1,729 thoughts on “General Questions”

  1. Thought it a good time of year to wish everyone good luck with the coming 365 days of music production and to ask what peoples goals are for this year ?
    I think its fairly important to set some goals with timelines for them as you can fall into doing work and it staying on a hard drive for longer than it should.

    My primary 2012 goal is to get on more exclusives. Last year I spent a lot of time doing non exclusives and I learnt a lot about speed of writing / making music that is not to fancy – too clever for its own good / what earns money for the best people in royalty free sites.

    I began doing exclusive and the few tracks I have on those sites have been paying regularly via PRS. If I had the same amount of royalty free tracks I did last year on exclusive sites then I would be doing quite well financially. But the standard they expect is 10 times higher than I did as RF.

    So the challenge for me this year is to work some fast speed into my exclusive stuff – to get a good sound – to def reference my stuff constantly against their catologues and chart stuff and to most importantly not get in hole of saying my stuff is not good enough and also v.importantly not get bored or stuck and to be thankful I am not working in a call center and doing the only thing I love and am vaguely any good at.

    Oh and also expand my RF tracks but for this year try to get it to tick over itself whilst I concentrate on making exclusives.

    Like to hear anyone elses plans for this year.. ?

    • My goal for 2012 is what your goal was for 2011 which you stated well,”…spent a lot of time doing non exclusives and I learned a lot about speed of writing / making music that is not to fancy – too clever for its own good / what earns money for the best people in royalty free sites.”
      Good luck! I narrowed down the time on my pieces from a week and a half to 1 or 2 days but not as consistently as I want. I want to average at least 2 to 3 cues a work week and spend the weekend doing metadata, submissions and non music stuff. Kinda there but not quite.
      Good luck and happy new year!

    • Adam,
      I’ve already set my goals for 2012 and I’m happy to share.

      1. Increase my tiny library to 100 cues. My goal for 2011 was 50 cues. I made it to 47 with 3 started, but I’m a freelance sound guy and I had a lot of gigs in December. Those actually pay and Santa has to pay the elves 😉

      2. Thou shalt not rush thy cues! I must make my cues better. I MUST NOT submit a new cue until it sits unheard on my hard drive for 7 days. I hate when I hear issues in a mix a week after I submitted it.

      3. Record more real instruments in my cues. Santa brought me a nice Cascade ribbon mic for recording my horn. I also need to practice guitar more so I don’t need 50 takes to record each lick LOL
      Happy New Year all!

    • Same 100tracks per year) in my next year plan!
      (It is ~3,5days for 1 track = quite possible when write full time:))

      Sad but true – exclusives are hungry for the quality tracks – I am always stay with my outgenre stuff (~40tracks already).
      Thought if I had all the tracks I produced (~80 for the last 1,5year) – it might be MUCH better for my wallet.

      So, eternal dilemma – “NOW and LESS” or “MUCH but LATER” 😉

    • Our goal is to get to 100 tracks and we are just over 70+ right now.
      I have plenty of ideas to work up sitting on my hard drive and of course
      trying to figure out how to keep increasing the royalties.
      2 items for the studio,lexicon reverb,and a virtual string section will unleash
      a bit more sonic potential.

    • Happy New Year gang!

      Since my piano solos seem to get the most placements, I’m going to give more attention to them this year. Maybe compose 2 piano solos with every 3 new tracks.

      Best to all, John 🙂

      • Well, this has been a great year if only for the fact that I got paid for my first license BUT it was for what I considered to be a crap piece.Therefore, my new years resolution is to produce loads of crap all year long!

        • I FOUND THIS …EVEN MENTIONS THE WEBSITE HERE
          Depending on who you ask, music libraries are either awesome or they suck. I have a love/hate relationship with the whole music library thing, so I’ll throw out info supporting both sides in this thread. They take away some opportunities, but they give other opportunities. If you have experiences with music libraries, please add to this thread: it’s an important one, and everybody’s experience counts!

          To start with, production music libraries (“libraries” from here forward) have been around for a really long time. Back in the 50’s libraries actually engaged composers and small orchestras to create classical-ish film-ish music. They’ve changed a lot from what they were in the 50s and the 80s and even the 90s: they used to be very looked-down-upon by TV producers, but that changed as the business models for libraries began changing in the early 2000’s. It used to be that there was only 1 business model for libraries: a composer was paid a fee to write some music, and library then owned that cue (it was a straight-up work-for-hire); the composer retained the writer’s share of the performance royalties, but didn’t keep any percentage of fees that that music earned over its lifetime with the library. As a result, composers weren’t inclined to give their best work to the library because they were sacrificing ownership of it, so the pool of music was considered only so-so. It worked in a pinch, but wasn’t always a first choice of producers.

