1,729 thoughts on “General Questions”

  1. I have had tunesat for about a month and thought I would report back my experience. I have a found the service to miss a significant number of cues.

    It has been good to see detections for cues I wasn’t aware had been used, but the problem is tunesat isn’t catching all occurrences of those cues.

    I have had the same cue placed on two different episodes of the BBCA show, No Kitchen required. Out of around 10 airings of the two episodes, tunesat only detected one airing of one of those show. It completely missed one of the shows. That one, the cue is actually more clear that the other show. There are a number of future airings for these shows, so I will keep track and see how many more misses happen.

    I have noticed other airings of shows I already know have cues in them that were missed also.

    I did contact tunesat to report it. They looked into it, but basically said they don’t know why they were missed.

    I am going to keep using the server for a quarter or so. For it to pay off though, it has to catch enough cues that are not reported to my pro. Time will tell, but my confidence isn’t high.

  2. Is it possible to see cue sheets for shows you don’t have any cues on? My pro is ascap, if it makes a difference.

  3. @ J3h43f4 said: “Do you guys have more rock or Orchestral tracks for all these cable shows?”

    I have a little of everything. Country, Urban, Pop, Rock, Latin, Orchestral, etc.

  4. Music Xray & Broadjam have the same listing for a greater submission price.

    What is going on…

    I noticed the listing ‘edgy rock’ on Broadjam.

    http://www.broadjam.com/delivery/index.php?subcat_id=3

    Then I went to Music Xray the same listing is thier for a $20.00
    submission fee.

    http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/3083

    It says Southern Soul Records…but when I researched the label. They barely have any info on the web as far as music licening goes?

    http://www.facebook.com/southernsoulrecords

    Why would a person put a listing
    try to milk the people submitting to them. by making them submit for different prices?

    Any thought?

  5. For those of you who write for exclusive libraries (I’m thinking B & C list libraries, not Extreme, DeWolfe, etc.) AND also have cues in multiple non-exclusive libaries, which do you find the most profitable.

    Recently, a couple of C-list libraries have wanted me to write whole albums for them, sometimes they’ll pay production costs and sometimes not, but of course they want excl.rights in perpetuity. I write modern classical music so production costs are significant (musicians mainly).

    I’ve only just started working with non-exclusive libraries so I really don’t know whether I’m better off:

    a) recording & funding albums myself and then place them with the A-list Non-excl libraries (such as Crucial Music) or
    b) recording albums for C-list libraries who work on the “old-school” production music model

    Any comments from people who are active in both circles ?

    • Right now its half and half for me. But I think I remember reading that Art makes more from all his Non-exclusive than he does from all his exclusive.

      Both are dangerous, because I have a lot in non-exclusive libraries that later was offered a deal in exclusive. But once you go exclusive, you might never make a dime off that song.

      One thing I wouldn’t do rajay is sign your songs in an exclusive deal with a non-exclusive library.

      • I would try exclusive in a non-exclusive IF, as a non-exclusive, they had gotten a lot of placements for me and IF there was a reversion clause. I would not accept a low income threshold on that reversion clause. I probably wouldn’t go longer than two years.

    • I guess you have to define placements.

      I have anywhere from five to ten a day running on various TV shows. Mainly cable networks with a few majors. This is after five or six years of doing this. But if you go by dollar amounts, a couple of well placed placements a month could easily surpass the dollar amount of what I’m earning.

      • Hey Art,
        Are you making enough to earn a living on placements or do you have to play live and do a ton of other things? Trying to get a feel for what’s possible in say 5 years very generally speaking of course.

        • Hi Pat,

          First you have to define “earn a living”. I think I might hit $40k to $50k this year from music. Robin and I couldn’t live on it but fortunately we have sources of passive income that allow us to take a more relaxed approach to making music.

          At this point in my life I have a narrow comfort zone for making music. I’m not interested in episodic TV or film work. I am also not very aggressive at promoting my music. At my age (71) my outlook on life is much different than when I was younger. Point being is that those who are younger would probably have a very different approach and could be more successful at the five or six year mark.

          • Hi Pat, I’m less than Art; two to three a day on various shows compared to his five to ten. I’ve been doing it longer but at the same time I did custom composition work not library related, engineered sessions for clients and etc. I created library tracks in-between these projects so my output is less.

