Sync lib recommendations

[GtrString]

People receive benefits proportional to the effort they invest, similar to any other job.


I still think that you don't really know what sync is and how it works.

What's your alternative? Self-publish on Spotify, have family and friends maybe listen to your track once and make... ...nothing? I'm far from having explored all alternatives and understand how they work, so if you could maybe enlighten us with a concrete step-by-step strategy, that would be awesome.

And you come off as you don’t know anything but production music?.

People certainly do not always recieve benefit in proportion to the efforts they make. What kind of polyanna bs is that? You can work 24/7 without ever making any progress, many people do. When a super picks out tracks in a music library, she/ he / they chooses from thousands of tracks, and a lineup is maybe 5-10 - and often several libraries compete with their own lineup - and from those only one track from all the lineups gets the sync - you do the math of percentages of success. That’s a very common scenario, the market is oversaturated and oversold. I suggest publishing your stuff on streaming and build your fanbase, not because you neccesarily will make more money there (allthough, you might, again.. that is my experience), but because your artist brand increasingly matters for the supervisors who is selecting the lineups. Not for the average background tv sync (which is soon taken over by AI), but for the featured syncs in commercials, scores ect. that pays more than pennies.

I don’t have your recipe, you seem to have all the luck already. I’m not the one who gets passive-aggressive for trying to describe reality as it is.

So, again, roast me if it makes you happy. I think it’s important to counter all the current overselling of sync and the opportunities you can find there (especially music libraries), because many don’t find much pleasure in that pursuit. Thank you, but I’m not continuing this.

 

[Epic Wonder]

And you come off as you don’t know anything but production music?.

People certainly do not always recieve benefit in proportion to the efforts they make. What kind of polyanna bs is that? You can work 24/7 without ever making any progress, many people do. When a super picks out tracks in a music library, she/ he / they chooses from thousands of tracks, and a lineup is maybe 5-10 - and often several libraries compete with their own lineup - and from those only one track from all the lineups gets the sync - you do the math of percentages of success. That’s a very common scenario, the market is oversaturated and oversold.

I don’t have your recipe, you seem to have all the luck already. I’m not the one who gets passive-aggressive for trying to describe reality as it is.

Yeah, it’s frustrating for sure. I am happy for the little money I earn. If I had more time and more connections, I am sure I could eke out a living from sync licensing. I’d say that getting connected with other successful people is probably the only way for 99.999% of composers to gain any long term success from sync licensing. That probably matters even more than being a great composer. Because there are many people that post on this site that are far greater composers than I would ever be and are still fighting for a career. It’s not easy for sure.

 

[SupremeFist]

People receive benefits proportional to the effort they invest, similar to any other job.

I mean, this is absolutely not true of almost all jobs.

 

[Nico Schuele]

I mean, this is absolutely not true of almost all jobs.

This is a discussion beyond sync libraries and would make for another topic in "general musings" or even the "drama zone." My take is that it is true for most jobs where luck is not involved (you can't win the lottery just by playing a lot.) When this doesn't work, usually the issue comes from something else such as working in a way that is not optimal, or a lack of knowledge, or a difficulty to reassess oneself, or... or... . And this, I also qualify as investing in efforts.

I suggest publishing your stuff on streaming and build your fanbase

That I agree with. If you have another career to support your while doing so. I chose sync to support my family and me while building my scoring career rather than working in a different industry than making music daily. That is also a different discussion but working in sync, on aggressive deadlines, following a custom brief in a very competitive area, made me a better and more efficient film composer.

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

People receive benefits proportional to the effort they invest, similar to any other job

This is not a realistic scenario in any job.

 

[Nico Schuele]

This is not a realistic scenario in any job.

Comment just above yours

 

[asherpope]

I don’t hate anyone either, I just don’t believe in the “selling the dream” stuff. People are wasting years on fairytales, while they could have developed and thrived much better as artists without those ideas. You don’t need a 10$ sync to “make it”.

Most would absolutely not thrive better as an artist compared to library Composer with 10 years of effort. You think the average person has a better chance of becoming a rock star than a modestly earning library Composer?

