142 thoughts on “MLR Feedback”

  1. Art:

    I would like to see a separate blog for newcomers (like myself) where we can ask questions (maybe even stupit ones) to save us time and money, and have the veterans of the library wars give us answers and advice as they have learned through their experience. Is this possible.?

    • Yes, great idea Ev. Too bad it’s more work for poor Art ;~), but a welcome to MLR page with an FAQ and suggestions/etiquette list may help curb some rants etc. And for the millionth time, Thanks Art

      • Thanks Alan,

        Actually shouldn’t be too hard. Just a separate post dedicated to newbie questions.

        As far as etiquette goes, most people behave themselves. I always have the option to ban those that do not.

        Take care

        Art

  4. Hey Art,

    Would multiple categories of ratings be difficult to implement? For example, when I buy something on ebay, I can rate the seller on
    accuracy of description
    reasonable shipping cost
    response to inquiries
    speed of delivery
    etc…

    If you could swing that I’m sure you’d get lots of opinions on what categories to include. I’m thinking a 1-5 rating or actual numbers on:
    Ease of submission
    Time before accept/reject notification
    Response to inquiries
    Percentage of submissions licensed
    Actual Income generated
    etc
    etc.
    Thanks again for this site Art

  5. All you need to know about the ratings…

    Yooka = 7.1

    …must be on a par with Extreme because the ratings say so…

    Extreme = 7.8 (That’s the same Extreme that Hans Zimmer writes for)

    Yooka (7.1) therefore must be quite a bit better than…

    KPM = 5 (who can earn their composers 6 figs a year easy and who have the world’s best composers writing for them and some very famous theme tunes in their catalogue)

    Yooka (7.1) are apparently also better than…

    De Wolfe = 4.7 (the very first music library. Whose composers are first class and seem to do very well. De Wolfe gets used everywhere)

    Yooka (7.1) are also much better than…

    Audio Network = 5.4 (Who have cornered a considerable chunk of the market and whose prestigious roster of composers seem to be doing very nicely).

    I pick Yooka just to prove the point. You are always going to get a majority wanting the ratings because people by nature just like looking a ratings! But if they are misleading and provide no accurate reflection on the true state of the game (I know a bit because I am writing te for KPM and De Wolfe amongst others and library is my full time job).

    Please, dump the ratings! Apart from that the site is great!

    • Hey Jello, they’re not being judged by a pro critic here. These ratings reflect a few composers with personal experiences. As you should be aware of by now, every composer gets a separate roll of the dice from each library, Some lucky seven, some crap-out. Jeez…

    • I have to agree with Jello, on this.

      Without being indelicate – it’s really not hard to get stuff onto Y**k* or other similar sites. Making any money from them though is a whole other issue, which has been discussed at length already.

      However working with the kind of Libraries Jello mentions, is a whole other ball game, and much much harder to get into than the self upload libraries.

      No idea how you’d reflect that in a rating system though………..

      • @ darkstar

        Yeah, well I just speak as I find really. I know I do come on here and criticise libraries like y***a alot but that’s simply because I’m writing libray full time and involved in the biz. I spend most of the day composing or chatting with composers of library music. And what I notice on Art’s great site is that with the non-exclusive libraries, people seem to be struggling to get just ONE placement (Of course, there are a few excepetions, and in this case the exceptions certainly prove the rule).

        Seems if people just one placement that’s a real big thing. That is not a criticism of them so please don’t take it as such. But life on the other side – with the big exclusives – is totally different. There is a universe of difference in fact. I guess this year I’ve had probably over 5,000 unique placements all over the world and in some films too.

        I just couldn’t survive wondering if I was ever gonna get A placement. I think a much better approach – and again I am gonna get criticised for this – is to forget the Y****a type of libraries. It will earn nothing. If it’s easy to submit music to a site, it’s worthless IMO. That’s the problem I have with the ratings – I want a library to be difficult/impossible to submit stuff to! I want to know they listen and care and have quality control – and that they’re not concerned with creating a dense catalogue of eminently unusable tracks that will never be found and that will ultimately wither away under an avalanche of stylus-samples-symphobia-sub-mediocrity.

        The bigger, moe lucrative picture would be to speculate to accumulate – to create something really special, with real instruments, great session players, no samples, totally beautiful and unique and then place it with an exclusive library that will nurture and cherish the product as if it’s a member of their family and so be despeate to exploit its potential in the marketplace.

        1 amazing track with a big exclusive can earn more than 6,000 immediately OK’d and uploaded cues to a site who are just concerned with quantity.

        IMO

        This is the last time I will post on here because my anti -non-ex stance doesn’t seem to go down well judging by recent replies to my comments.

