# How to write 52 cues in a year



## Markrs (Jan 8, 2022)

A Composer of library music has documented his process to write at least 52 cues a year. In fact he wrote 134 accepted cues in 2021. In his end of year video he talks about techniques you can adopt to do the same.









I have to admit to be a bit staggered how prolific at lot of library composers are.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

If writing bespoke music for a tv series on a deadline, a cue like "Smoke and Mirrors" in his first video should take no more than a few hours. (Maybe it did, I can't imagine it took a whole week.) Even with recording live acoustic guitar and dulcimer, you'd have to have it mixed and printed before dinner or you'd already be behind schedule on the first day! 

What's that line from Get Shorty? "It's only the third day and we're already two weeks behind schedule!"

Nothing motivates like the terror of an impending mix deadline....


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## Selfinflicted (Jan 8, 2022)

Is he doing these tracks on top of a regular workload? That might make more sense?

For me, 50 cues is a pretty common thing for a feature film (60-80 min music) and I usually get 8-12 weeks there. Tv is more of a crunch. An episode average every 2 weeks with 30-40 min per ep. Not unheard of to get less than 2 weeks on some eps, as well.


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## MarkusS (Jan 8, 2022)

I think he ment 52 cues “per month” through the whole year.


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## NoamL (Jan 8, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> If writing bespoke music for a tv series on a deadline, a cue like "Smoke and Mirrors" in his first video should take no more than a few hours. (Maybe it did, I can't imagine it took a whole week.) Even with recording live acoustic guitar and dulcimer, you'd have to have it mixed and printed before dinner or you'd already be behind schedule on the first day!
> 
> What's that line from Get Shorty? "It's only the third day and we're already two weeks behind schedule!"
> 
> Nothing motivates like the terror of an impending mix deadline....


Yeah it's not very kind, but his 1 cue per week is far behind TV schedules.

Trevor Morris has a video about how he schedules 6 minutes of writing per day - that's _net _6 minutes of _written, approved, sent to orchestration, sweetened/recorded, mixed, exported, delivered, no more work left to do music_, every day until the schedule is done. Which blows my mind. That doesn't seem possible for a polyphonic orchestral score. But JW certainly writes 2+ minutes a day of short score. I think a tv composer working on their own could set a 2 to 3 minutes per day schedule for a lighter score, and maybe the same for a heavier orchestral score if they had an orchestration/synthestration assistant or team. I've been part of small teams where we were able to crank out net 4-5 minutes of dense orchestral score in a crunch time day... 6 would be frightening....

John Powell had a line in some interview where he said his writing pace is "between four and negative two" minutes per day! Which is hilarious but very realistic. There are those days that are just total wastes where you realize entire chunks of the score are not working.

And then there's approvals and revisions...


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## J-M (Jan 8, 2022)

NoamL said:


> Yeah it's not very kind, but his 1 cue per week is far behind TV schedules.
> 
> Trevor Morris has a video about how he schedules 6 minutes of writing per day - that's _net _6 minutes of _written, approved, sent to orchestration, sweetened/recorded, mixed, exported, delivered, no more work left to do music_, every day until the schedule is done.


Yeah, when I saw that video my jaw dropped to the floor. I mean, it's not like there's any other choice really, the music gotta be there when the episode airs, but it's still a pretty amazing thing to hear. The workflow of TV composers sure is something else...


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## davidson (Jan 8, 2022)

I haven't watched the full video but I think this guy writes library music, not tv/film score.


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> If writing bespoke music for a tv series on a deadline, a cue like "Smoke and Mirrors" in his first video should take no more than a few hours. (Maybe it did, I can't imagine it took a whole week.) Even with recording live acoustic guitar and dulcimer, you'd have to have it mixed and printed before dinner or you'd already be behind schedule on the first day!
> 
> What's that line from Get Shorty? "It's only the third day and we're already two weeks behind schedule!"
> 
> Nothing motivates like the terror of an impending mix deadline....


What's the most amount of cues you've written in a day?

And bonus question... Is it true that you travel to and from your house and studio on a tricycle like the one from Saw? 😂


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

Selfinflicted said:


> Is he doing these tracks on top of a regular workload? That might make more sense?
> 
> For me, 50 cues is a pretty common thing for a feature film (60-80 min music) and I usually get 8-12 weeks there. Tv is more of a crunch. An episode average every 2 weeks with 30-40 min per ep. Not unheard of to get less than 2 weeks on some eps, as well.


Yeah, most of my network series were 23 episodes in 26 weeks, so basically one week per episode with a week off here and there when it's the playoffs or olympics or whatever. And always it seemed to be 40 cues, with 44 minutes of score for a 42 minute run time!

I did a few "limited series" where a "season" was just ten episodes, and then we'd have at least two weeks per - but the brief was always, "We're making miniature features here, so this ain't like normal tv". Urggh. That meant more of a full-court press with more stems and more elaborate production, so now we're doing half-length features in two weeks. 

Oof.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

MarkusS said:


> I think he ment 52 cues “per month” through the whole year.


That would make more sense. As it would if he's cramming those library cues in between other gigs or day jobs or whatever. I just thought, "A week to do *that*? Must be nice..."


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## wunderflo (Jan 8, 2022)

with all due respect to the professionals posting here... I appreciate reading your insights and it's of course important to know what the requirements of doing this professionally look like (very scary/impressive), but this wasn't asked here. There's a guy who's happy that he wrote 134 published cues for libraries - which are 134 more than I wrote - and your first reactions are, "but I write way more" or "composer XY writes way more" or "but this would never be enough for a TV composer". Maybe he's happy with those 134? Maybe that works perfectly fine for him? He's not bragging, but he explains the process, which is quite valuable and interesting to me. The process is what's important. It can always be scaled later. Those reactions are quite angst-inducing and at least destructive, as it'll only cause writers block and procrastination for many people. I realize that pace and quantity are super important if you want to make a living with this, but they are 0 important to the world of music on the whole. If there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's more music that doesn't have anything to say (paraphrasing Schönberg, I believe?).


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

jononotbono said:


> What's the most amount of cues you've written in a day?
> 
> And bonus question... Is it true that you travel to and from your house and studio on a tricycle like the one from Saw? 😂


I would use the tricycle, but there are stairs involved, so...

But my studio is about 30 feet from my front door, so at least I don't always need shoes (or pants!).

As to a per-day pace, I agree with John Powell - somewhere between four and negative two! Seriously though, if I'm starting completely from scratch and not re-purposing old cues, I can blast through 4 two-minute lightweight tv cues in a day, or six shorties+stingers, but when it comes to big six-minute action-movie beatdowns (like Pig Truck or Wax Angie) that's never a one-day thing. One day to lay it out and assemble elements, another day to finish it and mix - if I'm lucky. Some cues take four days, but they're the ones that are super-elaborate and fill a LOT of run time. (Actually I think Pig Truck took four days because I went a little overboard auditioning and tweaking string ostinatos.)

But if it's season five of a network series and I have 3,000 pre-existing cues to pillage and repurpose - tracking some by just editing the audio of stems and not even booting up the actual MIDI - then I can cover 15-20 minutes in a day, and I had to maintain that pace when I had two series running at full steam. But then again I'm suuuuuuper organized with naming and how I store pre-existing music, so if I need to find the stems for a different version of an often-used cue, just to get a different reverse-suck ending sting, I can have it in the timeline in under five seconds. 

Even when tracking a cue from the stems of a previous version, I did all my audio editing inside my template, so if I needed to add just one piano note or a bit of strings to bridge a gap or fix a goofy edit, all my sounds were right there. Pre-existing stems went direct to the stem outputs, bypassing the per-stem mastering fx (since they'd already been through those fx before) while all VI tracks went through the per-stem fx. So everything blended perfectly and any new parts didn't sound like they were laid "on top of" the pre-existing stems. Works great.

So I'd hack and chop those things that could be hacked and chopped, overdub where needed, and go from scratch on those things that had to be fresh. I still barely made it each week, but I never missed a deadline....

....and I never will.


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## babylonwaves (Jan 8, 2022)

crunch time is really when you think back of the days when you were making the template. I'm doing mostly shows, mostly automotive and for instance we hadn't have an approval for a video 10hrs before the show started. so, you sit down at 2am (the show is an a different time zone) and you write new music for a video you will progressively see, in an total of 4hrs to end up with 1min of audio. but I think I'd have a hard time to work under similar conditions the whole time like some TV/Film guys do.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> with all due respect to the professionals posting here... I appreciate reading your insights and it's of course important to know what the requirements of doing this professionally look like (very scary/impressive), but this wasn't asked here. There's a guy who's happy that he wrote 134 published cues for libraries - which are 134 more than I wrote - and your first reactions are, "but I write way more" or "composer XY writes way more" or "but this would never be enough for a TV composer". Maybe he's happy with those 134? Maybe that works perfectly fine for him? He's not bragging, but he explains the process, which is quite valuable and interesting to me. The process is what's important. It can always be scaled later. Those reactions are quite angst-inducing and at least destructive, as it'll only cause writers block and procrastination for many people. I realize that pace and quantity are super important if you want to make a living with this, but they are 0 important to the world of music on the whole. If there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's more music that doesn't have anything to say.


Oh I get that. And getting 134 pickups in a year is a good thing no matter how you look at it. I was only commenting on that particular cue he demonstrated and the tagline of "I wrote a cue per week for a year". 

With that in mind, even three per week of cues like that is a leisurely pace for sure. Probably has time to go to the gym and have a life too, curse him!


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## Stephen Limbaugh (Jan 8, 2022)

NoamL said:


> John Powell had a line in some interview where he said his writing pace is "between four and negative two" minutes per day!


Ha. I'm at like, 45seconds to negative 4mins, handily beating one of the top pros.


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## wunderflo (Jan 8, 2022)

I really have the utmost respect for people who are super productive with their time and have a huge output. I also have utmost respect for people who choose not to put their music production under time pressure or any other creative compromises by earning their money in other ways (and I even know people who work full time in some stressful non-music day-job AND manage to still have an enormous musical output - in terms of quantity and quality). The guy in the video says that, too, but comes to the only right conclusion that there's no sense in comparing him to any of those other people. That's why I found it funny/weird that the first replies here were comparisons.

I just always react a little allergic when so much focus is put on speed, even though I understand it's a necessity for professionals. I come from the hip-hop world and there you've always had those discussions:
"I produced this beat in 10 minutes"
"Oh really? I would have produced it in 5!"
That always left me thinking: I'd actually be way more likely to listen to it if you had told me that you put 10 years of your life into making this.
Growing up I realize that this also doesn't make much sense. The time and effort artists put into their work doesn't really matter. It's all about the end result.

I'm just sometimes wondering why artists are doing this to themselves.. turning this wonderful thing called music into something as horrible as a sports competition.


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> I would use the tricycle, but there are stairs involved, so...
> 
> But my studio is about 30 feet from my front door, so at least I don't always need shoes (or pants!).
> 
> ...


Always love your music which I'm curious about output of how much you write, create, conjure every day! We all have a "vault" but I can only imagine yours is immense. You know, the difference of someone making a template with 500 tracks and thinking its biblical whilst others just drink their coffee waiting for 15k tracks to load kind of thing. You must be amazing at coming up with patch and one shot names 😂

"As to a per-day pace, I agree with John Powell - somewhere between four and negative two!"

Its so refreshing to hear one of the biggest saying such honesty. I mean, some days are just different to others.

When you have to revise older material, years back, obviously you have backups of everything, but can you remember everything or do you trust in organisation that's set in stone from one year to the next of writing? Its a blessing that its all backed up but I can imagine it could be a nightmare looking for specific things. Especially as tech changes. No doubt you have a Matrix chair you sit in and upload everything into your head as you read the paper each morning. Having a massive accessible archive of your own work, to use on anything you want (excluding any copyrighted stuff), must speed up how many cues you can write. Makes so much sense. And the benefits are, it's your vibe and must avoid temp love when you can access so much music. Sorry, this is sounding like a deposition! 

I'm a little disappointed about the Tricycle situation. Fuck it. Consider it done. When I have good year, I'm paying for a ramp to be fitted. 😂


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## Selfinflicted (Jan 8, 2022)

This thread was posted under the ‘working in the industry’ section. Seems like posting about our experience doing so is appropriate. My own experience is that is best to be able to both work quickly when required as well as dig deep when required. If you’re just shoveling sh!t all the time, then sh!t has a way of finding you. But, if you can dig deep at times and do something interesting while delivering, then people tend to call back, and even bigger calls come.

My own interests and most of my experience is doing film and tv. If you want to do that, it’s just the nature of the beast that you will be required to work fairly quickly.

But, it’s good to get different people’s experience and perspective. I’m not belittling this guy. Sounds like he’s found a way to make things work for him and he’s cool enough to share it with people.


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## JonS (Jan 8, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> If writing bespoke music for a tv series on a deadline, a cue like "Smoke and Mirrors" in his first video should take no more than a few hours. (Maybe it did, I can't imagine it took a whole week.) Even with recording live acoustic guitar and dulcimer, you'd have to have it mixed and printed before dinner or you'd already be behind schedule on the first day!
> 
> What's that line from Get Shorty? "It's only the third day and we're already two weeks behind schedule!"
> 
> Nothing motivates like the terror of an impending mix deadline....


Writing for a tv series is an entire different galaxy of pressure where sleeping is often not allowed. I used to write 42 minutes of finished original music to picture in just 7 days and had to do this week after week. As more themes are created the series can get a little more palatable the more episodes get done, but unless someone has gone through that experience it is hard to convey what it is like to work 7 days a week where a typical work day is 18-20 hours and usually I would do 1-2 24 hour all nighters per week as well, but there are no days off as you are working 7 days a week, week after week, and you only wish there were more hours in a day. You simply cannot ever get behind as you must complete about 6 finished minutes of original music every single day without fail.


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

JonS said:


> Writing for a tv series is an entire different galaxy of pressure where sleeping is often not allowed. I used to write 42 minutes of finished original music to picture in just 7 days and had to do this week after week. As more themes are created the series can get a little more palatable the more episodes get done, but unless someone has gone through that experience it is hard to convey what it is like to work 7 days a week where a typical work day is 18-20 hours and usually I would do 1-2 24 hour all nighters per week as well, but there are no days off as you are working 7 days a week, week after week, and you only wish there were more hours in a day. You simply cannot ever get behind as you must complete about 6 finished minutes of original music every single day without fail.


Have you got any of your music online? Would love to hear it man. Always love hearing what people write under the gun!


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## dgburns (Jan 8, 2022)

Time - Creativity - Productivity - Strange bedfellows do they make. 

Time is the strange one. Time can bring perspective, but too much of it can be bad.


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## JonS (Jan 8, 2022)

jononotbono said:


> Have you got any of your music online? Would love to hear it man. Always love hearing what people write under the gun!


You may be able to find something but nothing I placed since its all work for hire gigs and I don't control the IP.


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

JonS said:


> You may be able to find something but nothing I placed since its all work for hire gigs and I don't control the IP.


So... What films or TV shows then? I'll check them out and your music of course! I don't usually listen to film or TV scores without picture anyway so this is perfect!


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## Markrs (Jan 8, 2022)

Live reading the responses too this topic. There is me impressed with him writing 134 cues in a year and realising many of you are writing up to 4 cues a day!