 

[asherpope]

Yeah, it’s frustrating for sure. I am happy for the little money I earn. If I had more time and more connections, I am sure I could eke out a living from sync licensing. I’d say that getting connected with other successful people is probably the only way for 99.999% of composers to gain any long term success from sync licensing. That probably matters even more than being a great composer. Because there are many people that post on this site that are far greater composers than I would ever be and are still fighting for a career. It’s not easy for sure.

I would argue that success in library music requires next to no networking at all. Produce good music, email it to libraries. That's basically it

 

[Epic Wonder]

I would argue that success in library music requires next to no networking at all. Produce good music, email it to libraries. That's basically it

Well I guess we would need to define success then. If it is measured simply by getting music placed in TV shows, I am very successful. But for most, it is measured by income earned from music licensing. I couldn’t fully support myself from music licensing alone, so I would not consider myself successful in that regard. It sucks but money makes the world go around.

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

Well I guess we would need to define success then. If it is measured simply by getting music placed in TV shows, I am very successful. But for most, it is measured by income earned from music licensing. I couldn’t fully support myself from music licensing alone, so I would not consider myself successful in that regard. It sucks but money makes the world go around.

This!!! I have also had some awesome placements over the years, including some high profile ones. That is indeed success, as with any placements. But I agree, for me the ultimate benchmark of success would be earning a guaranteed perennial income that would sustain my current lifestyle/income for years to come. It is not impossible, but highly unlikely, especially since I already have a full time career.

 

[Epic Wonder]

This!!! I have also had some awesome placements over the years, including some high profile ones. That is indeed success, as with any placements. But I agree, for me the ultimate benchmark of success would be earning a guaranteed perennial income that would sustain my current lifestyle/income for years to come. It is not impossible, but highly unlikely, especially since I already have a full time career.

So you should consider yourself successful! You are doing good and have no reason to feel bad. Making more money is the goal of most humans. That is not a bad thing, as more money can offer a better life experience. It is when the work performed does not lead to the desired amount of money. If I could make 30 songs a year and make $90,000 a year, I would be happy. So $90,000/30 songs = $3,000 a song. For those do you who are successful and make at least this amount, what do the less successful need to do to be at a higher level of success?

 

[NekujaK]

There’s another, very profitable, angle to the library music game that hasn’t been discussed yet, and that’s the role of label.

Basically, you augment your composing efforts by finding other composers to publish their music thru you.

For libraries who work with labels, you’ll need to get accepted as one of their labels, which may not be easy, but as an individual composer, you can still “front” the works of other composers, thereby bolstering your output and potential profitability.

For a composer with an entrepreneurial spirit and bigger picture thinking, this can be a path to much bigger revenue for a relatively small amount of extra work.

Food for thought.

 

[asherpope]

Well I guess we would need to define success then. If it is measured simply by getting music placed in TV shows, I am very successful. But for most, it is measured by income earned from music licensing. I couldn’t fully support myself from music licensing alone, so I would not consider myself successful in that regard. It sucks but money makes the world go around.

So you should consider yourself successful! You are doing good and have no reason to feel bad. Making more money is the goal of most humans. That is not a bad thing, as more money can offer a better life experience. It is when the work performed does not lead to the desired amount of money. If I could make 30 songs a year and make $90,000 a year, I would be happy. So $90,000/30 songs = $3,000 a song. For those do you who are successful and make at least this amount, what do the less successful need to do to be at a higher level of success?

I make almost that figure from library music and honestly have tried to stop thinking that each song = X amount of dollars. It's all so variable and you never know what's going to stick. A track that earns 5k one quarter might earn 7 cents the next. That's why it's a numbers game. With enough tracks in the wild, you're ALMOST guaranteed to be earning consistently, you just may never be able to predict from what though!
It's definitely not for everyone. I have income anxiety constantly, but unfortunately I never bothered to become particularly employable so this is it for me...AI be damned

 

[Nico Schuele]

have tried to stop thinking that each song = X amount of dollars. It's all so variable and you never know what's going to stick

So, there's this track on which I've spent a good 40 hours, after spending a month working on my new template. Over two years, it brought me something like $30. Then, there's this other one made at 90% with Heavyocity presets. I basically only came up with a chord progression and a top line, mixed it with Gulfoss and Soothe and Smart:Comp because I couldn't be arsed to spend more time on it. In the mid five figures over the same period. That's not the norm, usually it's the other way around but yeah... trying to predict is something I've definitely stopped doing.