          The emergence of more music libraries occurred at the same time that music technology began to proliferate: and that means everything from Garage Band to Logic to Cubase to ProTools. This was also a time when TV music in general got less stodgy and stuffy and became much more high-energy and cinematic. No longer did a composer need to hire an orchestra to create really cool music – and this opened up the playing field for more composers and more music libraries.

          The main business model also changed: instead of most libraries being work-for-hire, the industry saw a ton of new libraries pop up that were non-exclusive deals for composers. The library essentially became an agent for a composer’s existing catalog, placing the music into TV shows, ads, etc., and keeping a percentage of the fee and a percentage of the performance royalties. This was great for composers because we didn’t have to give up any rights, and could therefore let a library have access to your best tracks. If you didn’t like the library anymore, you could take that music back with just 6 months’ advance notice to the library. This also meant that the composer could give the same tracks to multiple libraries, and let each of those libraries exploit them.

          What are the downsides of music libraries?

          First and foremost, libraries have replaced composers in the world of cable TV. So many libraries have cropped up in just the last 5 years that in order to gain a foothold, the new ones began offering themselves to some of the major cable networks (AETN, Discovery, History, MTVN) for free. And you can’t compete with free, can ya. They do gratis deals for music because they’re in it for the performance royalties via ASCAP and BMI. How does this filter down to composers? Here’s a great example: History Channel’s programs used to use composers much more often than libraries. Small production companies delivered programming to History, and those production co’s had composers who were their go-to people to score shows. If a composer got in with one of those production co’s, they were pretty much guaranteed ongoing work, which then also generated ongoing performance royalties. Back in 2008, right after the financial crash, cable nets started to pinch pennies just like everyone else, and this quickly trickled down to the budgets they would give production co’s to produce programming for them. The first line item in the budget to go? Music. It started with, “We can’t give you $5000 for a composer for this 2-hour doc, so find a library that’ll give you music for $1000.” The result in this situation was that a dozen libraries lined up at the door to get that $1000 fee. Then things went one step further: music libraries began pitching themselves to History with this offer: we’ll give you full access to our library — unlimited music use in unlimited programming – completely free. All you have to do is guarantee to use our library exclusively for the next (X) years.” It’s a tempting offer for a network: they could eliminate the music line item from all of their budgets for the next X years. What did History end up doing? They took up 2 libraries on their offer, and entered into a 2-year deal with DeWolfe and Audio Network, two very popular libraries in the world of production music. The deal: History would use only these 2 music libraries in all of their programming for a 2-year period, and would provide cuesheets for every program. There would be no license fees but there would be hundreds of thousands of dollars generated in performance royalties, so the library would get the publisher’s share of those & the individual writers would get the writer’s share of those if their cues were used. In a time when music budgets were disappearing, this move guaranteed that income would still be coming in for these libraries and their composers, and History was saving money in the short-term because they got to eliminate music budgets from all of their shows. (This deal isn’t public knowledge, but I found out about it through a friend of a friend, who called after it happened to say, “You’re not gonna believe this, but….”)

          A move like this has implications, both good and bad. Composers who made their living on these shows now had no work anymore. But if they had music in any libraries, then they stood a chance of still making a couple bucks. A network taking this strategy will save a lot of money in the short run, but they also lose out on the opportunity to recoup some of their ASCAP and BMI license fees (Networks pay blanket license fees to ASCAP and BMI, and that’s what a composer’s performance royalties come out of: when a network commissions a work-for-hire from a composer, the network retains the publisher’s share of the music, and therefore collects performance royalties on every broadcast — thereby recouping some of the license fees they’ve paid to ASCAP and BMI). This scenario has put many composers into a predicament: libraries have taken away most of their work, but the only way to keep making money is to be part of a library. So do you join the enemy that stole your work, or do you hold out and not play the game? It’s a tough choice and is totally up to you.