        Au revoir.

        • Jello said: “I think a much better approach – and again I am gonna get criticised for this – is to forget the Y****a type of libraries. It will earn nothing. If it’s easy to submit music to a site, it’s worthless IMO.”

          If this is the case, then most of us composers here do not stand a chance of having any success in the music library world.

          I for one think that your advice is spot on. I have many tracks on a bunch of non-exclusive libraries. But I have only made money from two sites so far. I just believe that we are chasing a dream by thinking that the multitude of non-exclusive libraries and royalty-free sites are going to generate success for us.

          But I also think that many composers will not be more successful by going the exclusive route either. It is just too difficult to make enough songs to be accepted by these highly selective libraries, unless we form a group and submit music. The average composer here works alone with a DAW and probably has a day job. Most of us would need to quit our day jobs and focus solely on making breath-taking music. I just do not think most of us here could stop working just to focus on music.

          None of us want to waste time or money sending songs to companies that do not do anything for us. There are some awesome and dynamic companies that really work hard and have done their homework. But there are far too many that just do not have a handle on how to properly sell music. I think that going through a list of companies and finding ones with a good fit is just as important as making great songs.

          P.S.: I have visited over 150 royalty-free sites and music libraries. I have seen and heard music from many people who post here on musiclibraryreport.com. My advice to most of you is to not give up, but to stay with the sites that provide results and delete accounts from the sites that do not provide results. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for you to help improve a library if you are not an employee. Your job as a composer is to send in material. Anything more than that (adding a pile of metadata, providing multiple versions of the same song, blogging on the message board of a library, etc.) is NOT going to give you an advantage. Trust me!!!

          • @Nameless:

            I agree with most of what you and Jello say. I think that in many cases, if there is any big money to be made on the royalty free sites, it will be made by the companies NOT the composer. It’s just a source of some extra dollars for the composer. I will disagree with you about alts. Adding alts to my existing tracks added extra sales at the RF sites I am on.

            On the other hand I think non-exclusive libraries, working to place music on shows has much more potential. I for one see my BMI statements going up each quarter, so I have hope. Getting into exclusive libraries is difficult (though I must admit I haven’t tried very hard). Despite Jello’s claim that you need live players and create “special” music (BTW who gets to define “special”) I think you can still create unique music without going that route and get into those exclusives. I for one remember the Roland TR-808 drum machine back in the 80s when you couldn’t give them away after the Linn drum machine came out. The rappers took up the 808 and the rest is history. Jello appears to have been involved in the library music scene for a long time so his vantage point will be different than those of us who are fairly new at it. We all need to have faith and we will find our own path.

          • Guys, I have a foot in both camps.

            I’ll b perfectly honest with you :

            I make my living from exlcusive libraries. It’s seriously hard to compete in the exlcusive end, you have to go that extra mile just to move an inch. It is *that* hard, it is *very* competative.

            “I strongly disagree that live instruments are needed in most cases. Many composers have spent years perfecting their use of VI’s and are very successful. ”

            I can ony disagree with that : my best perfrorming tracks with exclusives, have “real” players. Not just Spectrasonics and VSL.

            But likewise this site hasa given me some very useful leads and contacts that are doing pretty well 😉

        • @Jello: I’m sure many here are still waiting for a link to all of this amazing music you are making (with live players no less). It’s been requested a few times, I believe, but we have yet to see it. You must be incredibly successful (or incredibly wealthy) to book live players for all of your music. It would certainly give more validity to your claims.

          • “I guess this year I’ve had probably over 5,000 unique placements all over the world and in some films too” – Jello

            You must be a millionaire by now Jello. Please, let me hear one of your gems.

            Oh, BTW, I’ve had over 6,000 unique placements this year. Or was it 15 run-of-the-mill placements? I can’t remember. 😀

          • “@Jello: I’m sure many here are still waiting for a link to all of this amazing music you are making (with live players no less). It’s been requested a few times, I believe, but we have yet to see it. You must be incredibly successful (or incredibly wealthy) to book live players for all of your music. It would certainly give more validity to your claims.”

            Oh come on Art, isn’t sarcasm a bit lazy? Have I done something to offend you?

            What have I to prove? I’m just posting anonymously on a forum. If you guys want to think I’m BS-ing that’s perfectly fine with me! 🙂 I don’t have to give validity to any claims. In fact, I haven’t claimed my music is the best thing on earth as far as I can recall. Merely posted a few stats on usage and income and mentioned I use live instruments and good players! So sue me for doing that! 🙂

            In the end, it matters not one bit either way. Nor is it any consequence whether anyone believes what I say about RF music or not!