What a crazy profession this is and clearly no one would do it if you didn't love it!


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## Markrs (Jan 8, 2022)

I wonder how artists like Charlie or Danny Elfman that used to write music for their bands where you might put out an album one every couple of years, get to the point of writing a TV episode of music per week.

Whilst I understand that a cue would need a lot less work than a song might, but to write 23 mins of music per week is such a huge change in output.

I wonder if it was a culture shock the first time they scored a TV series of film?


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Live reading the responses too this topic. There is me impressed with him writing 134 cues in a year and realising many of you are writing up to 4 cues a day!
> 
> What a crazy profession this is and clearly no one would do it if you didn't love it!


Why are you not writing 24 hrs of music every DAY! Every YEAR! Get the fuck off this forum and back in the lab. Now!  x


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> I'm just sometimes wondering why artists are doing this to themselves.. turning this wonderful thing called music into such a horrible thing as a sports competition.


Well, I've been a part of a band that famously took years to do an album. (Okay, it was a double-album, but still...).

Four band members led by a bona-fide genius, two sound designers, a world-renowned producer/engineer, an assistant engineer, a studio manager, a receptionist, a dog-walker, a personal assistant, a manager and his staff (that had only a single client), and a couple of utility dudes, locked in a massive private facility with five programming suites, a live room, a Studio B, and a Studio A with a massive SSL 4k, two Studer machines, and literally every single synth, rack unit, guitar pedal, mountain bike, and jet ski that money could buy....

... working to turn 120+ sketches into 23 finished songs for years. Literal years. Was it three years? Five? Who can even say. Just by looking at the date stamps on the files it took longer than that. And cost? Literally nobody knows. Millions. Ten at least.

Some days that entire multi-million dollar operation, which was spraying cash out the door like a leaf-blower in a bank vault, would accomplish only a single usable synth bass part. Sometimes even less.

So I know all about taking your time, being careful, curating, refining, whittling... whatever you want to call it. We second-guessed, argued, threw things away and started over.... and it was all absolutely worth it. If it had taken a week less than it did it wouldn't have been as good. And like they say:

"Art is never finished, it is only abandoned."

But not every project can support such levels of excess and care, and to be frank, not every project is "worth" that. Some of it is just background music for a little light entertainment. The tv industry didn't arrive at a schedule of "one week per episode" unreasonably - that's all the time that needs (deserves) to be spent on that kind of music. They know you can pull it off, because others have, and so you do.

My mentor once uttered a maxim which has stuck with me - "When you're working on music it is in a gaseous state, and will expand to fill all of the time allotted to it." If you have a month, it will take a month. If you have a week it will take a week. And it always does. 

Plus, once you get to a point where you've done this, that, and the other so many times, and built a library of ideas, techniques, tools, sounds, samples, templates, presets, spare batteries for the pedals, empty drives for the backups, blah blah blah... it gets easier to move faster when needed. I spend a ton of time between gigs sharpening and polishing the knives, making sure they're in their little holders and sorted by size, so I can quick-draw when the battle starts. After a while you get to feel like a Sherpa who's climbed Everest forty times, and knows the north route, the south route, and how to read the weather so you can make it to the summit by noon and enjoy the view for a few minutes before you have to head back. Plow through the simple stuff so you can stroke your chin and experiment where it will do the most good.

And that's kind of the point. To get to a place where you can move quickly on some stuff so you can take more time with other stuff. That's not to say that anything gets blown-off or half-assed - it's all whole-assed. But some things just don't need to be hard, and they really aren't. If a scene just needs a few wispy tendrils of light emotion followed by a darker conclusion, that's a matter of a few hours, tops. Then you can spend four days fiddling with the strings on the six-minute action cue.

When you're on episode 103 and you just need two minutes of a light comedy caper groove with some standup bass, a bit of shaker and conga, one spooky sound and a wurlitzer part with a hint of inquisitiveness... sheeeeit, load up the template and knock it out in two hours. It's fun to spend all week / month / year on a piece of music, but it's also fun to lay down the sick basslines on the first pass, sit back and enjoy it for a minute, and move on to the next. 

Music is more like food than sculpture - it gets consumed. The maw of the listener has a never-ending hunger, its thirst is without limit. 

And that's the goal, to get to the point that good results can come quickly when they need to. After 30+ years behind the controls it does get easier. 

Life (and deadlines) are too short to spend all day on some things.


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## jononotbono (Jan 8, 2022)

@Rctec So... We all know you're a sadist but... the question stands... "why do you do this to yourself?" Your answer better be better than Charlie's (and his is pretty exceptional).

Also... What's the most amount of cues you have written in a day (that didn't get approved). 😂


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

jononotbono said:


> You must be amazing at coming up with patch and one shot names 😂


Having an internal, in-house, private language / terminology / vocabulary has always been a big part of my process, and a big factor in whether I can collaborate with certain people. Communication and language skills (which I definitely have) are as important as musical skills (which I don't really have). Guys like Trent and Danny Lohner and I always were able to get on the same level in that way, so we'd describe a certain brash wavetable synth blast as a "Cube" (like the sound on 808 State's single "Cubik"), a certain dull but long kick drum as a "Boof", a resonant noise whistle as a "Coco-Puff" etc. Those terms become permanently associated with a character of sound, and have carried through to this day - so any civilian looking at the file names in my sample library would be like, "TF is this?"



jononotbono said:


> When you have to revise older material, years back, obviously you have backups of everything, but can you remember everything or do you trust in organisation that's set in stone from one year to the next of writing? Its a blessing that its all backed up but I can imagine it could be a nightmare looking for specific things. Especially as tech changes. No doubt you have a Matrix chair you sit in and upload everything into your head as you read the paper each morning. Having a massive accessible archive of your own work, to use on anything you want (excluding any copyrighted stuff), must speed up how many cues you can write. Makes so much sense. And the benefits are, it's your vibe and must avoid temp love when you can access so much music. Sorry, this is sounding like a deposition!


I sort every piece of music I do into categories, just in case there's a sequel... but definitely if it's a tv series. So, for instance on the series Numb3rs, which was an FBI procedural drama with a awkward-humorous B-story and a warm-family-vibe C-story, and that ran for 100+ episodes, I created a "Mixes - Sorted" folder structure that looked something like this:

•* FIELD WORK *(this is when FBI agents are not at headquarters)
- Crimes In Progress (like the actual bank heist or kidnapping or whatever)
- Agents On Scene (after the crime when the agents are at the crime scene)
- Running Down Leads (going to interview the liquor store guy or whatever)
- Stakeouts (duh)

• *FBI HEADQUARTERS
*- Uncovering Evidence (usually staring at ballistics graphs on the computer screen or whatever)
- Interrogations (grilling the suspect, but in act two where he's not the guy so he doesn't confess)
- Confessions (grilling the suspect, but in act five where he IS the guy and he breaks and confesses)
- Charlie Visions (a character named Charlie would have "A Beautiful Mind" visions with numbers flying around)

• *COLLEGE CAMPUS* (the character named Charlie taught at a college and those cues had a lighter feel)
- Explaining Theories (the wheels in his head are turning and he explains crimes using math)
- Awkward Humor (he and Peter McNichol's character were doofuses and awkward/funny moments occurred)
- Warm Setups (the outdoor walk-n-talks just to set the campus mood)
- Lovey Dovey (Charlie was always in some sort of campus romance so that was a different vibe)

• *HOME AND HEARTH* (the FBI agent and math geek were brothers and lived with their dad Judd Hirsch)
- Warm Emotions (when they're talking about emotional stuff like the dead mother or divorce or stuff)
- Family Time (when they're lightly arguing about who left the garden hose unravelled or whatever)
- Nice Life (when it's all good and it's a backyard barbecue or something)
- Dinner Cases (when they're talking about FBI cases over dinner, so not heavy but not light)

• *WILD CARDS and OFF-TOPIC *(this was where I'd stick stuff like the one-off Chinese restaurant cue, the fake hip-hop needle drop from the homeboy's car stereo, etc. Basically a dumping ground for uncategorized cues)

Those aren't the exact names, but close enough. The stereo mix of every single cue would get sorted into these folders. The first time I'd write a cue from scratch it would get a new folder called "[cue title] - [tempo]-[key]" so an "Uncovering Evidence in the FBI Headquarters" cue called "Code Book" that was at 102 bpm in D# would get a folder named "Code Book - 102-D#", and I'd stick that folder inside FBI HEADQUARTERS > Uncovering Evidence. Then, as I did more cues that were descended from that starting point, their mixes would get dumped into the Code Book folder. If it was a version that was made from a new version of the original MIDI, I'd color the file GREEN (meaning Good To Go!), and if it was a version I made by just editing other mixes together, and therefore had no corresponding Logic project, I'd color it RED (meaning, Warning! No Logic Project Exists!)

So at any point I could look in the Code Book folder and see the stereo mixes for ALL of the cues that were based on that original starting point and would therefore be easy to splice together into a new version very quickly. I could also tell, based on the color of the files, if there was a corresponding Logic project for each of them, or whether they were just "orphans" that had been made by editing previous mixes together.

The original Logic projects were in each per-episode folder. The stereo mixes were in a "Mixes" folder inside each per-episode folder, and duplicates of those mixes were what went into the "Mixes - Sorted" folders described above.

Of course, every cue had a completely unique name, and unique cue title. There was never a cue called "Car Chase" or "Bank Heist" or any other generic term that might happen more than once. It was always super-short but super-descriptive titles like "Code Book" or "Charm Boys" that would call to mind exactly the scene it went with, even years later. A typical file name for Numb3rs, season 3, episode nine, act four, the thirty-third cue in the episode, titled "Short Dawgs" would be "Ns309-4m33-Short Dawgs". Easy. One glance in the Mixes - Sorted folder would tell me whether there was a corresponding Logic project (based on the color of the file) and where in the per-episode folders to find it. 

But here's the smart bit - after every episode I'd update the servers that the picture editors kept the music library on, so when they were building a temp score for each episode they'd have the complete library of all of our previous cues, sorted and categorized exactly as described above.

*THEY LOVED THIS. *

It made their job of building a temp score so much easier. What's this scene? A walk-n-talk on campus before we get into talking about the crime? Great, go into COLLEGE CAMPUS > Warm Setups and pick a sub-folder, and that sub-folder will contain dozens of permutations of a single piece of music, all in the same key and at the same tempo, so they'll chop together in a jiffy. The editors and even the show runner would get to know the cue families by name, so in a spotting session they might say, "Let's stick a Code Book cue on this scene". After each episode locked they'd send me an EDL printout as a PDF so I could see what cues they'd used to build their temp, and start by replicating and then improving on what had already been done.

I take a similar approach with the SAW franchise and every project I do. Makes life so much easier.



jononotbono said:


> I'm a little disappointed about the Tricycle situation. Fuck it. Consider it done. When I have good year, I'm paying for a ramp to be fitted. 😂


Don't want to make my job TOO easy, do we?


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## Markrs (Jan 8, 2022)

It is amazing how organised you need to me. it also makes sense because if you work at pace you can’t afford to lose time by having to find things or sort through previous work. I imagine most composers have a system like this to reduce down low value activities so you have more time on core composition.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 8, 2022)

Markrs said:


> I wonder how artists like Charlie or Danny Elfman that used to write music for their bands where you might put out an album one every couple of years, get to the point of writing a TV episode of music per week.
> 
> Whilst I understand that a cue would need a lot less work than a song might, but to write 23 mins of music per week is such a huge change in output.
> 
> I wonder if it was a culture shock the first time they scored a TV series of film?


I was lucky in that even before I got involved with NIN, I had been the programmer on the CBS series The Equalizer (the original, with Edward Woodward back in the eighties). So we were churning out 42 minutes for 23 episodes on a Mac Plus with Southworth Total Music and a rack of hardware synths (no hard drive recording back then!). So I had already been on the firing line and got to see how the sausage gets made quickly.

Then came 15 years of spending luxurious amounts of time (and money) on records. But in 2001 I quit NIN and went back to the wonderful world of scoring, starting with tv. In a way it was a relief. Agonizing over The Fragile and spending sooooo much time and effort on a hi-hat part was starting to get to me - so I moved on. 

When it's my own music, I can make decisions very quickly. Most of the time I can commit right then and live with it. This is very different to working upstairs in my lair trying to add elements to what Trent's doing downstairs, second-guessing and comparing my vibe to the song in progress, taking elements he's done and manipulating them, etc. Different strokes and all that....

So it was great fun to get a cheap-n-cheerful, "fun" series like Las Vegas, a slightly more serious series like Numb3rs, and then the SAW franchise which was much more detailed and elaborate, more like making NIN records. I still like doing each type of music, some where you just blast it out and have a ball, some where you are more serious but there isn't time to get too crazy, and some where it's balls-out insanity. I wouldn't want to give up any one of the three facets, so that's why I'm happy to do stuff in each of those categories. Well-rounded and all that.

I used to describe the music for Las Vegas, which had some serious "there's a bomb in the casino" stuff but also had a lot of "Electro Ocean's Eleven Remix" type stuff, as "doing wheelies on a rented moped in Key West". You look goofy in your shorts and flip-flops, and you might not want your bad-ass buddies back home to see you doing it or post the video on FaceBook, but... dang if it isn't fun when you're doing it! I had a blast on that show, doing goofball jazzy caper music, which I had no idea how to do - and that made it even more fun.


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## antsteep (Jan 8, 2022)

@charlieclouser 
Do you work with an assistant does your organisational regime cover for that need?


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## Markrs (Jan 9, 2022)

Thank you Charlie (@charlieclouser), I know responding on a forum can take quite a bit of time but I don’t think I am the only one that really appreciates it. It is wonderful to get a slice of someone else’s world, one in which most of us will never inhabit (I have been a User Experience Designer for 20 years and love it).

BTW when I was young I use to love the Equalizer, one of my favourite shows back then (Edward Woodward was perfect for the role) and it blows my mind that you were the synth programmer on it! I hasn’t even realised that Stewart Copland of The Police had written the theme tune. I can still remember that time to this day!


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## StevenMcDonald (Jan 9, 2022)

If I remember correctly, that thing that sparked the idea of Dave's "52 Cues" vlog was from Dan Graham's book on library music. The idea of writing one track per week was essentially aimed at complete beginners trying to get into the production music field, which means probably working around day jobs. So 52 a year isn't too bad of a goal at that phase, especially if you fully utilize the week's worth of time! It's definitely not comparable to anyone working on TV shows, but it seems like a good way to build some consistency and self discipline while accumulating a catalog of cues!


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## Soundbed (Jan 9, 2022)

StevenMcDonald said:


> If I remember correctly, that thing that sparked the idea of Dave's "52 Cues" vlog was from Dan Graham's book on library music. The idea of writing one track per week was essentially aimed at complete beginners trying to get into the production music field, which means probably working around day jobs. So 52 a year isn't too bad of a goal at that phase, especially if you fully utilize the week's worth of time! It's definitely not comparable to anyone working on TV shows, but it seems like a good way to build some consistency and self discipline while accumulating a catalog of cues!





MarkusS said:


> I think he ment 52 cues “per month” through the whole year.


Yeah it’s one cue per week, and the inspiration for his Facebook group 52 Cues was Dan Graham’s book. Dan’s point is that with about 52 really solid, quality library cues per year, in the right libraries and working well for you, after a few years you’ll probably be able to quit your day job and go full time, because your royalties will begin meeting your day job’s income (in many countries). Dan does focus on the concept of quality a lot. 