          You’ll find a lot of library discussion on music biz internet forums: some people are vehemently opposed to them and some take the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. And a small handful of them do really really well with libraries, pulling in 6 figures a year just from having a lot of music in multiple libraries. My original approach was this: I have a lot of music sitting here on hard drives gathering dust, when they could be out there in the world making me some money. So if the choice was between having that music just sit there, or having someone actively exploiting it and gathering license fees and performance royalties, I wanted it out there making me some money. There are a couple rules of thumb you should keep in mind if you’re considering giving music to a library:

          – it takes 1.5 to 2 years before you start seeing any license fee income from your submissions if your music is accepted into a library. There’s a time lag for a slew of administrative reasons: libraries update their clients’ hard drives a couple times a year, then it takes time for your music to turn up in a show, and then it takes time for the producer to report usage and generate a cuesheet… that’s just how things work. Just remember that if a library only updates their clients in June and December, and if you’ve submitted music in January, that music will sit in a pile until June when the next update takes place.

          – having a couple cues with a library won’t make you any money. You really need to have a LOT of music in a library to better your chances of landing placements. The more cues you have in a library, the more placements you’ll get. If you need a goal for yourself, aim to have 100 cues in a library, but aspire to create 200-300 cues. It sounds like a lot, but if you wrote just one single 2-minute cue each week, at the end of 1 year you’d have a library of 52 cues just sitting there waiting to be exploited. These cues don’t need to be high art: they need to be useable in the context of cable TV. You can spin a catchy hook into a 2-minute piece easily.

          – Be very aware of each library’s business model. Be aware of what the fee splits are and what the performance royalty splits are. Every library is different. One truism that applies across the board is this: a library doesn’t have interest in pitching you as a composer, they have interest in pitching themselves as a whole in order to land that upfront fee, and to land the accompanying performance royalties from the broadcast of that show. With a library you truly are just another cog in the machine, but the more music you have in a library, the bigger the cog you are! And this means that you’ll make more money. It truly is a numbers game.

          – If a library’s contract ever has language about copyright assignment, or about exclusivity (the TRF libraries do this), I’d walk away. An agreement might say “you agree to grant exclusive rights in perpetuity for X songs” – which is essentially a copyright assignment. You’re giving that music to a library to exploit and sacrificing your ownership of the works, and that’s a bad thing. But bear in mind that there are some high-profile libraries out there (APM, Killer Tracks, Audio Network) who pay composers an upfront fee to write something and that piece is then treated as a work-for-hire.

          – Library income tends to grow over time. It’s discouraging that you’ll have to wait a year or two to see any money at all, but by the 5-year mark you will have seen some growth (again, assuming you have a lot of cues in the library). I always thought of it like this: 5 years goes by fast, and 5 years from now I’ll probably be really glad I just took the plunge and got the whole library thing into motion.

          – Temper your expectations about income for the first couple years. And when you start to see money coming in, it won’t be a lot. Here’s a typical scenario:

          1) production company pays $2000 to Library for music for an Animal Planet 1-hour show
          2) Library has a 50/50 split on license fees, so Library gets $1000 and the remaining $1000 is split up among all composers who had music used in the show.
          3) The show used 60 cues, so each composer’s cue earns $16.67. If you had 1 cue used in the show, you’ll make $16.67 for that cue. If you had 10 cues used, you’ll nab $167.

          This isn’t a lot of money, but remember that more money is usually made in performance royalties than in upfront license fees. So that $16.67 cue can rack up a lot of money if that show gets played to death over the next couple years.

          – There are tons of libraries out there and people have mixed feelings about all of them. A great resource is musiclibraryreport.com. Take inflammatory or hyperbolic comments with a grain of salt… sometimes people aren’t savvy about the ins and outs of how library deals work and they vent their rage on forums like this.

          The Wrap-up

          – If you have music sitting around gathering dust, a library might be a great outlet for you. That music can make you some money in the long term and can get the performance royalty machine moving for you. Just be careful what you sign, and pick and choose libraries wisely.

          – Avoid exclusive deals completely. You lose the ability to place that music with other libraries, and also remember that if you place the cue somewhere yourself, and that cue is signed to an exclusive with a library, you then have to split the income with the library even though they had nothing to do with the deal. Doesn’t that kinda suck? Yes it does. So don’t do it. Or at least try to negotiate a “modified exclusive” agreement, whereby if you place the cue yourself, you don’t need to pay the library. Some of the boutique libraries are open to this sort of deal as long as your contract states that only you & that library will be pitching that cue: this alleviates their concern that your cues will turn up in a dozen different libraries (which is a concern of music libraries recently because the same music is turning up everywhere and it’s in a library’s interest to remain as unique as possible).

