabond
Far too long (11minutes!!) to be considered a production music cue and the style of music not really suitable either.Boxed Up
Great track, nice guitar work. Intro too long.
Start this at 1:46 and end around 3:00 before high synth melody comes in.Overall
This is what I do when I approve music. I close my eyes and imagine the kind of video or scene that this music might fit into. What would your 11 minute cue be used for? can you describe the potential customer that would use your 11 minute cue? I would guess that you would struggle to name a situation where 11 minutes of old school progressive synth work would fit into a project (other than a Dune film).
Start thinking in bite size chunks as you have great ideas and are obviously a good musician and composer. Edit yourself.
I think working on your video game project will get you to think in smaller chunks.Good luck.
– MarkIf what the world wants is another 120 bpm song in C major with 8th note ostinato and vague melody, I can crank ’em out.
Oh god, please no!
If you want to get lost in the flood of other composers doing exactly the same thing then this would be a good plan.
I’ve had to request some composers to stop uploading these cookie cutter corporate music tracks as it is just to awful to review (for me) and subject our clients to.
There is however room to be creative within the dreaded I IV VI V and it is nice to hear composers that can still think creatively within certain parameters.
But please no more freakin’ ukulele and whistled melodies. Drgh!!Received wisdom is that the music library business is a “numbers game.”
Personally I think this is a dangerous piece of “wisdom” that some composers are putting out there. And it should not be accepted out of hand.
We have composers with 100 tracks in the library that make more than composers with 900 tracks. It is totally a matter of quality.
And I have seen a few composers go from being high quality to simply mediocre because they believe it is simply a numbers game. They go from uploading a few great tracks a month to uploading 50 tracks but of drones and stock pads and percussion sample sets all at real low quality production value. No thought or effort or creativity in the process whatsoever.
This is sad.Please don’t get caught up in all the things being said here. Write what you know, what feels good to you, what makes you proud to listen to and share with others.
You are an artist, not an accountant.In another PMA thread Paolo wrote…
The impression I’ve gotten (is that PMA is) focused on preventing the further erosion of music licensing fees by these libraries banding together and not under-cut each other.
Is this actually true?
This would be called ‘price fixing’ in any other industry.It is NOT about changing their business models.
It is NOT about PROs.
It is NOT about RF libraries.
It is NOT about exclusives vs. non-exclusive.Are you sure this is how you want to come across to all the potential members you are reaching out to? Seems a bit heavy handed.
Yeah, I was fortunate enough to read your post before it got deleted LA-writer. There was some great stuff in there and I’m confused as to why it was deemed unworthy.
IMHO your posts are always insightful, concise and intelligently written.
– Mark Lewis
Musicloops.comExactly. Providing a collection of music that the company owns the copyrights to does not make you a partner in the company. Having an agreement to earn 50% from the sales of the music they now own does not give you a stake in the sale of the company (unless of course it says that in your contract with them, I doubt it says that though).
Your hypothetical math is off as well as the value of the company is not based solely on the contracts they have with their composers. I think the fact that the company owns the copyrights to “your” music puts you in a fairly weak position here.If I sold my company the contracts I have with our composers would simply transfer to the new owner and the composers would keep earning their licensing fees as always.
It would be ridiculous to expect the proceeds of the sale of my company to be divided up into 30,000 pieces (the number of tracks in the library) and then distributed to over 200 composers.
That’s not how business works.The only potential issue might be with youtube contentID as the CID algorithm will trigger the underlying music whether there is a lead vocal, or lead instrument or no lead at all.
This might create an issue if your vocal versions actually do get picked up by a label or publisher and they then register the music with youtube contentID (as they should). In this scenario any instrumental version you have licensed for use on youtube will receive a copyright notice from the record label that owns/represents your vocal version.Just something to keep in mind.
Hi dcrhere, is there any involvement with youtube ContentID
Yes, in fact it appears that they have just dumped a whole load of composer’s music into youtube contentID without their knowledge or permission negatively impacting many other music libraries.
I guess that is what happens to music libraries that depend on a third party company for their ecommerce and distribution system instead of building their own. Loss of control over the intellectual property they represent.My suggestion would be to not use the word “beats” when describing your music tracks. “Music” would be a better word to use when promoting your production music catalog.