            I am simply offering a view. Take from it what you will. I’m certainly not going to go posting my music. What would be the purpose? The libraries I write for seem happy enough and really, that’s all that matters Art.

            Good luck guys with whichever way you decide to go!

            (drum roll……)….(voiceover in deep voice…..)Royalty-Free??? …….Exclusive??? (Sharp intake of breath….) ….you decide….(cue dramatic non-valid Jello music with midi strings and symphobia patch…)

            Now, I really am outta here guys. I got music to compose and I’ve just got Stylus RMX just arrived.

            🙂 Peace.

            Jello

            • Sorry Jello, didn’t mean to sound sarcastic and I’m not offended. You do have a tendency to go on about this so I (and others) are curious.

        • It’s not about exclusive vs. non-exclusive as much as making the best music possible for the market. One trap it’s easy to fall into is think the end all and be all is find SOME library that will sign your tunes and lose sight that it may not mean anything as far as placements. Clearly lots of money is made by composers off non-exclusive libraries. But among non-exclusives there is a lot of variety. You can’t compare the website based or RF model to that of, let’s say, Crucial Music.

          I strongly disagree that live instruments are needed in most cases. Many composers have spent years perfecting their use of VI’s and are very successful. My understanding is that getting VI’s to sound natural is quite a skill and art to itself but a big part of our biz today. To make significant money in this biz you have to have hundreds of tracks out there. Hiring live players on that many tracks would be awfully expensive… unless you are a one man rock guy who plays all the instruments.

          One thing to keep in mind is while here on this site, the focus is on rating the libraries, it’s still about the music. Just go out and make the best music you can and keep getting better.

          If only the lowest bar libraries will sign your tracks, find out how to get to the next level. Make a goal of learning what it will take to get to mid-bar and then high-bar.

          🙂

          • I spent many, many years with live players both on stage and in the studio, from small ensembles to symphonies. I LOVE the challenge of trying to make cues sound as live and natural as I can with VIs, when needed. One thing I learned early on was: “There Are No Rules!”.

  6. Hi Art

    I like the idea of registration and a user name, most of the regular users know each other anyway and I certainly attach more credibikity to the comments by the regular guys who use either an alias or their real name

    Best Keith

  7. Hey Art, I’m sure you’ve probably toyed with the idea already, but would you consider setting up a forum for this website, so people can open other kind of topics that are indirectly related to here, but that don’t fit into any of the categories? Its really simple to do – I did it with my own forum: http://www.filmandgamecomposers.com/forum and it takes no time really.

    I think it would be really helpful as threads really start to trail off after a few comments at times once people get going 🙂

    • Thanks Emmett, yes I have toyed with the idea. I think the ideal would be to convert the existing WordPress database to a forum format and have looked at some plug-ins to do this. I think adding a forum alongside of what already exists would get confusing and require more work on my part to manage. Usually when threads wander too much I start a new post and move the thread to it. That’s how this current thread got started. It sprouted under the Yooka Music listing.

  8. I like this site the way it is. I think making people register or taking away the ratings would take away the uniqueness and quirkiness of this site. There are more than enough sites out there where people can register to talk about music. But music libraries are really a niche industry. We need sites like this one to help guide new musicians.

  9. The issue with ratings is similar to what others have complained about when they see good, solid libraries and services get public negative press they don’t deserve. At least with posts, others generally come back and counter innaccurate statements such as “Library X not worth dealing with” or “Library Y knows nothing about music”.

    You really can’t rate music libraries on any one scale anyway. They have different pluses and minuses, target different markets, have different approaches, etc. One might be very difficult to get a track into but have a great track record with the songs they do accept (e.g. Crucial). Another may be a new, non-exclusive website based library whose main goal is to build a catalog and therefore is super-friendly regarding submissions. A library like Pump might get a large number of placements per year but then again their catalog size is probably in the millions. A library might get a few placements a year but only work a small, select catalog of 1000 tracks. There are way too many variables.

    In the long run what matters is how your music may or may not get placed, not “feel good” factors.

    • Agreed. You can’t rate libraries in the same way that you can rate a tangible object like a Belkin bluetooth adaptor on Amazon. It’s just ridiculous.

      If you look at the Yooka comments, there’s very few placements but alot of excitement expressed about trax being accepted. I venture that high ratings will result from your succesful track submission. When starting out this is many a composer’s raison d’etre. Your tracks don’t get responded to by KPM or De Wolfe? Well go and give them a bad rating because they didn’t get back to you. It’s plainly obvious that this is going on here just by reading through a few comments.