            • That’s great Michael. Just sounds like you took different approaches but have the same potential to make money one way or the other doing music which is what it’s about to me. I envy you guys but I’m working on it.

          • I’m glad for you Art and anyone else able to do that. $40k to $50k to me is making a living. Not rolling in riches by today’s standards but if I were making that doing music, I’d be rolling in riches in spirit that’s for sure.

            • Hey Pat,

              I’m at 16 …..
              for all of 2011

              HAHA, we have a long road ahead of us my cyber friend
              Back to the DAW

              • Hey Alan!
                Is that $16.00 or 16 placements? I’ll take the 16 placements. I got the $16.00. I guess I could settle for $8.00 and 8 placements. lol

                • @Pat,
                  10 different shows
                  16 episodes (a couple of episodes had more than one cue used)

                  My most recent cue sheet was for :16 on Saturday Night Live back in Dec 11. It aired again in Jan too. I didn’t even know they used library music. That one made me feel almost important, HA!

                  I also had 2 cues used in Last Call With Carson Daly for a total of 1:34. I’m curious about what that will pay.

                  The rest were cable shows.

                  I only have about 55 tracks so far though. Baby steps, right?

                  • You’re way ahead of me Alan. That’s impressive. We both have roughly the same number of tracks. I got my first BMI statement ever last month and there were two shows on it the AMsale Girls and MTV Extreme Cribs for a few seconds. I’m hoping the next statement has something on it to surprise me since apparently you don’t know till you get the statement.
                    Not alot of placements but you’re right, baby steps.

                  • Do you guys have more rock or Orchestral tracks for all these cable shows?

                    My library of about 100 tracks is mostly orchestral.

  7. I am a complete newbie, is there any posting describing the steps in order to begin. Things that make a library more marketable. The number of tracks for a beginner library?

    • A good start for you might be in the Newbie FAQ. Go to the tab up top named Newbies and then in to the Newbie questions. Your answers may lay in there. Regardless, there is some good info and incite for you there.

  8. @woodsdenis
    “By what you guys are saying over there it seems that your rates are well below what they are in Europe.”

    Not sure why the difference. It must just be that these are the numbers the PRO’s have negotiated with the cable stations?

    • @Michael Nickolas

      Probably right, In UK and Ireland mainly big commercial stations and state funded ones BBC and RTE. Any cable we get here is US not home based.

  9. I’ll throw this one out for advice,

    Looking for a decent 49 key midi controller. The 2 top candidates seems to be Akai MPK49 or M-Audio Axiom V2. Both seem to have issues. Any body using them or any other suggestions.

    Tx
    Denis

    • Hey Denis! Sorry I can’t help with the midi controller question but thanks for your input on my stereo question. I couldn’t respond to it on the site for some reason. Very useful info.

      • Tx mUSIC

        I have actually tried them both, they are what they are, however there are numerous reliability issues surrounding both of them hence the question. There doesn’t seem to be any alternatives or are there?

    • Hey Denis
      Check out the user reviews here.
      I googled “49 key midi controller reviews” and got a bunch of reviews from people on the amazon site who own the different ones.
      I didn’t think it would be appropriate to post the actual link here since that would, in my view, amount to spamming here so google it under those terms for some input.

    • Hi Denis,

      Make sure you check out the velocity curve specs of the M-Audio. I have an M-Audio Keystation 88 and really do not like it, except that it was extremely cheap. The keyboard feel is nothing like my old Fatar, and you have to hit the thing with a sledge hammer to get a velocity anywhere above 105-110.

      Best,

      Michael

    • Denis,

      I’m using a Behringer UMX490 and couldn’t be happier with it. Have had no problems across a wide range of synths and DAWs. Multiple velocity curves, assignable knobs and buttons etc. Really great controller.

      Course, the Akai has drumpads which puts it in a different category.

  10. Hey Art! I know this is probably way off base but I thought it’s at least worth asking…Gearslutz has an ipad app for that site. What say you?

    • Not off bass at all. I got into an iPhone and Android app awhile back and posted it somewhere here. It was basically an RSS feed and that’s easy enough to do (I think) without an app. One of these days I may dig into it again.

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