BUT I am super glad @charlieclouser took some time for a mini masterclass on his process for scoring to tv picture!


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## d.healey (Jan 9, 2022)

What makes it a "cue" and not a "piece"? I thought a cue was a tv/movie sync thing.


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## SupremeFist (Jan 9, 2022)

Markrs said:


> BTW when I was young I use to love the Equalizer, one of my favourite shows back then (Edward Woodward was perfect for the role) and it blows my mind that you were the synth programmer on it! I hasn’t even realised that Stewart Copland of The Police had written the theme tune. I can still remember that time to this day!


Me too, loved that show and the music, which seemed to my young self very avant-garde at the time (and probably was!). 🤘🏻


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## Pier (Jan 9, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> I'm just sometimes wondering why artists are doing this to themselves.. turning this wonderful thing called music into such a horrible thing as a sports competition.


Around 2011 I wrote music for a TV show here in Mexico delivering two 40 mins episodes per week. Yeah... it was hell. I won't go into details since I've already shared that in other threads here on VIC, but I wanted to comment on your point.

After that nightmare, I stopped writing any music. It's been over 10 years and I still haven't written anything other than stupid loops (and a demo for my last library for Zebra). I still play with synths, of course but that TV experience destroyed all my musical aspirations.

I'm glad some people can make a living writing for TV, but it's definitely not for everyone.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

antsteep said:


> @charlieclouser
> Do you work with an assistant does your organisational regime cover for that need?


I had an assistant for a few years when I had two shows running, but he mostly did the runs to PF Changs... but in that same era I did have two full rigs running, so I had an old musician friend who's a programming whiz come up each week to spend a day helping to set up any cues that were being repurposed and another day overdubbing guitars and stuff on new cues.

So it wasn't really the normal assistant scenario I see a lot of composers have, and not at all like what guys like Blake Neely have, with multiple rooms running in parallel - but then I wasn't doing eight shows at once either!

These days I don't have a full-time assistant - I've slowed my pace considerably and I'm usually only doing one gig at a time.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Thank you Charlie (@charlieclouser), I know responding on a forum can take quite a bit of time but I don’t think I am the only one that really appreciates it. It is wonderful to get a slice of someone else’s world, one in which most of us will never inhabit (I have been a User Experience Designer for 20 years and love it).
> 
> BTW when I was young I use to love the Equalizer, one of my favourite shows back then (Edward Woodward was perfect for the role) and it blows my mind that you were the synth programmer on it! I hasn’t even realised that Stewart Copland of The Police had written the theme tune. I can still remember that time to this day!


Yeah, The Equalizer was a cool show - and a cool gig for a young synth punk plucked off the sales floor at Sam Ash 48th street! Stewart had scored the first few seasons and the composer that hired me was brought in to do the final season. I was like, "You mean I'm going to get a thousand dollars a week? *Every *week?!? Hell yeah!" In 1986 you could live pretty well on that in Manhattan, not sure about now though...


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Yeah it’s one cue per week, and the inspiration for his Facebook group 52 Cues was Dan Graham’s book. Dan’s point is that with about 52 really solid, quality library cues per year, in the right libraries and working well for you, after a few years you’ll probably be able to quit your day job and go full time, because your royalties will begin meeting your day job’s income (in many countries). Dan does focus on the concept of quality a lot.
> 
> BUT I am super glad @charlieclouser took some time for a mini masterclass on his process for scoring to tv picture!


Well, I didn't mean to disparage what that guy does or the helpful information he's sharing, just adding some info from the other side (dark side?). And any info from someone who's doing library music is going to be helpful to folks wondering if they're moving too slowly or not "doing it right". 

Actually, I can't imagine doing library cues - I need picture to score against so I have a roadmap to work from - otherwise I'd probably not even be able to finish one cue a week!


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

SupremeFist said:


> Me too, loved that show and the music, which seemed to my young self very avant-garde at the time (and probably was!). 🤘🏻


The composer that hired me to work on The Equalizer was an ex-record producer from Australia named Cameron Allan (sadly he died a few years ago), and we shared a love of art-rock music like Byrne+Eno, Roxy Music, and stuff like that, so it was a good fit and we got on well. Again, having that common language and taste made it work in a way that it wouldn't have had he been coming from a wildly different head space than I was in at the time.


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## Ivan M. (Jan 9, 2022)

That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying. 

Could one use his talent better by earning a living from something else, and then take time to compose meaningful music that speaks. Doesn’t have to be polished at all, just to speak and have meaning. 

Then, again, in such case, probably no one will hear that music, because online portals are over-saturated and people attention is limited and has space for only a few. Such music will remain a personal satisfaction only. 

There’s no balance, or maybe it’s just me not seeing it. 

I think artificial intelligence will help with those impossible deadlines, whee a composer will just give themes and control the general direction of music, and AI will do the heavy lifting of variation, orchestration and mixing.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

Pier said:


> Around 2011 I wrote music for a TV show here in Mexico delivering two 40 mins episodes per week. Yeah... it was hell. I won't go into details since I've already shared that in other threads here on VIC, but I wanted to comment on your point.
> 
> After that nightmare, I stopped writing any music. It's been over 10 years and I still haven't written anything other than stupid loops (and a demo for my last library for Zebra). I still play with synths, of course but that TV experience destroyed all my musical aspirations.
> 
> I'm glad some people can make a living writing for TV, but it's definitely not for everyone.


I feel your pain! Doing two 40-minute episodes a week, plus a SAW movie and one other wild-card feature each summer when the shows were on hiatus - for seven years - was about my limit. When both shows ended around the same time I definitely took my foot off the gas. Now I try not to stack 'em so high and I'm a lot happier.


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## gzapper (Jan 9, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> Having an internal, in-house, private language / terminology / vocabulary has always been a big part of my process, and a big factor in whether I can collaborate with certain people. Communication and language skills (which I definitely have) are as important as musical skills (which I don't really have). Guys like Trent and Danny Lohner and I always were able to get on the same level in that way, so we'd describe a certain brash wavetable synth blast as a "Cube" (like the sound on 808 State's single "Cubik"), a certain dull but long kick drum as a "Boof", a resonant noise whistle as a "Coco-Puff" etc. Those terms become permanently associated with a character of sound, and have carried through to this day - so any civilian looking at the file names in my sample library would be like, "TF is this?"
> 
> 
> I sort every piece of music I do into categories, just in case there's a sequel... but definitely if it's a tv series. So, for instance on the series Numb3rs, which was an FBI procedural drama with a awkward-humorous B-story and a warm-family-vibe C-story, and that ran for 100+ episodes, I created a "Mixes - Sorted" folder structure that looked something like this:
> ...


This might be the single most useful post I've read on this board!
Thanks!

(speaking as someone has 200+ theatre shows with tons of cues with totally useless cue names except for the show/process)


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 9, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.
> 
> Could one use his talent better by earning a living from something else, and then take time to compose meaningful music that speaks. Doesn’t have to be polished at all, just to speak and have meaning.
> 
> ...


Seems like a very silly thing to say. There are works of art in production music, but that's not even the point... Why would you want it to be "meaningful"? Does music for TV Series need to be meaningful as well? 

There are huge, increasingly huge amounts of media that need music, and composing that music is a way for some people to earn a living doing what they love. 

Won't comment the artificial intelligence part


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

gzapper said:


> This might be the single most useful post I've read on this board!
> Thanks!


You're welcome! I took the time to write all that up mainly because it seems different to how I've seen some other episodic composers organize their work. I wanted that level of organization for my own sanity, but also because I dreaded getting a phone call from a picture editor, frantic to finish this week's temp, asking me, "Do you remember that kidnapping cue from the first half of season three? Do you remember what that was called by any chance?" Hell man, I don't remember what I had for lunch, how am I gonna remember what episode the kidnapping was in if you can't?

So I approached my cue library organization the same way I approach organizing samples, sounds, presets... with obsessive, purpose-specific categorization. And I must say, it makes life so much easier as the road gets long. It doesn't really take a lot of time either - after each cue is printed it's just a couple of seconds to option-drag the mix into the correct folder, and then a weekly remote file-sync to the picture editor's music server, usually while they're on the dub stage and I'm doing slow-breathing exercises after barely making the deadline!

A system like that definitely works better when the show is "formulaic", but both Numb3rs and Las Vegas had a formula that they followed every week for years - A-story, B-story, C-story - and a relatively fixed set of locations that those stories would take place in. So it wasn't really limiting. And that type of layout can be adapted to a wide variety of scoring situations, like limited series, movie franchises, or even a one-and-done feature. Love themes over here, action themes over there. Then if you need to reprise or refer to a piece you know just where to find it. It also makes it much easier when the gig is over and you're making a reel for the next one - if you need to pull some action cues you don't have to go digging around in the folders, trying to remember which episode had that cool kidnapping cue.

It was also really useful to separate the "Interrogations" and the "Confessions" cues. The FBI agents would always be grilling some guy in act 2 or 3 who we all thought was the kidnapper, but wasn't, and so his scene would have a very different ending with no "resolving" of the story line - an "interrogation" without a "confession". But in act 5, when they really DO have the right guy, the scene might start with what sounds like an interrogation cue but then has a lift, and a hold, and then modulates to a whole different sense of conclusion as he breaks down and is like, "Okay, I killed him, but he had it coming!" or whatever. So to my mind these were two separate types of cues even if they had similar feels. All this made it a breeze for the picture editors to build a temp that sounded right-ish and wasn't a total chop job.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 9, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.


I hear lots of music that I think is production library stuff that really works well for its purpose, and is well-crafted and sounds great. I'm guilty of watching a lot of car restoration and hot-rod-shop shows on Motor Trend tv, and I can't imagine they're all bespoke scores. They've got to be grabbing those ZZ Top sound-alike tracks from a pay-as-you-go bin each week. They usually sound pretty dang good too, with different flavors for a half-dozen shows that are basically very similar. The one set in Texas where they build outrageous custom trucks has a dirty-south, trap-hop feel, while another that's also set in Texas but they build more old-school hot-rods has a skanky rattlesnakes-in-the-desert slide guitar thing going on, and one set in Virginia has more of a vintage rock feel. Maybe they're being scored each week, or at least have a bespoke library created for them, I don't know. But there's A LOT of music in those shows - maybe not wall-to-wall underscore but still it's a lot of starts. They set the mood nicely and really do give each show its own recognizable flavor. 

In those scenarios the music doesn't have to be "meaningful", in fact it would probably be a detriment to the show if the music felt like it was trying too hard or doing too much. Even though there's always someone talking about the engine they're rebuilding that week or whatever, there does need to be music, and it needs to sound like the guys are having fun while they repair the fender on some rusty pile of junk. Some musicians are laughing all the way to the bank on those shows. They are on 24-7 on at least two channels, so there's a lot of airtime to fill for sure. If it's not royalty-free music then their BMI statements probably come on a forklift pallet.

Then there's all the crime-porn shows like The First 48, which I think has a great music package - dark and scary but very minimalist, and propels the narrative forward nicely. Again, I don't know if it's just drops from Vanacore, or a custom library, or per-episode scoring (but I doubt that it's that), but it totally works. They're 20+ seasons in on that show and it's on the air for like 12 hours every single day! 

Seems like nice work if you can get it.


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## Ivan M. (Jan 9, 2022)

@Emmanuel Rousseau @charlieclouser 

I wasn’t commenting from the perspective of business and product needs, in which case you are right, the music does the job, beautiful or not, it fills the silence. 

I was commenting from a personal, composer centric view, this seems like wasting one’s talent and creative life on meaningless noise. You’re just a cog in the junk food expendable media manufacturing machine, and after you can’t do it anymore and fall out, where will you, your music and your talent be? When years pass by, and you look back, what’s your heritage? Just thinking out loud…


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## StevenMcDonald (Jan 9, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.
> 
> Could one use his talent better by earning a living from something else, and then take time to compose meaningful music that speaks. Doesn’t have to be polished at all, just to speak and have meaning.
> 
> ...


Some people, myself included, enjoy making music even when it isn't some form of deep artistic self expression. Production music is a job. It isn't an art gallery.

Library work can indeed be really good work to have, like Charlie said above. It's silly to try to dictate how someone should spend their time and career based on your own narrow minded view of production music.


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## Soundbed (Jan 9, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> The one set in Texas where they build outrageous custom trucks has a dirty-south, trap-hop feel, while another that's also set in Texas but they build more old-school hot-rods has a skanky rattlesnakes-in-the-desert slide guitar thing going on, and one set in Virginia has more of a vintage rock feel. Maybe they're being scored each week, or at least have a bespoke library created for them, I don't know. But there's A LOT of music in those shows - maybe not wall-to-wall underscore but still it's a lot of starts. They set the mood nicely and really do give each show its own recognizable flavor.


Yeah I have this experience where we get a brief and a couple references and try to dial in on a sound for the first week, see what gets accepted by the publisher and what gets notes, then try to hone in on the various moods of the show that season for the following few weeks. We are not writing to picture. But the types of scenes for that show for that type of scene is pretty explicit. There’s usually about 6-7 moods for reality non scripted shows like: a tension, a lighter tension, a fun, an emotional, a really upbeat and an underscore.

But what you’re saying about dialing in the differences / nuances seems to be a discussion that happens between your music, the publisher and the music supervisor in these situations. My pub and the supe are talking and sometimes guiding us composers each week to continue heading in a particular musical direction. Then next season it can change if the aesthetic of the show is evolving.


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## wunderflo (Jan 9, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.
> 
> Could one use his talent better by earning a living from something else, and then take time to compose meaningful music that speaks. Doesn’t have to be polished at all, just to speak and have meaning.
> 
> ...


I think that's an interesting discussion. Should library composers be worried about AI? Or does this music also have to have some form of personal artistic expression, some kind of emotional impact, innovating quality or recognizable fingerprint that makes it unique and that requires an actual person(ality) to compose it? I'd guess, as Charlie said, its purpose is pretty much 100% functional, meaning the composers wouldn't do their job right if viewers of for example a documentary consciously noticed the music and even recognized the artist behind it.

On your question whether time and talent were better used by pursuing some day job and then working on your masterpiece at night: Basically, I think that at some point it's not really a choice anymore and that's probably the only point when it makes sense to enter this crazy industry with the self-exploitative, toxic working conditions we heard here (can only comment on that from hearsay). If music is all you want to do - even when it's not "your music", but just working in this environment & with these tools etc. - and every second in your day job feels like physical pain, then really what other choice do you have? And if you want to make a living from it - whether it's with library music, releasing singles on streaming platforms, selling beats, mixing/mastering or whatever -, I'm quite convinced that in most cases it'll only work when you put these crazy hours in and achieve an enormous output also in terms of quantity that doesn't really allow for perfectionism or thoughtfully expressing yourself in every note you write (one could argue that you'll do that subconsciously, anyways). That's simply due to the mechanics of the attention economy we live in. You usually won't get noticed if you don't constantly pop up in someone's stream with something new.

Is this beneficial to anyone or is this good for the world of music? Hard to say. There's one argument to be made that artists are bad in judging their own work. They might hold back a song that would mean the world to someone else. There are countless stories of world hits that almost wouldn't have been released (especially back in the days). So maybe the pressure to just put stuff out can also be beneficial in artistic ways and force you to just live in the moment and just do... it's at least an interesting creative challenge in its own right.