      Ergo, it’s totally flawed and not represetative of the business (which I make a living in) in the least bit.

  10. Yooka (no usage) gets almost the same rating as Extreme and higher than De Wolfe and KPM – whose music earns millions and gets used everywhere.

    I think this site is excellent. However, the ratings are a joke so can we just dispense with them? What possible use are they apart from them being a way for the disgruntled to get some payback? I rather suspect people are rating certain libraries on whether someone or other responded to their demo rather than on the overall quality of the library.

    Please dump the ratings!

    • >>>> I rather suspect people are rating certain libraries on whether someone or other responded to their demo rather than on the overall quality of the library.

      Yes, that’s the majority of the problem. Many posters judge by how responsive libraries are to demos, how easy they are to submit to, how readily they sign tracks, etc. I agree that the ratings should be dumped.

      • Bit of an over reaction do you not think ? First of all I dont know what the motive of anyone
        giving a rating is and neither do you. Secondly, on this site a lot writers/posters/raters are in the non exclusive side of the business, hence if you look at the main ratings section it reflects this.

        If there were a significant number of writers for De Wolfe and KPM who post and rate here, their ratings would go up.There obviously isn’t, or if there is they dont think much of them. Simple maths really. This site can only cater for the people that post on it and it reflects their experiences wether you like it, or agree with it.

        Now if the question is does Yooka deserve the rating it has? I dont think it does, but to scrap the whole ratings system because I dont agree with one of them is fairly nonsensical IMHO

        Also I think for transparency people should post with their real name, hence I have just done so. I used to use Denis W.

        • “Also I think for transparency people should post with their real name, hence I have just done so. I used to use Denis W”

          Though that would defeat the intent of Art’s website. Posters may not want to share their thoughts about companies they’re associated with.

          Art has a unique outlet for a wide variety of opinions that couldn’t exist on other websites. Better not to flush the baby out with the bath water.

          • Fair point John, I am just suspicious about “anon” sigs in general posting things like “dump the ratings system” or ranting in general. I think it also has to be remembered that this site is funded and maintained by one person, Art. I dont think enough posters realize this, they seem to think it is funded and operated by some bigger entity. It is his prerogative to do what he wants ultimately. If there is a vote I say dont change anything.

            • Thanks for the input guys. There is now a poll to vote on keeping the ratings page or dumping it. Check the right hand column under the library listings and cast your vote!

              • Just an idea…

                It may be a good idea if everyone had a user name (real or fictitious) that can’t be changed. At least we’ll know that the same person isn’t double dipping to add more credibility to his/her opinions.

                I always use “john (the other John)”, though sometimes the name in the box is missing and gets posted as anonymous.

        • I like the idea of requiring a login / fixed username too.

          As for the ratings, what about this: instead of getting rid of it altogether, maybe the ratings could be broken down into:

          1) composer feedback and communication
          2) ease of uploading / submitting
          3) fairness of deal
          4) financial return

          Right now people give high marks to companies like Audiosparx, who, from my experience are amazing at feedback and communication, but low on the sales and have a (comparably) tedious uploading process. Other companies get slammed because perhaps the owner was short with a few people, but the sales might be good.

          Breaking it down into those categories might the ratings more useful, more accurate.

          What do you guys think?

          • I like this idea. Great solution in my opinion!

            No one benefits from LESS info, esp. not the composers here. Even skewed information can be informative, even if it is just to glean insight into people’s motivations, like many have done above. It’s all educational.

            Only the libraries with low ratings, justified or not, should want the ratings removed. If low ratings make a library improve, great. If high ratings give a library a higher profile and we all benefit, great. I say more info, not less.

            • Yeah but the devil is in the details. I’ll have to delve into the ratings plugin and see if there is a way to implement that. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

              BTW I think I may move all these to a new thread.

        • The inherent problem of non-registration is spamming. Art may pick up most of them but he’s human, one person and surely has better things to do than moderate for posters using multiple aliases and/or having conversations with themselves in order to bolster a single point of view.

          I’ve been a moderator on a number of forums and the benefits of requiring registration have always outweighed the few disadvantages.

          At minimum, registration raises the basic level of credibility as people will tend to stop and think before posting comments which are then linked to a single user ID. Yes, of course, serial spammers will attempt to register multiple accounts and even IP checking is not perfect due to proxy servers, but those factors, while not eliminated, are significantly mitigated by requiring registration.

    • Ratings are opinions translated to a scale of 1 to 10. People do it all the time. Not useless to me.
      Why dispense with it if some of us find them useful? How about keeping them for those who find them useful and you just don’t look and we’ll all be happy.
      Take what you can use and ignore the rest. It’s really that simple.

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