          – Make sure your cues are all registered with BMI or ASCAP so that having the cue on a cuesheet will trigger a performance royalty payment.

          – If you wrote songs with lyrics, libraries like to have non-vocal versions of that music as well. Giving them both versions increases your chances of placements.

          http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=302384305713&topic=14912
          THIS NEEDS TO BE STICKIED FOR THE NEWBIES

          • Nice article. Looks like it was posted about a year ago. The info about the History channel is not correct. I have had a number of cues placed there and I’m not with either of the libraries he mentions.

            Also his implication about not getting a royalty payment if your song isn’t registered with BMI or ASCAP is not true. The performance will get picked up off of the cue sheet (if filled and filed correctly) and you will get paid.

            Nice to see he plugged MLR!

            • The more I research and ponder. The more blanket licenses and gratis deals that non exclusive libraries are doing. It is really start to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

              Something about just doesn’t sit right with me.
              I can’t fully explain it, but it feel sort of one-sided.

              The libraries make the deal
              then get a piece of publishing
              also on the back end part of deal.

              I have no problem with the upfront sync type placements I think that is fair across the board.

              But the lowest bidder blanket and gratis deal just feel weird.

              If someone else can pick up on what I am trying to say.

              • Unfortunately that’s the state of the business. You don’t have to accept it. You can always try getting into a high end exclusive library (with it’s own set of problems) or contacting music sups, networks, shows, etc., directly. Personally I don’t have the personality to cold call folks.

                I also think of every cue placed as a business card that will spread the word about my music and maybe garner me some custom work.

                • I would cold call any company in a heartbeat if I knew I had a chance to get direct placements. Libraries are going to continue to outbid one another with the broader economy being bad.

                  Direct placements sound better than any library deal that I can think of. I need to find companies and do more cold calling if I want to boost my PRO income. That is my ultimate goal for 2012.

                  • The only problem with that is often clients, supervisors, etc, only care to deal with people they know and trust. An established music library acts as a cushion to possible lawsuits.

                    • There has to be a way.
                      Otherwise, It is gonna end up
                      like how the record companies did so many artists.

                      Performing for pennies.

                      I say it doesn’t hurt to try.
                      But should be done with proper discretion

                    • If I were a music supervisor, I wouldn’t work directly with an unknown musician begging to get songs placed either!!! I would consider that person an amateur who would cause more trouble and ask too many questions. But on the other hand, a composer that has a catalog of songs licensed already has an understanding of contracts, licensing fees, music publishing, PRO representation, writer’s splits, and a track record of quality music.

                      I believe that I can build that trust simply by highlighting the work I have done. Since I already have music licensed in several shows, a music supervisor will be more likely to hire me. All I need to do is contact the correct music supervisors. I will be far more successful by targeting the music supervisors that work on shows that license the type of music I already create.

                      I am no longer an amateur. I do not have decades of experience, but I possess the technical skills of licensing good music and the people skills to communicate effectively. I would not recommend that most musicians even try to directly license music. It just isn’t for everyone.

          • Great article and how things have changed.
            at one time I had written hundreds of infomercials,92-2008.
            Back in the day when we did whole soundtracks and before BMI/AScap
            reduced royalty rates by 2/3 rds,thats alot,the checks were unbelievable,in the 10’s of thousands per show of which we had anywhere from 10-30 shows on air at any one time.
            NOw like the article says its the numbers game.Even with music on a whole show its not alot
            but adds up when played all over the country.

  4. Wondering if anyone has taken the time to check all 400+ libraries here for non-exclusive verses exclusive? I’m thinking the non-exclusives out number the exclusives 5-1 or better.

  5. For those of you on Linkedin, how to you list your music licensing job in your linked in profile? What title do you use, and how to you list your accomplishments?

  6. oneluv
    “There are only a small few being active.
    I think we all know who they are.”

    Actually, been hanging around MLR for quite a while but I have no idea on what libraries are actually active in their pitching. Maybe you can enlighten me?
    I’ve been trying to ask this on other threads here but I always get quite evasive answers like “what works for me might not work for you” without naming a single library.

    Thanks
    Chris

    • Chris, though you may think the answers are vague. They are quite true. For example Audiosparx works well for many people and the top sellers on AS visit MLR regularly. I, for one, have not had much success with Audiosparx. I don’t blame Audiosparx as they have given me a tremendous amount of time and help to try and boost my sales. I have had much more success with musicloops.com. Then again many composers can’t get into musicloops.com or might not have the same success. Also much of my income comes from TV placements and a lot of that is from Jingle Punks. Once again top sellers on other sites might not have the same success or be able to even get into JP.