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## Soundbed (Jan 9, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> Should library composers be worried about AI?


Yes. And no. That’s actually what drew me to VI-C. I want to up my virtual orchestration skills to stay ahead of the AI. But some AI is billed as “composer’s assistant” tools and designed to help rather than replace. That said AIVA — one of those in the forefront —costs money, so you would be splitting your profit with the AI. 


d.healey said:


> What makes it a "cue" and not a "piece"? I thought a cue was a tv/movie sync thing.


The OP is about library cues, production music. You can find really good examples on Extreme Music. There are tons of tips and structural things going on that make a piece a good cue for production music — it boils down to being editor friendly. The person actually working with your musical output (as a production library music composer) is a video editor.


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## wunderflo (Jan 9, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Yes. And no. That’s actually what drew me to VI-C. I want to up my virtual orchestration skills to stay ahead of the AI. But some AI is billed as “composer’s assistant” tools and designed to help rather than replace. That said AIVA — one of those in the forefront —costs money, so you would be splitting your profit with the AI.


oh, wow, very interesting (and scary). Thanks a lot. Never heard of AIVA before. So is there anything specific where the AI is still lacking? What ways did you find to differentiate yourself and stay ahead of it? Normally, I'd say the safest way to not compete with AI is through branding... when it's the purpose of your music to tell the listener something about you or that you have experienced, then it can only be written or performed by you. But brand doesn't seem to play an important role in production music?


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## Soundbed (Jan 9, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> I was commenting from a personal, composer centric view, this seems like wasting one’s talent and creative life on meaningless noise. You’re just a cog in the junk food expendable media manufacturing machine, and after you can’t do it anymore and fall out, where will you, your music and your talent be? When years pass by, and you look back, what’s your heritage? Just thinking out loud…


Sure, no problem. On the production music side of things…

Releasing production music is a little like having a kids leave the house; you never know where they’ll go. 

Without overstating their importance or meaningfulness, here are some places my tv music has found itself:

• the story of coming out to family
• child murder cases
• adult murder cases
• rescued pets
• history of Templar knights 
• a child’s birthday celebration
• insect science
• daily news 
• more various tragic and criminal events…

These may not each have significance to you, or be meaningful to you, but each story getting told was in some way meaningful to some people. 

Playing a small part in the storytelling was in some small way actually fulfilling to me. 

~

Also, the schedule of production music (as opposed to some scripted tv show work) entrepreneurs isn’t necessarily grueling; we can make music a bit more casually, because if we miss a deadline the show goes on without us. We write at our own pace and often only work as hard as we “want” … because payday for today’s cues won’t come for months or years we’ve necessarily built up a reserve to live off in the mean time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Our best work will be used again and again on different shows over several years.


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## Soundbed (Jan 9, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> So is there anything specific where the AI is still lacking? What ways did you find to differentiate yourself and stay ahead of it? […] But brand doesn't seem to play an important role in production music?


The aspect of AI getting exploited most readily is machine learning. Wherever there is a lot of content that is consistent, the machine can learn the “rules” of the genre/sub genre. A nice example in AIVA is the Sea Shanty. I can say sea shanty and you can imagine one, right? So machines can learn super recognizable styles quite readily. 

To differentiate you need to develop something a bit more “unique” or difficult to pin down. Call it a voice, or maybe a mashup of styles that don’t usually go together or some other way to put together ideas that isn’t common yet. 

As a production music composer who is not participating in the public royalty free marketplace, your brand will often get masked behind your publisher’s brand. You can develop your own, or not, but only a few people will probably start recognizing your brand over the years in most cases.


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## mojave (Jan 9, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> You're welcome! I took the time to write all that up mainly because it seems different to how I've seen some other episodic composers organize their work. I wanted that level of organization for my own sanity, but also because I dreaded getting a phone call from a picture editor, frantic to finish this week's temp, asking me, "Do you remember that kidnapping cue from the first half of season three? Do you remember what that was called by any chance?" Hell man, I don't remember what I had for lunch, how am I gonna remember what episode the kidnapping was in if you can't?
> 
> So I approached my cue library organization the same way I approach organizing samples, sounds, presets... with obsessive, purpose-specific categorization. And I must say, it makes life so much easier as the road gets long. It doesn't really take a lot of time either - after each cue is printed it's just a couple of seconds to option-drag the mix into the correct folder, and then a weekly remote file-sync to the picture editor's music server, usually while they're on the dub stage and I'm doing slow-breathing exercises after barely making the deadline!
> 
> ...


Charlie, you are such a good guy. I remember back in the early 90s, somehow I got your number, I think maybe I had a tech problem and somebody said "yeah, call my friend Charlie, he will know" and you spent 20 minutes on the phone with a total stranger helping me out. I can see nothing has changed.


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## Ivan M. (Jan 10, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Sure, no problem. On the production music side of things…
> 
> Releasing production music is a little like having a kids leave the house; you never know where they’ll go.
> 
> ...


I see, and I'm willing to change my mind. My impression was that you have to churn out as much and as fast as possible for a minimum gain.

I realise I offended many people with my value judgement, however, know that my exposure to production music is very limited, and I don't watch TV or TV series at all.

Now thinking about composing (reasonably) fast, it probably gets you closer to improvisation quality and forces you to think and compose simple, which is exactly where the magic happens. AI will help here, by doing the heavy lifting and allow composers to do more composing and less production.

Sorry for highjacking the thread, I thought the idea was worth thinking about.


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## walkerht (Jan 10, 2022)

I think the main subject of this topic could be : Quantity vs Quality.

IMO, in production music there is not relation between quantity versus performances royalties you make. You can make 138 tracks a year and earn as little as someone who only write 15 tracks.
TRUE FACT. 
Because if you make 138 shitty tracks, editors and producers wont use them. 
It's always been like that. The same thing happen in the royalty free musics, people started to make 10 000 dollars with 10 tracks so they thought they could make 1000 tracks and earn 1 million dollar.
Bullshit. 

I've written around 500 production music tracks in 10 years and i'm earning a really, really comfortable living (honestly, more than 150k $ a year, which's comfortable for me). That's around 50 tracks a year. 

Honestly there are years where I did up to 80 tracks, but believe me, doing 80 tracks a year is a LOT. Any composer who do more than 100 tracks a year, I'll definitely say that there is half of these tracks who are complete shit and boring tracks.

You can not make 140 tracks a year of high level production music, creatively written. Period. 
Or if you do, you're more than one composer. If you're 3 composers, well thats doable, but it also means you divide by 3 the performance rights.

People like the one in the video who say it's a normal thing to write such an amount of tracks, they are telling you bullshits.

You have to make quality in this field, not quantity.


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

52 cues a year? If only. When you work on a 10 pt TV series these days you are given about 10/14 days per ep. 4/5 months.
Depending on the show, but based on experience of many period dramas, each ep averages about 35 cues. That’s about 350 . or in minutes aprox 40 mins x 10 or 400 mins of music. 
There are composers like John Lunn (downtown abbey) that work on 4 or 5 of those a year. So on average 1400 cues a year. I personally couldn’t do that and like to have a life outside of the studio so I prefer to work like a nutter 24/7 for 6 months and then take the rest of the year to recover From the ordeal.


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## walkerht (Jan 10, 2022)

molemac said:


> 52 cues a year? If only. When you work on a 10 pt TV series these days you are given about 10/14 days per ep. 4/5 months.
> Depending on the show, but based on experience of many period dramas, each ep averages about 35 cues. That’s about 350 . or in minutes aprox 40 mins x 10 or 400 mins of music.
> There are composers like John Lunn (downtown abbey) that work on 4 or 5 of those a year. So on average 1400 cues a year. I personally couldn’t do that and like to have a life outside of the studio so I prefer to work like a nutter 24/7 for 6 months and then take the rest of the year to recover From the ordeal.



....
We are not talking about the same thing.

Writing a production music track is absolutely not the same thing as writing a cue for a TV show.
A production music track has to be thought longer than a TV show cue.
You have to think more of the structure, the mixing, the instrumentation.
Plus it's longer : 2 minutes and a half.
A TV show cue can be 40 seconds.
A TV show cue can be just a pad.

A tv show like downtown abbey, i'm sorry but I could score an episodeof this show in 3 days.

Try writing a production music album in 3 days. Nobody can do that except if you sacrifice the quality.


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> ....
> We are not talking about the same thing.
> 
> Writing a production music track is absolutely not the same thing as writing a cue for a TV show.
> ...


I am sorry I might have misread your original post and I should have read the posts more carefully. I was just giving some insight from my perspective as a working film/tv composer. As we are on it, a lot of Tv cues can be 2/3 mins long and also involve writing to picture which means the music has a timing precision and emotional journey to undertake which is more involved than a basic structure. You also have to get the cues orchestrated and recorded with live musicians and mixed. Ps I dont think youshould belittle the work of one of the Uks most successful composers.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 10, 2022)

mojave said:


> Charlie, you are such a good guy. I remember back in the early 90s, somehow I got your number, I think maybe I had a tech problem and somebody said "yeah, call my friend Charlie, he will know" and you spent 20 minutes on the phone with a total stranger helping me out. I can see nothing has changed.


Hahah I can't remember that but it's probably happened a bunch! I guess it's obv I like talking about this stuff, helps really - like you learn when you teach - when describing something you're like, "oh shit now I remember not to forget how I did that, I should do that again".

I just read a wicked long interview with Richard James from around the time Syro was released and he's the same, gets well into the weeds about boffin stuff. Someone found it on the wayback machine and it's full of nerdy shit:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141103131334/http://noyzelab.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/syrobonkers-part1.html




__





noyzelab: Aphex Twin SYROBONKERS! Interview - Part 2







web.archive.org


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## walkerht (Jan 10, 2022)

molemac said:


> I am sorry I might have misread your original post and I should have read the posts more carefully. I was just giving some insight from my perspective as a working film/tv composer. As we are on it, a lot of Tv cues can be 2/3 mins long and also involve writing to picture which means the music has a timing precision and emotional journey to undertake which is more involved than a basic structure. You also have to get the cues orchestrated and recorded with live musicians and mixed. Ps I dont think youshould belittle the work of one of the Uks most successful composers.


I also wrote for english tv shows so I kind of know what it is. And let me tell you it's an entirely different job.

But just looking at the IMDB


Alastair King...conductor / orchestrator / conductor and orchestrator (42 episodes, 2010-2015)https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0325710/ (Paul Golding)...music engineer / music scoring mixer / music scoring engineer (43 episodes, 2010-2015)



Having a team that orchestrate your cues, mix them, make the performance of "1400 cues a year" a little less impressive.

When you do a production album, most of the times if not always, you're doing *everything* *alone*.

The cues have to be thought of, to differentiate from the mass. This involves a thinking of what you want to do with a track, what you want to achieve. What media, what shows you want to be placed in.
It takes time to think about that just before you write the cue.
You cannot just say "ok i'm writing at track in 2 hours, then i'll write another track in 2 hours, then another and voilà, end of the day I'll have 3 tracks written"


You cant just compare a film scoring job with 40 cues in every episode and 40 proper tracks of production music. It's really not the same thing....

When you do the scoring of the first 2 episodes of a 40 ep- TV shows, you're really thinking the architecture of the music, but then when you do the 38 remaining episodes, it's a freeway.
With some issues here and there of course like in every film scoring job, but normally it's a freeway.
Not mentioning the re-using of cues thorough the 40 episodes.
Not mentioning the underscores cues which can be really easy for any composer to do.

In a production music album you're basically writing a main theme in every track. You cant do "underscore cues". Every track has to tell something, has to appeal an editor or a producer.


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## chillbot (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> You can not make 140 tracks a year of high level production music, creatively written. Period.


Congrats on your success but this statement is really out of touch with reality. Period.


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## walkerht (Jan 10, 2022)

chillbot said:


> Congrats on your success but this statement is really out of touch with reality. Period.


If you're doing everything alone, and not with another composer or composers, 140 high quality production tracks per year is impossible to maintain.
Every composer who claimed they did such an amount of musics per year I had a listen to, and its either average or really fast food quality music.

There is always a compromise if you maintain such an amount of tracks per year. No secrets, there is only 24 hours a day...


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## davidson (Jan 10, 2022)

chillbot said:


> Congrats on your success but this statement is really out of touch with reality. Period.


He might be talking about library music at the quality of Mark Petrie or Cody Still, in which case 140 would be a stretch.


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> you're doing everything alone,


Maybe that’s why he sounds unhappy


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> If you're doing everything alone, and not with another composer or composers, 140 high quality production tracks per year is impossible to maintain.
> Every composer who claimed they did such an amount of musics per year I had a listen to, and its either average or really fast food quality music.
> 
> There is always a compromise if you maintain such an amount of tracks per year. No secrets, there is only 24 hours a day...


If I write a production album with 10 tracks, each track usually has five alternates. That would be 50 tracks. I do at least three albums a year, that's 150 tracks.


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## Markrs (Jan 10, 2022)

On the video I linked to Dave does mention others writing a lot more cues than he does (he also compliments on the quality of them, so doesn’t consider them less than his own) but says he only writes about 130 “cues” or “tracks” (I believe these are written to briefs from the publisher) a year as he likes to maintain a work life balance.


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## chillbot (Jan 10, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I do at least three albums a year, that's 150 tracks.


I hate to break it to you, but according to this thread your tracks are fast food quality.


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## jneebz (Jan 10, 2022)

StevenMcDonald said:


> Production music is a job. It isn't an art gallery.


Ooh. Nice. True.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 10, 2022)

chillbot said:


> I hate to break it to you, but according to this thread your tracks are fast food quality.


Lol! I like Big Mac's, so I'll take that as a compliment :0)

And if client's buy fast food, then I'm happy.


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## ka00 (Jan 10, 2022)

What might help this thread is if people who are either praising or criticizing either production music or TV scoring could post some specific links to serve as examples of what they are talking about. Doesn't have to be your own music, but something that is close to what you are talking about.

Without specifics, people from each discipline are likely imagining the worst possible music from the other discipline. Wouldn't that really complicate discussions of metrics like how many track you need to producer per year?

I've heard both good and bad music on both TV and in production libraries. But I would really love to hear some examples of the type of quality needed to earn $150K US from library music.


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## chillbot (Jan 10, 2022)

ka00 said:


> What might help this thread is if people who are either praising or criticizing either production music or TV scoring could post some specific links to serve as examples of what they are talking about. Doesn't have to be your own music, but something that is close to what you are talking about.
> 
> Without specifics, people from each discipline are likely imagining the worst possible music from the other discipline. Wouldn't that really complicate discussions of metrics like how many track you need to producer per year?
> 
> I've heard both good and bad music on both TV and in production libraries. But I would really love to hear some examples of the type of quality needed to earn $150K US from library music.



You do have a point. I never do this but you can hear some of my tracks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ (here). Please do me a favor and don't quote that link because I will likely erase it.

My little tracks are only :75-:90 seconds but I've maintained a 750+/year average for over 20 years now. The thing that is helpful is getting to do a wide variety of styles/genres. I did have a very talented assistant for 3 years but otherwise it's just me myself and I. (Oddly my least productive years in terms of output was when I had an assistant, but that's due to focusing more on quality, fucking around a lot more, working a lot less, and then covid shutting the planet down.)