 

[rgames]

I pursued it for a while and made some good money (though I never broke six figures in a single year). The problem for me was I hated what I was writing. It was fun at first but then it just became a job, like cutting grass or working on an assembly line. I still work with a few libraries but I write probably 10% of what I used to.

If it's just a job, there are vastly better ways to make money, so why bother? If you're in it for the artistic aspect, well, good luck. That path is usually done in the opposite order: first build your base as an artist then use that leverage to secure licensing deals.

So, yes, you can make money writing for libraries. To do so requires networking, quantity and luck. Quality (whatever that is) is not a factor. But the number of people who do that in a way that is not mind-numbing is very small.

However, there's no reason not to try. That's the great thing about library music: it's easy to get in and out. There's no real capital investment, no real risk, and you can make money with any kind of experience. So sure, give it a shot. Maybe you're one of the few who winds up enjoying it.

 

[NekujaK]

My most profitable track to date, is a little piece of filler music I knocked out in a couple of hours to fill up an album. It's one chord, relentlessly repetitive, and has no motif - everything a production track shouldn't be. But it's gotten more placements across multiple shows, networks, and commercials, than any of my more carefully crafted pieces, and is still going strong.

I don't take particular pride in this track and definitely don't consider it my best work. But I do believe library music is less about what we composers consider to be "good" music, and more about what is ultimately most USEFUL to clients.

Maybe simpler tracks are easier for editors to work with, or maybe simple pieces are more focused in conveying a single emotion... who knows? It's impossible to predict with 100% accuracy what will appeal to the listening audience, which is part of the fun of it all.

 

[jbuhler]

But I do believe library music is less about what we composers consider to be "good" music, and more about what is ultimately most USEFUL to clients.

That’s the rub, what’s useful to the clients, and it seems that it is primarily luck that determines it since these sorts of stories—this piece I knocked out in a few minutes work is my most placed cue—seem ubiquitous. If it was easy as all that, knowing what’s going to be useful in that way to clients, people would be knocking that sort of stuff out all the time. To an outsider it’s fascinating and resembles the “luck” of pop songs.

 

[NekujaK]

That’s the rub, what’s useful to the clients, and it seems that it is primarily luck that determines it since these sorts of stories—this piece I knocked out in a few minutes work is my most placed cue—seem ubiquitous. If it was easy as all that, knowing what’s going to be useful in that way to clients, people would be knocking that sort of stuff out all the time. To an outsider it’s fascinating and resembles the “luck” of pop songs.

Luck and unpredictability are a significant factor in any creative medium.

When I used to do portrait photography, clients would invariably select what I thought were the most unflattering and poorly composed shots. This behavior was so prevalent that I finally quit doing professional photography out of sheer frustration and lack of satisfaction.

When composing for film, I've submitted simple mockups of musical ideas to film directors, and often found myself bewildered by the choices they made.

Art is so very sunjective and affects people on an emotional level, which makes it impossible to know for certain what a client or audience will respond to.

Library music tries to mitigate some of this unpredictability with well-defined musical structures and bankable genres, but still, surprises happen all the time!

 

[jbuhler]

Library music tries to mitigate some of this unpredictability with well-defined musical structures and bankable genres, but still, surprises happen all the time!

From the stories, it seems they happen most of the time. It's also why it seems like it's basically a numbers game.

I think there is an important component to this in not really being able to fully anticipate someone else's use in the abstract. That's one reason these dumb little pieces that are added to a collection as an afterthought so often end up doing better than the better crafted numbers in the same collection. And yet I'd say there was almost certainly something that led to the decision to include the piece, even as an afterthought, so not exactly luck, and more like an inchoate intuition...

Also these stories of the piece tossed off without much thought doing better than all the well crafted pieces make for entertaining little stories, and they have the power to suppress the regular (if not spectacular) success of the well crafted work as well as all the tossed off pieces that do just as well as you'd expect a piece tossed off in a few minutes to do. That's the nature of story telling...

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

It was fun at first but then it just became a job, like cutting grass or working on an assembly line. I still work with a few libraries but I write probably 10% of what I used to.

That’s another big reason why I wouldn’t pursue this full time. I now just submit music based on briefs I receive…if it’s in a genre I actually enjoy. Zero pressure, and fulfilling to some degree.