      There is no EASY path! It’s taken many of us years of trying different libraries to find out what works for us. I have probably gone through 15 to 20 of them to find the few that generate any kind of income. Patience and persistence is the rule!

      • That’s interesting.
        I’m encourage that you could actually earn some decent money at Jingle Punks. I have about 40 tracks there so far some of which I don’t think are very good but that’s the one they licensed.
        They’ve only rejected one or two and house cleaned a few.
        I was turned down by MusicLoops and It’s too soon to tell if Audiosparx will work for me since I’ve only just upload my 30 minimum tracks though they have named a couple they thought had a decent chance of selling in their opinion and who would better know?
        Sorry for getting off subject. Just wanted to respond to your post.

      • Art,

        I just looked at the musicloops.com for the first time. This was in the FAQ:

        “3. We do not accept any composer who distributes their music through the Audiosparx websites.”

        Is this a new exclusion or do they mean on an individual track basis?

      • Art!

        I absolutely understand that there’s no “universal” library for everyone. That’s not what I’m asking for. Maybe I’ve been vague in the way I’ve put my questions earlier (hell, I AM from Sweden 😀 ).

        But in your answer here you give me exactly what I’ve been looking for, big thanks for that. Namedropping a few libraries that has worked for you tells me one very important thing, they’re active.
        There’s a LOT of libraries out there just piling up music hoping that someone will stumble upon their site and start buying.

        I don’t think anyone here wants to waste their precious time on submitting music to dead or half dead libraries.

        To conclude, finding out what libraries are active, or even better, actively pitching their music is crucial knowledge.

  7. Oneluv said: “It is becoming clear. That the majority of libraries are all hype.” This statement rings true. I will not name any names but I have added music to about 20 libraries over the last three years. I have only had placements from 3 libraries, with one library accounting for 80% of my placements.

    Last month, I pulled my music out of all libraries except those three. I even got an exclusive library to terminate the contract and give me back the rights to my music. The problem with many libraries is that they have poor business plans. They do not have the clientele to market songs to. I hope that those of you who have been at this for a while take notice.

    If anyone wants a few pointers, let me know.

  8. My daughter and I were watching the latest episode of Moonshiners on the Discovery Channel when I recognized one of my cues. It took a couple of seconds for me to realize it, but it felt awesome once I figured out what was happening.

    It’s been about 8 months or so since I have been getting my cues out there. I noticed my first cue sheet in my ascap account and now this surprise. Haven’t seen any money yet, but just getting cues placed is a dream come true.

    • Congrats!! That really is a great feeling hearing your music for the first time, and when you’re not expecting it makes it even better!!

  9. I’m experimenting with a cue that really sounds like music for a fast moving arcade video game. Video game music isn’t a specific choice in the library drop down menus.
    Anybody have any leads to any libraries that specialize in music for video games?
    Thanks

  10. Not sure what section to post this but, Iv been offered an exclusive contract for 25 tracks with a UK library, the deal is sort of standard, 50% of all money generated and they have listed beside each track what project it will/could be used in. Thing is iv been working on these tracks for about 1 year and as Im skint I want money upfront if im to put all my new eggs into one basket. but im afraid to ask for a recouplable advance incase it p*****s them off. They are nice guys. Should i just ask? How much should I ask for?

    • Never concern yourself about p—ing publishers off. Any legitimate publisher will answer all your questions in a professional manner. If they don’t, it would be a good sign to pass on them.

    • Hysteria
      Does the contract have a reversion clause? 2, 3, 5 years?

      25 tracks is a lot to commit to one library exclusively unless you know a lot about the potential. I wouldn’t suggest signing over tracks for life with no reversion unless you were paid something up-front. Even with reversion, you may want to start out with a smaller number of tracks, maybe 10.

      If it’s a library you’ve had placement success with before or know a lot about their track record, weigh that more.

      Best of luck.

      • OK thanks for the pointers Other John and Advice. Ill check the contract for a reversion clause now. I want to ask for a recoupable advance as I dont know too much about them but they have had placements with BMW amoungst others and recently Land Rover. I was informed by another MLR member to expect £100 upfront per track if a recoup is granted? That would total at £2500 for the full 25 tracks but iv a feeling that might be askn too much

        • That’s a totally fine starting point from my experience. They can always negotiate with you, but that’s a fair amount per track.

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