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## wunderflo (Jan 10, 2022)

@chillbot very impressive and more unique & creatively/artistically "expressive" than I as a layman would have imagined these production music tracks to sound like. Those actually sound like it was fun making them!  May I ask you and others how you got into this? Did you do it on the side until you saw some success and then you went all in? Since you probably have to wait a couple of years until success shows (if at all), betting it all on this horse feels a bit like gambling to me. Is there some way to get a proof of concept?


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## dzilizzi (Jan 10, 2022)

I think, as in anything in life, a few people will find it easy to blow out 10 cues a day record quality and others will struggle writing one a year. I'm exaggerating a bit. Most will be in between. But it is like this in any profession. There are those for whom making music comes so naturally, their brain is always got music in it and it is easy to write. There are others that have been doing it so long, they have gotten into a rhythm that works for them, making it easy. 

Then there are others whose brain questions everything, can't make a decision, and are very disorganized. It can be hard to fathom how to make a file structure like Charlie's. And really, if you want to get into library music or things like that, organizing cues is a must. I have my work files organized in such a way I can find things I need quickly, even if I haven't used them in years. I'm not so good with my music, unfortunately. 

But I am really finding this thread fascinating and hope to someday make library music on the side for some extra income. Thanks for all the great information everyone is adding.


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## Markrs (Jan 10, 2022)

@chillbot the quality and musicality of those tracks is really high. Each one sounds like it would take a while to make.


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## Soundbed (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> I think the main subject of this topic could be : Quantity vs Quality.


Well, I approach quality through quantity. The more I write, the better I get. If I obsess over tiny details that have little impact on the final product, I learn very little and improve very little.

That said, I try to submit production music "cues" every three days or so (plus my 40 hour per week day job). When I'm going slower it's usually because I am learning a new style or not nailing the brief and getting notes back, steering me.

A production music cue, for me, is:

at least 2 minutes long
clear edit points
strong intro
clear stingout (could go to commercial with it)
some sort of melody (even if it never gets used; the music supervisors tend to favor a decent melody)
(almost always) could work on multiple shows; has a "shelf life"
also deliver the following alternates, which all need to stand on their own:
no melody (remove anything that interferes with dialog)
no drums
drums and bass
drums only
stingout
(often one or two others, like a "light version")

Here are two examples of my favorite Production Music albums (these are not my own)... consider how long it would take you to write, produce and deliver these, if asked? You can also listen to each of the stems on the webpage, and see the writer credits. Both albums have multiple writers. (Although I suspect that Bruce Fingers and Billy Ray Fingers might represent the crew at Bleeding Fingers? Not sure, just something I've sort of puzzled over.)



https://www.extrememusic.com/albums/2628


"Cerebral Drama" published by Directors Cuts









https://www.extrememusic.com/albums/2836


"Off Duty" published by Law & Audio


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## JonS (Jan 10, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> I feel your pain! Doing two 40-minute episodes a week, plus a SAW movie and one other wild-card feature each summer when the shows were on hiatus - for seven years - was about my limit. When both shows ended around the same time I definitely took my foot off the gas. Now I try not to stack 'em so high and I'm a lot happier.


Two 40-minute episodes per week?!!!!!! OMG!! Did each of those shows need 40 minutes of original music per episode? That's almost impossible for me to imagine how anyone could do this unless you have a staff working for you.


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## StevenMcDonald (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> I think the main subject of this topic could be : Quantity vs Quality.
> 
> IMO, in production music there is not relation between quantity versus performances royalties you make. You can make 138 tracks a year and earn as little as someone who only write 15 tracks.
> TRUE FACT.
> ...


It would be one thing to just have this opinion. That's fine. But stating it as fact in a public place like this with composers of all levels of experience and speed and skill, you just look really rude and frankly narrow minded. Your speed and efficiency isn't the only level of speed and efficiency out there, and your judge of "quality" is also not the only one. 

You should try to consider the opinions and experiences of others before trying to lay down the law like some omnipotent judge.


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

walkerht said:


> I also wrote for english tv shows so I kind of know what it is. And let me tell you it's an entirely different job.
> 
> But just looking at the IMDB
> 
> ...


Funnily enough they are who I use as well for orchestration and mixing. In terms of hours spent though I am still involved with the orchestration checking all the notes on Sibelius and then preparing all the clik tracks for recording . Then in the studio making all the decisions about the recording and choosing different takes and then mixing down the balance of mikes etc of the live musicians and compiling takes before importing back into logic. Then sitting with the engineer and mixing together.
etc .. so I think it is comparable in terms of time. I accept your point about being able to reuse themes but many Shows I have done not only have different directors on each episode who require something new, but also different tones and story lines. Music from one episode can be completely different on the next. I dont think we should enter into a battle of whose job is hardest. I was just going on the numbers and 52 didn’t seem like that many in my world but I got the wrong end of the stick. Having said that I accept it is a very different world and I have never had to do library music so I should probably keep out of this. I have done some albums recently as a writer /producer and more than 2 a year would kill me so 52 equates to about 4 albums . So hats off and good luck.


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## SupremeFist (Jan 10, 2022)

chillbot said:


> I've maintained a 750+/year average for over 20 years now.


Holy shit that's 3 a day? Of this quality? *doffs cap* 🤘🏻


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## SupremeFist (Jan 10, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> If I obsess over tiny details that have little impact on the final product, I learn very little and improve very little.
> [/URL]


I feel personally attacked.


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## muk (Jan 10, 2022)

One track a week is probably on the lowest side if you are working full time in production music. Depending on the music you write and the libraries you work with, it might just be enough to earn a good living from it. If I remember correctly, Stephen Rees, a former member here, a few years back said that he writes one track per week and earns a good living from it. These were full blown large orchestral tracks though. If you are doing drone tracks you should produce way more than that. I don't know, but I guess that Daryl does not write many more than that. He writes orchestral music and has all his tracks recorded with a live orchestra. I'm just guessing, but I think it's very difficult to produce more than one track a week and have it recorded by a large orchestra. So as always, it depends a lot on the kind of music you write and the libraries you work with.

As for the possibility of artistic expression in library music - well, if it is your sole income you probably can't be picky about what you write. I am doing it on the side purely for my own enjoyment. And library music offers me a lot of possibilities. I can write at my own pace. No crazy deadlines like Charlie and others have mentioned. And with Warner Chappell, I have a lot of freedom to write what I like. Within the constraints of library music of course. I. e. a track should be about two minutes long, and conform to a theme that we discussed for the album.

These are certainly not tracks that will be remembered in history for their artistic value and merit. But I do think they are more substantial than fastfood. And within the required format, they are the best I can do. That's quite fulfilling, and knowing that these tracks will be aired on radio and tv, and heard by people around the world - if only subconsciously - is really quite nice and much more than I thought I could achieve as a lone person working at just my computer.




(Something written for children tv that should be simple and engaging, but not simplistic)


(Some string quartet in this track. Of course not in the intricate writing of the string quartets that are the pinnacle of chamber music. Still it's not just underscore drone either).

If I were doing this fulltime, I guess that I could probably write and produce about three or four such tracks a week.


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## Soundbed (Jan 10, 2022)

I forgot to mention I have a day job. So, when I submit a cue every three days or so, that's on top of a 40 hour per week day job. But, they are not all full blown orchestral tracks, and I do not always maintain that speed. That's about my fastest and what I aim for these days. Spending a week on one of my production music cues means I'm probably not working efficiently.



muk said:


> One track a week is probably on the lowest side if you are working full time in production music. Depending on the music you write and the libraries you work with, it might just be enough to earn a good living from it. If I remember correctly, Stephen Rees, a former member here, a few years back said that he writes one track per week and earns a good living from it. These were full blown large orchestral tracks though. If you are doing drone tracks you should produce way more than that. I don't know, but I guess that Daryl does not write many more than that. He writes orchestral music and has all his tracks recorded with a live orchestra. I'm just guessing, but I think it's very difficult to produce more than one track a week and have it recorded by a large orchestra. So as always, it depends a lot on the kind of music you write and the libraries you work with.
> 
> As for the possibility of artistic expression in library music - well, if it is your sole income you probably can't be picky about what you write. I am doing it on the side purely for my own enjoyment. And library music offers me a lot of possibilities. I can write at my own pace. No crazy deadlines like Charlie and others have mentioned. And with Warner Chappell, I have a lot of freedom to write what I like. Within the constraints of library music of course. I. e. a track should be about two minutes long, and conform to a theme that we discussed for the album.
> 
> ...



You bring up some really good points about production music.

To reiterate and expand upon those points:

Drone tracks are absolutely part of production music, and should take a lot less time as well as paying well because they tend to get used for 45 seconds or longer (and we get paid at least in part by airtime minutes).

We can sort of choose our own direction, musically. There is so much to write that will get used, you can pretty much write what you want and what you're comfortable writing after you get comfortable... if you want to do bluesy rock guitar for car shows, you can do that. Or hip hop, or future bass, or dramedy, or investigative tension. There are libraries that focus almost exclusively on various types of investigative tension.

Plus trailer music is in many cases under the umbrella of "production music" (although it also has customs which are their own beast).


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## Pablocrespo (Jan 10, 2022)

controversies aside, I say it before and I say it again, the wealth of knowledge and useful info that @charlieclouser pours in to this forum is just incredible


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## toomanynotes (Jan 10, 2022)

Sounds like hard work and not fun at all. One of the reasons that puts me off the industry…just another job!


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> I forgot to mention I have a day job.


Yes we all know what it is, making incredible videos for Vi control. If that isn’t it then bugger me sideways. You obviously have a family too, so how you have the energy. Wow


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## charlieclouser (Jan 10, 2022)

JonS said:


> Two 40-minute episodes per week?!!!!!! OMG!! Did each of those shows need 40 minutes of original music per episode? That's almost impossible for me to imagine how anyone could do this unless you have a staff working for you.


Both shows were definitely wallpapered with score. One of them usually had 2 or 3 needle-drops per week or maybe an on-camera artist performance, so that shaved off about 3-5 minutes, and the other usually had a couple of source cues too amounting to a couple of minutes. But since I'd throw in fully-finished ALTs for a few cues, it always seemed like I was delivering around 45 minutes or so.

I got on the first show a year before the second, so for that first one I had a year's head start to build up a library that could be pilfered down the road. Starting both at the same time would have been.... difficult.

The first show was Las Vegas, about the young and beautiful staff of the fictional Montecito casino, led by their grumpy seen-it-all boss played by James Caan. The show runner had very concise instructions for each cue, usually four words or less: "Big, big, fun, fun." or "Make us all cry" or "These guys are serious". Never much more descriptive than that, which was perfect. So Big Big Fun Fun = we're walking through the casino to big jammy fun grooves with Austin Powers-meets-Ocean's Eleven drums, funky-smooth standup basslines, skankin' organ stabs, smooth wurli chords, JB guitars, and wild horn hits with filter-y ping-pong delays. Every element of wild casino fun crammed through a 21st century remix blender. "Make us cry" = someone's in love / getting divorced / leaving home, so Malmsjo piano with melancholy pads + tearful synth ambiences. "This is serious" = someone's got a bomb in the casino and it's gonna blow if we don't find them by act 5, so dark suspense+action tones with tension pulses, then action drums when the chase is on. 

At the beginning I had to do all of them from scratch, but down the road I could load up the Logic Project for an old jam and build a new version with some new overdubs over the basic beds. But each episode definitely had tons of cues that had to come from scratch, and usually some wild-card cue that took a whole day, like a fifties jazz thing for some old mobster strolling into the casino or whatever. Like Numb3rs, there was always an A-story, B-story, and C-story, so the music was constantly shifting gears, and like Numb3rs the cues all joined together seamlessly, with the ringlet of cue A overlapping the start of cue B. Almost every cue had rhythm too, and I unnecessarily took great care to have the rhythms mesh up on-beat, so cue B would start on-beat with the rhythmic echo tails of cue A. Was fun though.

I used Ableton Live to build out drum tracks, bounce that into Logic as audio, and play the rest via MIDI. 

Even when a cue could be built by just editing previous stereo mixes together, I never had my music editor do that - even though it was technically his job, and he certainly would have, could have, and wanted to - because I wanted to make sure I'd plumbed the depths of the Mixes - Sorted folders for just the right reverse-suck-to-ad-break ending or whatever. Like, only I could be the judge of whether a stereo mix edit would suffice, or whether I'd have to load up the MIDI and get deeper into the elements. I'd also send them ALTs for any cues that seemed fussy, so right there on the dub stage they had two or three choices to pick from if anybody raised an eyebrow. Like, if they temped it with an old cue I'd write a new one but also give them a fixed-up version of the old cue in case of temp love, plus maybe a third just in case.

For the first couple of seasons I did have an old friend come over for a couple of days each week who could add guitar parts to a few cues, and for any that I needed to do a new version of the MIDI, he could "pull the car around front and leave the engine running and the door open" so I could just jump in and drive away. He'd pull the old MIDI, do a Save As, stick it at the right timecode, and do his best to edit the MIDI so it fit for length and content, but not print. Then I'd load that up, make a few tweaks, and print.

But later, he got busy with other stuff and by then I had enough music in the library to handle it solo. As fast as I am, it was still a grind with a side helping of panic!


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## NoamL (Jan 10, 2022)

This is an unfortunate trend with this forum, there are working tv and film composers here, graciously GIVING AWAY an insider view into how their workday goes, and then hobbyists are saying so many thoughtless and hurtful things like "production music is boring and annoying" and "take time to compose MEANINGFUL music" instead of "self-exploitative abuse" where "you can't achieve creativity period."

I'm glad people are shrugging them off but... man some of that stuff is really hurtful, perhaps unintentionally.

Empire Strikes Back is 120 minutes of dense, polyphonic score. Go look up how many weeks he had...

If you WANT to take a long time with a piece of music as a personal hobby or artistic work, do it!

if you have no deadline then the right amount of time to spend is "until you think it's perfect."

But that is not how things work in the _job_ of media composing. And there is no greener pasture. Whether you do film, tv, videogames, ads, libraries - they're all high pressure.

Being productive is not about taking away self-criticality and craft, it's about taking away time sinks and grunt work.

If you have an assistant - can you set them up with a duplicate rig? Then you can seamlessly hand them a cue for stemming, conforming, or even revisions, while you're working on the next cue.

Having a rock solid cue naming system and sticking to it - another thing that could save many hours of work & hours of miscommunications over the course of a tv season.

Being able to load up an old cue and spot it to a new episode quickly and then edit it quickly - anything that gets in the way of this is going to be a problem. For example, sitting and waiting for instruments to load - this is why you keep hearing about VEPro on this forum....

Finding ways to reuse music - it depends, but stuff like "prepare an organized folder of your music before the editors start on the next season" is rock solid advice.

Maybe a better word than productive is *economical*. A short score is an economical way of getting all your ideas down, so is a MIDI sketch with a few tracks instead of 80. Then you hand it off and work on the next thing. There is zero shame in having a team, what a weird hangup to have. The composer is the one creating the music, the team is just helping the grunt work.

