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I was actually contacted by them today. To me it sounds like a terrible idea, and one that is open to all kinds of potential problems.

Before striking out on my own as a composer I worked for a software company writing music for a mobile app. The moral of the story is that venture capital guys wanted to take the company in a horrible direction, they ultimately crushed us, and it ended with myself and a few others in a 3 year lawsuit… So the last person I would ever trust to respect my percentage of left over royalties is a “high net worth investor”.

I could definitely be wrong, but to me it sounds VERY predatory.

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SAME HERE! \m/\m/

Man oh man I was loosing faith in BMI until this quarter. Last quarter was dismal, and last year was all over the place for me…
Feeeeeeew!

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Logic X is a comparable alternative to Pro Tools for sure. It comes with an excellent, and comparable FX and instrument suite. Alchemy alone is phenomenal and for the price you just can’t beat it.

My other suggestion would be Studio One. I’m looking to pick up a copy later this year and potentially migrate; as after demoing it I can only say amazing things about it.

The workflow is better than any other DAW I’ve used bar none, and the bundled FX are perhaps the best native DAW FX I’ve heard yet. You can do some really complex stuff with it as well, yet they’ve managed to keep even the most complicated stuff easy to achieve. The toolset for scoring to picture and tempo mapping could be enhanced for sure, but I have a strong suspicion that this is something they plan on tackling in the very near future.

From a raw production perspective it is the most fluid DAW I’ve tried (and over the years I’ve tried virtually everything… Logic and Live being my home for the last 6 years…) Routing is simple, drag and drop anything anywhere, route midi wherever you want without any convoluted workarounds or too many steps. It also has VST3 support so you can have 64 channel VIs if you feel so inclined. It has a feature very similar to Logic’s smart controls (sans the fancy GUI.)

The clincher for me was a killer feature it has for making cutdowns called ‘scratch pads.’ It literally doesn’t get any easier to make alts and edits without having to touch your original project, all integrated within the same project window, without having to reload a thing. It’s like Logic X’s “alternatives”, but done right! Soon to be convert here!! :p

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Thanks Art. Just saw this email in my inbox as well.
I will definitely commenting on this today…

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I work in one session for shorter projects 15 minutes or less. Anything longer I work over multiple sessions of 10-15 minute segments, (always putting the location in the name of the session.) After I’ve finished all the cues I create an empty project and pull in all the stems and export it to video and watch for changes or transitions that might need some TLC…

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The music budget is small but there’s a decent buzz. The film seems to have garnered attention from a few significant places so despite the budget, I’m considering the bigger picture as a worthwhile tradeoff…

Agreed, retaining ownership is essential on small budget projects. I will push for a license in perpetuity in the terms and thanks for clarifying…

Since the budget is small I’m assuming I’ll have to handle to cue list. They’re still finalizing some of the production team so I’ll also ask if there will be a music editor, and if they will handle the cue sheet if so (and require final approval by myself to ensure all titles and times are correct.)

Thanks so much Mark, much appreciated!

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Things have slowed down dramatically despite a few faithful standbys that always do well for me ….Overall I would say the RF market is in decline. Too saturated imo.

I suspect a few well known “cheap” sites have managed to pull business away from the ones that historically did well on here. The reality seems to be that people specifically looking for RF MUSIC will always prefer to pay the lowest price possible, even if it means it’s bordering on mediocre. And with a few that are selling tracks for $10 or less, it’s not rocket science to guess where they’ll go.

I also suspect that the marketing tactics of sites that sell specifically non-PRO registered music, or feature those tracks; has cast its’ ‘voodoo’ on those of us who sell PRO registered music (even if under an RF license agreement …)

I find myself answering this question at least a few times a month – “If your music is registered with BMI do I have to pay royalties?”
The average youtuber does not understand backend and I suspect this lack of knowledge has been very shrewdly exploited by a few of these monolith vendors.

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And soundspot, I think digital will taking over at some point too. It wouldn’t surprise me if all of radio became a digital streaming platform with more accurate tracking to count listeners.

Great example here regarding TV…
http://vator.tv/news/2014-08-08-the-future-of-cbs-digital-only-programming

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Yeah certainly no disrespect to the trichordist, ultimately his concerns are legit and he’s fighting the powers that be with a fervor I can only ultimately commend…. I just think he comes across a bit alarmist at times and as far as I know has neglected to mention how the labels his songs are signed to factor in to his digital spin revenue… I’m sure if the figures reflected the labels cut, and any other percentages that may be coming off the top, we’d see a different figure than the one he’s famous for … Either way I commend his tenacity…

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Yeah, I can’t say I believe the “Trichordist” has his head screwed on very well, most of the time… I appreciate his passion for sure, but I also believe he’s taken it to an extreme and is putting out a fairly slanted (or not completely “informed”) view.

That being said, do we need a better model for digital performances? Absolutely. Just about everything will be delivered over the internet within 5 to 10 years and, although broadcast TV may not go away completely, the reality is digital will dominate how most people consume TV in the very near future. Or sure as hell looks that way…

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Submitted comments yesterday afternoon. Agreed, everyone on here should consider weighing in. It’s hard to say what impact, if any the comments will have… but it can’t hurt fighting the good fight for the future of our livelihood.

Cheers all.

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Genius!

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I actually have had a few large placements with [removed by moderator]. They resulted in some decent money – both the fees and some decent back end.
(One placement was for $2500 sync plus royalties … just under $1000 on the sync alone after they take their exorbitant cut…)

With all the bad PR about [removed by moderator] I was really close to writing them off, but as of the last year [removed by moderator] had come through fairly well more than once. Mixed feelings for sure, but I decided I’d go one more round with them and submit a few new cues and see…

I’ve always only received money from them once a year, late July/early August. It appears they pay annually… Can anyone else confirm the same?

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As p-9 said its just someone filing a sloppy cue sheet. I’ve seen it a few times in my statements as well, “show x cues”, “show y sports cues” etc… And I’ve also had placements where the music editor cut from my cue to another cue and back to mine and edited it to sound like one piece of music. Might be what happened… Either way it never hurts to try and figure it out, especially if a library were doing something potentially questionable.

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we’re here to talk, make mistakes and learn

Well I can guarantee you one way to make a huge mistake quickly as a library composer with music in RF sites, is to enter into the contentID program and monetize your music.

Libraries that don’t tangle with it do it for very simple reasons, they don’t like receiving emails from upset clients asking why ads are being placed over their videos and/or why they cannot monetize their videos or channels. That does not look good for the library or the composer.

I actually had someone upload a track of mine to youtube recently and claim to own the copyright. I don’t know if it was purchased, ripped from Soundcloud or what, but it has caused a huge headache for the library and hasn’t done anything but devalue my reputation.

At the request of the library I uploaded a video to be sure it was triggering the system and indeed it was. I uploaded an instrumental as well as the original to add some weight to my claim, as well as the ISWC, Work ID, registration date and everything I could think of to fight this claim. 3 weeks with no reply to my dispute yet. The client has still not been able to monetize their video and that looks bad for the library (and myself.)

Youtube contentID is an all around disaster as it currently stands in my opinion. I can only see bigger and bigger problems arising from it in the future.

I’m not saying this to be insulting to whoever posted under “anonymous”, but I’m fairly sure you will come to find it being the source of more headaches than whatever small amount of money you might earn, especially if you are selling with RF libraries that don’t allow it.

I personally think it’s doing a lot to drive the monetary value of our music down in the long haul as well, but that’s a conversation for another thread…

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