I think a lot of production music is very admirable because they are starting from square one every time with their palette and ideas. It's definitely true that long term scoring gets into a groove where you have a defined set of sounds and ideas. At the same time, an underscore cue for orchestra could never have as much copy paste as the track in the original video of this thread. People are free to think underscore is boring until they try to write some that sticks to the screen, enhances the story, doesn't grab attention, and connects to the larger musical statements. It's harder than it looks.

Nothing but praise and love for someone who upgraded their schedule to 1 a week. They are on their way! All the posts here from working composers and assistants are just being clear about the "making a living" level.


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## davekropf (Jan 10, 2022)

Hi friends! I’m Dave and I am the composer from the video posted by @Markrs! First, I’m glad you found the video helpful, Mark. Second, I’m beyond honored and humbled to have @charlieclouser chime in in the thread.

I’m heartened by the responses here, and this kind of conversation is exactly why I do my YouTube channel - composers sharing their experiences, inspiring, motivating, and educating others while hashing out differing opinions. While I disagree with some of the takes here, I can respect their perspectives. 

To answer a few questions and offer some points of clarification…

As was mentioned, the 52 Cues concept was inspired by Dan Graham’s book, _A Composer’s Guide to Library Music_, with the idea that if you focus on at least one publishable cue per week then you can be on your way towards a career in production music.

I personally average 2 or so cues per week, but there are many who manage a lot more than that. I do teach full time, have a pretty active gig schedule, and strive to maintain a healthy work/life/relationship balance. I imagine if it were my full time job, I would shoot for a more prolific output, but as it is, I’m comfortable with my pace.

I work with a handful of libraries that send requests/briefs and I spend my time working up cues for placements on TV (CBS Sports, Discovery Channel, etc.). It’s most definitely a job, and I don’t necessarily consider what I do to be “art” (I did an in-depth discussion on what I call the “Artisan” composer mentally in an earlier video), but it’s very rewarding, and I love what I do! Sure, I’ll jump at the chance to score a film or game, but in the meantime, I’ll be over here working up dramedy, tension, or clappy ukulele cues to keep the bills paid! 

The debate of quality of quantity is one that nearly every production music composer I know is wrestling or has wrestled with in their careers. In general, when starting out you will focus on a larger, steadier output as you not only develop relationships with libraries and find traction with publishers, but learn how to sustainably write editor-friendly, emotionally consonant, flexible cues. As you hone these skills, you will become less dependent on a wide-net approach to placements, and as you find your voice in the field your output will likely become more refined. 

Lastly, the cue in the video, “Smoke and Mirrors,” took about 6 hours from blank DAW to final deliverables. 

Once again, I appreciate the discussion here and will happily answer any other questions. 

Dave


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## charlieclouser (Jan 10, 2022)

davekropf said:


> Lastly, the cue in the video, “Smoke and Mirrors,” took about 6 hours from blank DAW to final deliverables.


Well, that's a relief to hear! Kind of what I suspected, it sounds like a fun afternoon's worth of jamming. I didn't mean to kick the discussion into a "who works fastest" thing, but I figured that it wouldn't have taken you a whole week to jam out that cue, so it's a relief to hear that it took you about as long as it would have taken me!

And big thanks for doing those videos in the first place, I know they're super useful information for a lot of folks who are wondering how the sausage gets made!


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## dzilizzi (Jan 10, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Sounds like hard work and not fun at all. One of the reasons that puts me off the industry…just another job!


Only if you don't enjoy it.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 10, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Sounds like hard work and not fun at all. One of the reasons that puts me off the industry…just another job!


Ironically, some of best music was written under looming deadlines. It can be exhausting at times, but I get a lot of personal satisfaction from every project.


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## Selfinflicted (Jan 10, 2022)

davekropf said:


> Once again, I appreciate the discussion here and will happily answer any other questions.
> 
> Dave



Hey Dave - It's great of you to share your experience and perspective. People sharing is what make this place so great. So, thanks!


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## molemac (Jan 10, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Ironically, some of best music was written under looming deadlines. It can be exhausting at times, but I get a lot of personal satisfaction from every project.


I agree . I hate deadlines , the Damocles sword of death hanging over your creativity. But more often than not it creates a shit or bust moment. Days of procrastination then self doubt and endless ripping up the page, your life and career flashes before you and then when there is no longer any time or hope , you reach into the depths of the toilet and pull out a mars bar. Last minute.com should have been a composers website .


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## charlieclouser (Jan 11, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Ironically, some of best music was written under looming deadlines.


I love a good deadline. Instant motivation. Looking back, my most memorable (best? I dunno about that!) music was written very quickly. The idea came in a flash and was rendered swiftly with a minimum of faffing about. Like, a matter of a few hours from nothing to finished. This has been true since I started out.

In contrast, when I have limitless time stretching out in front of me, I'm likely to wander around, go down one path and then double back, retrace my steps, tentatively explore a second path but with the first still nagging me from the sidelines, and often wind up with dozens of muted ALT tracks that I need to weed through and try to figure out some combination of "maybe" takes that will form a coherent whole. When there just isn't time to stack up those "maybe" tracks, the whole process proceeds in a more orderly fashion towards a destination.

For me, the idea itself doesn't take time, it's all the clicking and dragging to get it to come out of the speakers that does.

So the easier I can make that part of it, by having organized sounds and a logically laid-out template, the quicker it is to get from A to B.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 11, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Ironically, some of best music was written under looming deadlines. It can be exhausting at times, but I get a lot of personal satisfaction from every project.


You are absolutely correct!!I have always found a glitter of gold in every turd I have written under deadlines! Yes there is immense joy having smashed a piece and have it accepted - but never enough time to enjoy the fruits of your labour.
There's are 2 types of people out there - one who enjoys his own silence (me) and one who has to be constantly working to avoid it. I prefer my health over being slogged and whipped for fat cat production companies, but I raise a glass and toast good health to the my counterparts.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 11, 2022)

dzilizzi said:


> Only if you don't enjoy it.


Hand on heart? I don't. Unless I'm lucky enough to write for a locked picture. However I prefer concert music...but we all have to make a living. Perhaps I'm not talented enough.
Bernard H used to get up early in the morning and finish orchestrated mins of music so he could get on with the rest of the day by 7am lol Now that's another level above this thread. He would be rolling in his grave right now.


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## Banquet (Jan 11, 2022)

This is a fascinating read... As someone who is learning to write music, I set up an Audiojungle and Pond5 account a year ago and have so far uploaded 19 tracks and sold 31 times. It's been a total thrill to sell something I wrote and it has made me wonder about earning enough money to possibly go part time in a day job at some point so I can spend more time writing music (which I love doing). However, I'm 53 so time is not on my side!

Whenever I read about making money writing music, it often seems to be focus on writing quickly and I wonder if that can be at the expense of learning? In my current track I am trying to write a solo part that I could just skip to get the track done, but I feel like working on the part will help me learn.

So my 19 tracks in a year is pretty poor! I do work a full-time job of about 50 hours a week and on average spend about 25 hours a week writing music. My plan for 2022 is to try and write one track a week but I do wonder if I shouldn't be skipping that plan and just try to write better music and get accepted by a more 'high end' library.

It's really interesting to read Charlie's experiences from spending years writing a double album to writing lots of music every week for TV. For the first time I can see that spending too much time on anything also isn't always great... I tend to run out of skill/ideas for a track after a while... I know it could be better but I lack the skill and experience to improve it further, so that currently tends to be the point where I move on to something new.


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## davekropf (Jan 11, 2022)

d.healey said:


> What makes it a "cue" and not a "piece"? I thought a cue was a tv/movie sync thing.


As I teach it, a "cue" is an instrumental piece of music written specifically for use in media (typically TV or film). This encompasses both library and scored, bespoke music.

A "piece" can mean something more broad and would include other non-cue works such as concert music. As such, a cue is a piece but not all pieces are cues (square is a rectangle but not all rectangles are squares).

Cues and pieces differ from "songs" which typically include lyrics. "Tracks" could mean any number of things, up to, and including, individual tracks in a recording session. Personally, I feel the term "track" should be largely avoided to describe a piece of music or a song because of this confusion, especially in the world of music for media.

As is common in the industry, the terminology shifts and different composers/publishers/editors can often use different terms to mean the same thing (see also: "stems"). This can leave us scratching our heads at times. My advice is to use whichever term the client uses and translate in your brain if need be.


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## davekropf (Jan 11, 2022)

And as a follow up to my initial post, here is my creative thesis on Production/Library Music:


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## Markrs (Jan 11, 2022)

davekropf said:


> And as a follow up to my initial post, here is my creative thesis on Production/Library Music:



Love you take on this Dave. It is like not all writing is art, writing is also functional. As you mentioned not all graphical work is art. Production Music supports other content rather than standing alone. You could say this for film music, but I tend to think this often does stand alone unless it is under score.


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## chillbot (Jan 11, 2022)

I say this a lot so probably repeating myself. But when trying to explain my job to others in the real world I sometimes liken it to a craft like woodworking (just one example).

I think I am really good at writing music. You can get really good at writing music over time, with practice.

That is completely different from saying you write good music.


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## chillbot (Jan 11, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Sounds like hard work and not fun at all. One of the reasons that puts me off the industry…just another job!


This is not "just another job" this is a dream job, to me. You seem to have all these assumptions that are completely untrue.

Granted, there are the occasional days or weeks on a deadline where I am stuck in the studio 14+ hours a day. These are the days you are referring to and you are right, not fun at all. I pulled a lot more of those as a youth before I had kids and the work I did then is paying off now. Sometimes you do have to pay your dues, so to speak. Yes occasionally you have to put in a little elbow grease.

These last few years I am down to only 400-500 tracks per year and it is quite enjoyable. I am my own boss, I make my own hours. Aside from a few phone calls and emails I hardly ever have to take any meetings. I am up in the studio every day by 5am at the latest, I typically knock off for the day around 11am. I'm happily married (22 years!), have two daughters I adore. I play basketball 4x week, softball league, golf, crossfit, hike in the mountains, train for a couple spartan races a couple times a year, I drink heavily. We have a ton of friends we see often. I just can't imagine there's a better job, for me. Yes I've spent my whole life wanting to score films, and still do. So maybe I do have one big regret. But who knows I'd probably suck at it and I'm good at this, so...

Sorry for the brag but actually I'm glad for this thread because it's made me realize how good I have it. You are not wrong, every once in a while you get into that rut when you are asked to do 15 tracks in a genre that you've already done 1,500 tracks and it can momentarily suck the life out of you. I complain a lot on discord to my friends about it. No complaints from me going forward.

Ask @StevenMcDonald about his level of happiness. I've known him on this forum from back when he was @jellycrackers and working a full-time job that he hated. He started writing library tracks and has since quit his job, supports his wife and kid, and is making a really good living writing I would guess maybe 200-300 tracks/year. He doesn't take on more work than he needs to and prioritizes his life over work. My details may not be exactly accurate (sorry Steven) but I think his is a legit success story that should be the kind of path people would want to follow on here. For him, he's "made it", living the high life... for you, it's "just another job", ouch.


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## Leslie Fuller (Jan 11, 2022)

davekropf said:


> And as a follow up to my initial post, here is my creative thesis on Production/Library Music:



Hi Dave, glad to have found your YouTube channel, thanks to @Markrs, and you have another subscriber! 

Welcome to VI Control!


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## davekropf (Jan 11, 2022)

Leslie Fuller said:


> Hi Dave, glad to have found your YouTube channel, thanks to @Markrs, and you have another subscriber!
> 
> Welcome to VI Control!


Thank you so much! I'm floored that I haven't discovered VI Control before now, and saw lots of traffic from here in my YT analytics so I thought I'd check things out.

WOW, what a great community you have! I'm very much looking forward to digging in.


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## Markrs (Jan 11, 2022)

davekropf said:


> Thank you so much! I'm floored that I haven't discovered VI Control before now, and saw lots of traffic from here in my YT analytics so I thought I'd check things out.
> 
> WOW, what a great community you have! I'm very much looking forward to digging in.


This place is the best Dave. Lots of lovely people on here working in all areas of composition and media production including library music. Plus many of the sample library developers are on here. In fact many were members on here before they started their companies including Spitfire Audio and their first customers were other members of this forum (it is that old as a forum).


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## StevenMcDonald (Jan 11, 2022)

chillbot said:


> This is not "just another job" this is a dream job, to me. You seem to have all these assumptions that are completely untrue.
> 
> Granted, there are the occasional days or weeks on a deadline where I am stuck in the studio 14+ hours a day. These are the days you are referring to and you are right, not fun at all. I pulled a lot more of those as a youth before I had kids and the work I did then is paying off now. Sometimes you do have to pay your dues, so to speak. Yes occasionally you have to put in a little elbow grease.
> 
> ...



I appreciate the kind words, Chill! You're pretty much on the money, except I'd estimate I'm hitting in the upper 300s per year. It's hard to say how cool of a job you have without sounding like bragging, but I fully agree and think some people need to hear it sometimes rather than just the "oh man it's such a grind!" perspective. Production music is an amazing job once the income stabilizes. Maybe one day I'll be scoring major videogames, but if not, I'm still very happy with the balance I've found here.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 11, 2022)

chillbot said:


> This is not "just another job" this is a dream job, to me. You seem to have all these assumptions that are completely untrue.
> 
> Granted, there are the occasional days or weeks on a deadline where I am stuck in the studio 14+ hours a day. These are the days you are referring to and you are right, not fun at all. I pulled a lot more of those as a youth before I had kids and the work I did then is paying off now. Sometimes you do have to pay your dues, so to speak. Yes occasionally you have to put in a little elbow grease.
> 
> ...


Sorry maybe I’ve hit a creative brickwall?
You sound incredibly skilled and perhaps fortunate to have the right mindset to tacke that kind of workload. Not to mention great lifestyle-organisational skills. 

Writing production music just doesn’t give me goosebumps sir. I wish I was wired the same way, but as of now it doesn’t stimulate me. Maybe if I was working with real people, real players that wld renergise me.

I really do wish you the best in moving forward. Must be a great feeling to achieve all that. I am inspired by everything people say on this forum and the talent on display. 😇


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## toomanynotes (Jan 11, 2022)

davekropf said:


> Thank you so much! I'm floored that I haven't discovered VI Control before now, and saw lots of traffic from here in my YT analytics so I thought I'd check things out.
> 
> WOW, what a great community you have! I'm very much looking forward to digging in.


No wonder you had a life before, get ready to have it all taken away. Welcome!😎


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## Markrs (Jan 11, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Sorry maybe I’ve hit a creative brickwall?
> You sound incredibly skilled and perhaps fortunate to have the right mindset to tacke that kind of workload. Not to mention great lifestyle-organisational skills.
> 
> Writing production music just doesn’t give me goosebumps sir. I wish I was wired the same way, but as of now it doesn’t stimulate me. Maybe if I was working with real people, real players that wld renergise me.
> ...


We are all different, what is one persons thing, can be a different for you. However sometimes it can also be good to challenge yourself, especially if you are in a creative rutt. Maybe write some cues quickly, that you invest less time and emotional energy in. 

In my field of User Experience Design we do quick sketches and mock-ups so we don't get to emotionally invested in them, because often they can not be right for the end user. We then go back to the drawing board, test them with users again until we get it meeting the users needs. Then we work on it to get it sgood as we reasonably can (not perfect, nothing is perfect as everything is a compromise). 

This throw away approach can be liberating.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 11, 2022)

Markrs said:


> We are all different, what is one persons thing, can be a different for you. However sometimes it can also be good to challenge yourself, especially if you are in a creative rutt. Maybe write some cues quickly, that you invest less time and emotional energy in.
> 
> In my field of User Experience Design we do quick sketches and mock-ups so we don't get to emotionally invested in them, because often they can not be right for the end user. We then go back to the drawing board, test them with users again until we get it meeting the users needs. Then we work on it to get it sgood as we reasonably can (not perfect, nothing is perfect as everything is a compromise).
> 
> This throw away approach can be liberating.


You may have hit the nail on the head. Thanks for the advice. Compositionally I may be writing too many notes!


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## Jetzer (Jan 11, 2022)

Love all the different perspectives here!

I have been in a situation in the past where I had to score 5x 23 mins episodes a week of soap opera. Or, actually it was 2.5 days since often things where delivered late. On the last 0.5 day I got complaints that all the music sounded the same...

It was mostly drag and drop of stems of tracks and themes that we have made before. That...and lot's of Omnisphere patches 

In the same company I wrote tons of production music, which I really enjoyed. I saw it in the same mindset as @chillbot , working more like craftsman rather than artists. And writing good production music (as in usable) is not easy and a learned skill.

Having also been on the editing side of things, a good music production track is maybe not always "good music" , whatever that means. But it has to be appropriate and usable.

Having said that, I very much on purpose chose to take a break from it all and focus more on my artistic side. Realizing that yes, you can spend hours on a synth patch and decide not to use it, was something that I really needed to get in touch with again. I had to really un-learn some (good/bad) habits.

Reading this and watching your video @davekropf made me excited about the prospect of writing library music again. I can add it to my new years resolutions list to release at least 1 production music album this year.

So thanks everyone chiming in, this is a really great thread.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 11, 2022)

Jetzer said:


> I have been in a situation in the past where I had to score 5x 23 mins episodes a week of soap opera. Or, actually it was 2.5 days since often things where delivered late. On the last 0.5 day I got complaints that all the music sounded the same...


Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new champion in the speed category!


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## lux (Jan 11, 2022)

in my little experience I'm a good fan of deadlines as well. The less time I have the more "live experience" I feel. You just let your stuff flowin out. The more music you loved and listened, the more hours, days, weeks, months and years you spent while thinking (to) music the more it just comes out like a natural flood when you ask for it. It's just fun. Some things are good craft, some others often surprise me. It's like I got a Mr Hyde which needs a special call to pop out.

Working without deadlines is harder, but I found my kinda own stupid instinctive solution to it. I always (I mean, always) think like I'm releasing a new song as a recording artist. I just think like I'm shooting out a record that a bunch of people are waiting for and it needs to kick ass in order to bring out some love. It's like seduction. No cheating. I could end up pulling out the most boring and ridicolous stuff, but it will be always like I made a mistake while making a record. It just happens.

For how stupid it sounds, it works for me. And I never feel I'm cheating, even if I put together something in a couple hours. 

My only rule is: never do something you haven't lived in seriously as a listener for a good amount of time. You need to know the artists, heard stories, met (even virtually) people and all the pieces defining the puzzle of a musical style. Otherwise it's just mimicking and I personally can't stand it.


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## Arbee (Jan 11, 2022)

davekropf said:


> And as a follow up to my initial post, here is my creative thesis on Production/Library Music:



Thank you so much for this video Dave, your articulation of "artist vs artisan" is phenomenally enlightening for me. Like many I suspect, I wonder if it's actually possible to be both. It seems that the mindset is so different that switching back and forth may be realistically impossible.


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## pawelmorytko (Jan 11, 2022)

StevenMcDonald said:


> I appreciate the kind words, Chill! You're pretty much on the money, except I'd estimate I'm hitting in the upper 300s per year. It's hard to say how cool of a job you have without sounding like bragging, but I fully agree and think some people need to hear it sometimes rather than just the "oh man it's such a grind!" perspective. Production music is an amazing job once the income stabilizes. Maybe one day I'll be scoring major videogames, but if not, I'm still very happy with the balance I've found here.


I think there's a weird stigma around that if you aren't scoring big films or video games then you haven't made it as a composer and production music is where all the failures go to settle. Sure many of us wish for that big project to come along to write music for, but honestly I'm getting so settled writing production music and happy doing it, I don't even have time to think about trying to catch that "big break". 

I'm still pretty new to production music and honestly Steven's been such a help and inspiration, I can only dream of having his level or productivity, speed and quality of writing production music. But that doesn't get me down at all because I'm super happy going at my own pace, which at the minute is roughly an album (10 tracks) every 1-2 months. I love working at my own pace, be my own boss, come up with ideas/themes for albums, whether it's writing to my strengths or expanding my horizons to try something new. Just having so much fun getting to write music I love and enjoy - so just assuming that you have to write absolute crap quality tracks and that you're stuck writing the kind of music that makes you want to jump out the window when it comes to production music is so weird to me.

I guess I too am guilty of thinking of production music as boring mindless simple background music before I got into it - and in all fairness, as with any highly saturated market, there are many production music tracks out there which I thought were somewhat lacking in quality, but there is also a lot of stuff which I just thought sounds absolutely incredible and it blew my mind. So you can't just write off the whole industry and generalise all of production music if you haven't properly delved into it.


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## Pier (Jan 11, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Compostionally I may be writing too many notes


Your thumbnail and username checks out


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## Cideboy (Jan 11, 2022)




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## davekropf (Jan 12, 2022)

Arbee said:


> Thank you so much for this video Dave, your articulation of "artist vs artisan" is phenomenally enlightening for me. Like many I suspect, I wonder if it's actually possible to be both. It seems that the mindset is so different that switching back and forth may be realistically impossible.


You're most welcome! I'm so glad to hear you found the video helpful.

And I 100% believe it's possible to be both! I think we composers can get into the mentality that a "career" has some narrow definition of success and anything outside of whatever binary parameters we arbitrarily put upon ourselves means that we've not yet "made it." And I don't necessarily subscribe to the "jack of all trades but a master of none" theory. It just means you have to study even more.

I want to have a career _making music_. If that means a pizzicato dramedy cue one week, a woodwind trio arrangement of "Call Me Maybe" another week, and writing a podcast jingle the next, then I'm all for it! You don't have to chose to be one thing or another! It just makes you that much more valuable to more people and keeps you in the flow of having a music career.


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## Daryl (Jan 12, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.
> 
> Could one use his talent better by earning a living from something else, and then take time to compose meaningful music that speaks. Doesn’t have to be polished at all, just to speak and have meaning.
> 
> ...


Why would you write something "meaningful"? You're trying to make money. The only meaning necessary is whether or not it is going to help pay your bills. Anything else is just wanky nonsense.


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## Daryl (Jan 12, 2022)

I think there are sometimes quite a few misunderstandings about production music. I've seen people post " You can't really make money out of production music. I sent a bunch of tracks to a company, and they didn't really make any money. Obviously, I didn't send my best stuff."

So by sending something that even the composer knew wasn't great, they were pretty much ensuring that it wouldn't make much money. Writing Production music is probably even more competitive than film composing. You can't just play at it, and expect to be successful. It is a job, and should be approached as a job., That's not to say you can't enjoy it, but you need to understand that if a track is not "useful", it's useless. There are many facets to what is, and what isn't useful, so let's leave that for another discussion.

If it matters, in the old days I used to do around 45 tracks a year, but probably now do around 50-70. The most was 152, but I have no intention of getting back to that. Ever. Far too much hassle.


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## davekropf (Jan 12, 2022)

Daryl said:


> Why would you write something "meaningful"? You're trying to make money. The only meaning necessary is whether or not it is going to help pay your bills. Anything else is just wanky nonsense.


This cuts to the very heart of the "is it art" debate, and is one of the fundamental schisms I've observed between the commercial/production music composer and the film composer.

Whether music is meaningful art or is otherwise "wanky nonsense" is up for debate, but what isn't arguable is the fact that if you're asking someone else to part with their money (director, publisher, fans), then i'm afraid they get to determine the value of your music (or at least the value as it pertains to whatever use they have for your music). This is unsettling to the artist brain and bristles against the very notion that the artist is in control of their creative process.

I bless and affirm folks who want to search for meaning in their work, but when it comes time to making a sustainable living, then either be prepared to make some creative concessions so your music is of value to someone else, or be prepared to possibly never make money from your music. But at least you can rest knowing that your art remained _your art_.

Neither is more than/less than the other!


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## Daryl (Jan 12, 2022)

davekropf said:


> This cuts to the very heart of the "is it art" debate, and is one of the fundamental schisms I've observed between the commercial/production music composer and the film composer.
> 
> Whether music is meaningful art or is otherwise "wanky nonsense" is up for debate, but what isn't arguable is the fact that if you're asking someone else to part with their money (director, publisher, fans), then i'm afraid they get to determine the value of your music (or at least the value as it pertains to whatever use they have for your music). This is unsettling to the artist brain and bristles against the very notion that they are not in control of their creative process.
> 
> ...


Indeed. If your intention is to make money, you need to be level headed, and learn to accept when you write in a certain way, you are going to make less money. There is nothing wrong with this. However, you must understand that you are making this choice.

In term of art, it is a fairly recent idea that an artist just makes art for themselves. For much of history the artist was under the cosh just as much as we, as media composers, are. I have come to accept that sometimes the music I write is disposable, and some of it is less so. Either way, it beats getting a proper job.


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## chillbot (Jan 12, 2022)

Daryl said:


> it beats getting a proper job


Sums it up, for me.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 12, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That’s a lot of music, but is it meaningful? Didn’t hear his music yet, but 99.999% production music I heard is insufferably boring and annoying.


It's not meant to be bought and listened to for listening pleasure, it's meant primarily for productions. I don't know about other composers, but when I write for $$ (not just library music, but any project), my goal is to fulfill the needs of the client. I don't pour my creative heart and soul into it, but use my acquired skills to deliver the final product I was hired to deliver. And I enjoy every minute of it.

The exception to this (for me) is live theatre. It gives me a certain creative freedom that I absolutely love, and I'm free to give it my personal best.


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## Ivan M. (Jan 12, 2022)

Daryl said:


> Why would you write something "meaningful"? You're trying to make money. The only meaning necessary is whether or not it is going to help pay your bills. Anything else is just wanky nonsense.


I was trying to refrain from commenting, but I'm weak. 

Yes, precisely, it's a job, and nothing wrong with that. I do respect your ability to churn out high volumes. Doesn't have to be some special art of personal expression at all. It's a resource. And isn't the exact point of production music to be generic? If yes, then no need to be offended if a random internet guy says he finds it boring. Or could we also argue that you have the full creative freedom as long as you don't change the mood?

I don't know, you tell me. I'm just making assuptions based on your experiences. However, what I read is a bit contradictory. I read about production music before (and even participated in royalty-free market and hated it) and I thought you have to work like crazy just for a bare mininum. I see comments like: it does't pay, it's hard to get through, royalty collection issues, people getting burn-outs, etc. there are threads around here. Then someone says they enjoy it, ok, but when they explain their schedule it doesn't seem enjoyable at all. TV and film is apparently the complete disaster of a job, nothing to comment about it.

That's why I asked a logical question: if it's so taxing and hard, why not do something else? And also have more time for "personal" music? Of course, I do realize you can't just change your job. It's a bit off-topic thought, a tangent, I deem worth thinking about.

And about me not liking production music (I've heard so far and that's not too much), well, why would an oppinion of some random internet anonimus about taste even bother you.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 12, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> That's why I asked a logical question: if it's so taxing and hard, why not do something else? And also have more time for "personal" music? Of course, I do realize you can't just change your job. It's a bit off-topic thought, a tangent, I deem worth thinking about.


You bring up a valid point. I was a full-time musician years ago, and sought an alternate career because touring became mundane and I got tired of living on a bus and having no money. Ever since, I've pursued music as a secondary career, and I'm perfectly content with that (and do quite well). I must admit, I'm not sure I'd be completely happy if I was composing full-time. Why? I don't like the uncertainty. My career has a sweet pension, awesome healthcare benefits and a nice salary. I honestly wouldn't be able to sleep at night not knowing if I had another paying composition gig around the corner, with a mortgage and bills looming. I really respect guys like Chillbot and Daryl, as they are proof it can be done, and they have done it well. My pipe dream is to get a windfall buyout on one of my library tracks! You just never know.


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## davekropf (Jan 12, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I must admit, I'm not sure I'd be completely happy if I was composing full-time. Why? I don't like the uncertainty. My career has a sweet pension, awesome healthcare benefits and a nice salary. I honestly wouldn't be able to sleep at night not knowing if I had another paying composition gig around the corner, with a mortgage and bills looming.


While I am a teacher at my core, this is, admittedly, one of the motivating factors in my keeping a full time university gig. I suppose I do daydream every now and then about going all in on the composer life, but I also like having great health insurance, a 401k, and being able to stably support my family.


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## SupremeFist (Jan 12, 2022)

The "artisan" vs "artist" thing is I think a false dichotomy: at least for many creative people throughout history it has been the case that they do a mixture of both — very often more of the artisanal stuff, but which funds and feeds into the artistic stuff.


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## Markrs (Jan 12, 2022)

SupremeFist said:


> The "artisan" vs "artist" thing is I think a false dichotomy: at least for many creative people throughout history it has been the case that they do a mixture of both — very often more of the artisanal stuff, but which funds and feeds into the artistic stuff.


Even for composers like Bach, it was a job rather then purely creative as he got a salary and composed based in what his employer wanted. But of course the output is still genius.


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## kenose (Jan 12, 2022)

To echo a few others here...production/trailer music is probably the most fun “day job” of all time, for me at least. It is not uncommon that I am more artistically satisfied working on sound design heavy trailer music cues than I am actually scoring certain TV/film projects. (As others have pointed out— TV especially can be quite a grind, and much more merciless on work life balance in my experience.) 

I don't see much difference artistically between "production music" and "scoring"— they both have a wide range of creative flexibility for the composer, and they both are ultimately subservient to the show/film/game/etc. I've been lucky to work with quite a few libraries that encourage creativity and experimentation, and I've been unlucky to work on some scoring projects where I was forced to get one degree away from the temp... you can probably guess which is more fun to work on!

If you approach production music as generic, formulaic, creatively stunting work then you probably won't find much success— you get back what you put in, and to me this attitude is not compatible with the modern production music landscape. It is highly competitive and production values have never been higher. Yes, you have to work within some structural parameters— but inside those parameters, there is a LOT of experimentation to be done!

I almost always find a little "seed idea" for every track that gets me creatively excited. I pretty much require it, because if a track isn't getting me excited then it probably isn't going to get the viewer excited either. Music supes and editors are not stupid, they listen to massive quantities of music and they know when something is shit and uninspired. And they can be as picky as they want because there has never been more music available in the world.

Interestingly, I would say my time as a working composer has increased the speed I write music roughly 100x or more— INCLUDING music I write for my own artistic satisfaction.

So when I sit down to write for my obscure “avant-garde blackened atmospheric death metal” project that makes a few hundred dollars on Bandcamp in a good year, I’m still channeling compositional techniques that I learned over the years paying the bills writing “hard rock swagger” and “optimistic indie” and “bold brash hip hop” and “epic orchestral adventure”— and man, I can’t imagine what my project’s metal followers would think of that stuff! And you BET I sneak in bits of the avant-garde metal influences into my production music work every chance I get.

The reality is writing all of that production music made me a faster, more efficient and overall more creative composer in all aspects. It also makes real, livable passive income. The schedule is pretty flexible. I have worked some soul sucking day jobs and I'll take being in the studio, fiddling with my gear and writing 12 tracks of optimistic indie ANY DAY.


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## Arbee (Jan 12, 2022)

davekropf said:


> And I 100% believe it's possible to be both! I think we composers can get into the mentality that a "career" has some narrow definition of success and anything outside of whatever binary parameters we arbitrarily put upon ourselves means that we've not yet "made it." And I don't necessarily subscribe to the "jack of all trades but a master of none" theory. It just means you have to study even more.


I admit I'm still trying to poke around in this topic to get a better understanding of how to achieve both simultaneously. I started my music career decades ago with a mix of jingle writing, arranging and session work. I became focused on the quick hooky motif and short phrases to fit a 30/60 sec brief in all manner of genres, and meeting the brief was all that mattered. After several years in that space I had completely lost my way in terms of longer phrases, development and form, and had no idea what to write for my own pleasure or how to take listeners on a journey. 

Production music perhaps gets half way there with 2 - 3 minutes to play with, but I find the challenges increase almost exponentially with length. I'm determined to develop the discipline and skills to create good quality Production music and to dovetail that with my own thing. To me, that's nirvana, but not sure I have the mental or emotional tools or mindset. I can't seem to reconcile them as being two parts of the same thing, I still need to set my brain to "who am I today, artist or artisan?". Or, perhaps you just set off and it converges by itself in good time with more experience. On a whole different level, John Williams seems to have it down if you listen to his film scores and his concert music. Sorry, I'm waffling now.....


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## toomanynotes (Jan 12, 2022)

It has come to my attention that this thread is becoming a little extra sweet and understanding, so it‘s time for a little more heat and divisions. So don’t fire your holy water pistols at me yet…..hear me out..

Ok here it goes… From my experience and probably the slient majority; Production Music favours the Producer more than the composer. 
So I’ve heard this many times, but a composer (which traditionally is someone who writes only the music) vs Producer (who knows which frequency and what the fk to compress in a mix) with android ears- who writes mediocre music gets further in this business...

So If you’re a good composer and know shit about mixing and mastering…you are phucked.

I understand in the world of Music Libraries, Production comes first, composition second. Let’s face it, there’s a formula which you can always take from reference tracks for structure and as long as you abide by them, your track will work. 

It’s no wonder I hear frustrated composers moaning about it. They are being left behind not keeping up with the tech. 
However, It’s forced me want to learn more about all that mixing, mastering witchcraft, it’s a very skilled profession and I’m in awe of it. 
I also don’t want to be left behind in this business because music IT technician whizz kid can identify the problematic frequency of an ant fart with a blueprint structure with edit (whoosh swish) points. I’m not entirely convinced this type of work is in the same league as traditional composition, but that’s not to say it isn’t a highly skilled one. 

That being said, I do know that some of you guys are actually Composers first and a producer second (in that order). You’ve had learn the craft of mixing and mastering, so well done to you. That’s impressive. It’s a bit of a black art for me. A fustrating one for…you guessed it! A composer, not a producer. He he. It’s late here, I’m rambling now, peace to all! Nites 😇🍻🍻


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## Arbee (Jan 12, 2022)

Sorry to be so agreeable 😏 but I agree with you. Unless you're writing in a purely historical genre, I see both skill sets as an absolute must, nothing "either or" about it, though some may sway the balance one way or the other.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 12, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> It has come to my attention that this thread is becoming a little extra sweet and understanding, so it‘s time for a little more heat and divisions. So don’t fire your holy water pistols at me yet…..hear me out..
> 
> Ok here it goes… From my experience and probably the slient majority; Production Music favours the Producer more than the composer.
> So I’ve heard this many times, but a composer (which traditionally is someone who writes only the music) vs Producer (who knows which frequency and what the fk to compress in a mix) with android ears- who writes mediocre music gets further in this business...
> ...


You have to be a one man army!

You are right, being a "good" composer and a terrible producer won't get you anywhere. Being a good producer and a mediocre composer either! Being "okay" in both areas can work out for you, but you're gonna need a lot more than 52 tracks a year  

The truth is some of the best people in this business are brilliant composers, amazing producers, with a superfast workflow and a perfect understanding of what is needed by editors.


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## KEM (Jan 13, 2022)

Man I’m lucky if I can even get 30 seconds of music in a day…


You guys are making me feel bad


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## Daryl (Jan 13, 2022)

Ivan M. said:


> I was trying to refrain from commenting, but I'm weak.
> 
> Yes, precisely, it's a job, and nothing wrong with that. I do respect your ability to churn out high volumes. Doesn't have to be some special art of personal expression at all. It's a resource. And isn't the exact point of production music to be generic? If yes, then no need to be offended if a random internet guy says he finds it boring. Or could we also argue that you have the full creative freedom as long as you don't change the mood?
> 
> ...


But it doesn't bother me at all. I don't care what anyone thinks, regarding what I write, other than those who are going to pay to licence my tracks. I was just pointing out that it is a specific job and if you know what you're doing, it pays well enough. It's just that you write music that is useful. Whether or not it's meaningful is irrelevant.


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## Daryl (Jan 13, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> It has come to my attention that this thread is becoming a little extra sweet and understanding, so it‘s time for a little more heat and divisions. So don’t fire your holy water pistols at me yet…..hear me out..
> 
> Ok here it goes… From my experience and probably the slient majority; Production Music favours the Producer more than the composer.
> So I’ve heard this many times, but a composer (which traditionally is someone who writes only the music) vs Producer (who knows which frequency and what the fk to compress in a mix) with android ears- who writes mediocre music gets further in this business...
> ...


You just pay someone else to mix your music. Job done.


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## StevenMcDonald (Jan 13, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> I understand in the world of Music Libraries, Production comes first, composition second. Let’s face it, there’s a formula which you can always take from reference tracks for structure and as long as you abide by them, your track will work.


Sorry but this is 100% wrong. Most of the time the editors who are selecting music and dropping it into their shows/ads/whatever don't know a thing about production and can't identify a good mix and master. Or they just don't care because the music will be buried in dialogue.

The reason they select any given track is because of how it fits the needed mood/emotion, and the structure of how it builds and sections itself off into editable phrases. That is a compositional skill, not a "production" skill.

While its true you do need to be able to produce yourself to make a profit in this business for the most part, you absolutely can NOT succeed without strong compositional skills and just skate by on shiny mixes.


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## davekropf (Jan 13, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> So I’ve heard this many times, but a composer (which traditionally is someone who writes only the music) vs Producer (who knows which frequency and what the fk to compress in a mix) with android ears- who writes mediocre music gets further in this business...


Composing and producing are becoming increasingly convergent in the media music landscape, and for the working composer, I feel it's as vital to know your way around a DAW as it is to know your way around a tax form. You don't have to be a master engineer any more than you have to become a CPA, but willfully ignoring huge aspects of the modern composer's toolkit is a career cul-de-sac. (For the record, I'm not saying that's what you're saying here, @toomanynotes; I'm just making a larger point.)

I'd dare say the days of the composer making the entirety of their living solely with a piano, pencil, and staff paper are likely growing smaller in the rearview.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 13, 2022)

StevenMcDonald said:


> Sorry but this is 100% wrong. Most of the time the editors who are selecting music and dropping it into their shows/ads/whatever don't know a thing about production and can't identify a good mix and master. Or they just don't care because the music will be buried in dialogue.
> 
> The reason they select any given track is because of how it fits the needed mood/emotion, and the structure of how it builds and sections itself off into editable phrases. That is a compositional skill, not a "production" skill.
> 
> While its true you do need to be able to produce yourself to make a profit in this business for the most part, you absolutely can NOT succeed without strong compositional skills and just skate by on shiny mixes.


Thanks nice to know.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 13, 2022)

davekropf said:


> Composing and producing are becoming increasingly convergent in the media music landscape, and for the working composer, I feel it's as vital to know your way around a DAW as it is to know your way around a tax form. You don't have to be a master engineer any more than you have to become a CPA, but willfully ignoring huge aspects of the modern composer's toolkit is a career cul-de-sac. (For the record, I'm not saying that's what you're saying here, @toomanynotes; I'm just making a larger point.)
> 
> I'd dare say the days of the composer making the entirety of their living solely with a piano, pencil, and staff paper are likely growing smaller in the rearview.


I agree with your points.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 13, 2022)

Finally, I forgot to add this in, but how often do you hear a Composer with borderline production skills openly admit he/she is terrible at mixing (alot) but rarely do you hear a good producer say the reverse?, usually they feel attacked if compositionallly challenged. I just wonder why so. I find that psychology interesting. 
In anycase I’ve learn’t move with the times and get better at ‘all’ aspects of being a composer if I have to compete for work. Thanks guys, much love.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 13, 2022)

Why don’t we bulid our own production library, send your polished tracks to ‘toomanynotes-dropbox‘ in exchange I will send you a contract to sign them over to me. Remember I need more than 52 tracks a year to make a modest dent in my wages. You can up your social status n tell your buds you are now signed up to a music library. Thanks! 
Hmmm that gives me an idea…We cld start a syndicate of badass composers. Food for thought…anyone got an leads? 😂


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## kenose (Jan 13, 2022)

toomanynotes said:


> Why don’t we bulid our own production library, send your polished tracks to ‘toomanynotes-dropbox‘ in exchange I will send you a contract to sign them over to me. Remember I need more than 52 tracks a year to make a modest dent in my wages. You can up your social status n tell your buds you are now signed up to a music library. Thanks!
> Hmmm that gives me an idea…We cld start a syndicate of badass composers. Food for thought…anyone got an leads? 😂


I think you're better at this production music business than you think.


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## tmhuud (Jan 13, 2022)

For those of you that don't care for production music I have no Idea which libraries your listening to but a lot of films I score are tempted with some of the best production music I've heard. (Bleeding Fingers, etc). It can be quite challenging trying to write in that style and often enough I just say "Buy the damn track!" lol. 

I write for MCA and Disney and a few others (my stuff sucks) but I tell you, theres some REALLY good production music out there. Good talented folks involved. Competition is really high. You can write a lot of stuff that gets rejected by very discerning libraries.


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## Pincel (Jan 13, 2022)

Great discussion and super interesting points that are very helpful for anyone thinking about getting into the Production Music business. It's a tough competitive world out there for sure (not just in the music biz), but I know a couple of very successful people that make their living writing for Trailer and Production Music libraries, and I'm always in awe when I have the chance to chat with them about it, as it takes TREMENDOUS dedication and drive to succeed, it really is not for everybody. 
But for those who have the will to keep at it, it tends to pay off through all the sacrifice and hard work.

I urge anyone with negative feelings about Production Music to listen to some of the top dogs out there, you might be surprised at how high the standard is these days! It's very intimidating sometimes, not gonna lie.


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## toomanynotes (Jan 14, 2022)

tmhuud said:


> For those of you that don't care for production music I have no Idea which libraries your listening to but a lot of films I score are tempted with some of the best production music I've heard. (Bleeding Fingers, etc). It can be quite challenging trying to write in that style and often enough I just say "Buy the damn track!" lol.
> 
> I write for MCA and Disney and a few others (my stuff sucks) but I tell you, theres some REALLY good production music out there. Good talented folks involved. Competition is really high. You can write a lot of stuff that gets rejected by very discerning libraries.





Pincel said:


> Great discussion and super interesting points that are very helpful for anyone thinking about getting into the Production Music business. It's a tough competitive world out there for sure (not just in the music biz), but I know a couple of very successful people that make their living writing for Trailer and Production Music libraries, and I'm always in awe when I have the chance to chat with them about it, as it takes TREMENDOUS dedication and drive to succeed, it really is not for everybody.
> But for those who have the will to keep at it, it tends to pay off through all the sacrifice and hard work.
> 
> I urge anyone with negative feelings about Production Music to listen to some of the top dogs out there, you might be surprised at how high the standard is these days! It's very intimidating sometimes, not gonna lie.


Let’s have a link to this music? Thanks!


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## cedricm (Jan 14, 2022)

How to write 6 minutes of music a day:


All videos of Trevor Morris are highly recommended for composers in general and would-be TV composers in particular.


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## Daryl (Jan 14, 2022)

Pincel said:


> Great discussion and super interesting points that are very helpful for anyone thinking about getting into the Production Music business. It's a tough competitive world out there for sure (not just in the music biz), but I know a couple of very successful people that make their living writing for Trailer and Production Music libraries, and I'm always in awe when I have the chance to chat with them about it, as it takes TREMENDOUS dedication and drive to succeed, it really is not for everybody.
> But for those who have the will to keep at it, it tends to pay off through all the sacrifice and hard work.
> 
> I urge anyone with negative feelings about Production Music to listen to some of the top dogs out there, you might be surprised at how high the standard is these days! It's very intimidating sometimes, not gonna lie.


Yes, it does seem that the people who are negative about writing production music don't really understand it. For me it gives a much better work/life balance than it would if I'd stuck to TV and film.

I've also had a huge amount of fun on some of my albums, and written stuff that no film production would ever ask for as a score. It also means that I work with orchestras on a regular basis, without having ridiculous deadlines.

However, I do understand that production music is not everybody's cup of tea.


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## Arbee (Jan 19, 2022)

I'd like to suggest this thread be made a sticky, it contains so many invaluable insights and perspectives as a reference resource.


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## Markrs (Jan 21, 2022)

@davekropf has created a video that discusses this thread and the interesting questions it raises regarding production music Vs media scoring as well as quantity Vs quality.


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## Ivan M. (Jan 23, 2022)

I was wrong, there’s some really good library music.


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## sundrowned (Jan 24, 2022)

Here's me on the third week of a two minute cue 

It's a good thing I don't have to make a living out of this.


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## davekropf (Jan 24, 2022)

sundrowned said:


> Here's me on the third week of a two minute cue
> 
> It's a good thing I don't have to make a living out of this.


Don't sweat it, my friend! You be you and just keep plugging along!


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## KevinRAlexander (Jan 24, 2022)

So, I'm approaching this topic from two different perspectives. As a composer, I'm a newbie. Although I've been a musician for 25 years, and have dabbled with composing off and on over the years, it's only been in the last year or so that I've really given it a go at all. But... my sole focus is to write production music. Why? Because I'm a commercial video editor and have been using production music every day for years. And as an editor, I'm looking for tracks that help me tell a story. Some of the tracks I have used move me... deeply. Granted, if I'm editing a commercial it may just be a nice uplifting track that's pretty generic. But not all production music is "corporate music", and I think that's what too many people assume. Just throw together a bland happy track with muted electric guitar arpeggios and crank out as many of those as possible. The documentary shorts I work on are often modeled after something you might see on Investigation Discovery, and so there is a mixture of emotional cues as well as tension cues. And many of those tracks stick with me years later. And being exposed to so much of it inspired me to specifically write production music because I can see the possibilities with it. If you enjoy doing something and can make a living doing it, then that's all that matters.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 24, 2022)

KevinRAlexander said:


> So, I'm approaching this topic from two different perspectives. As a composer, I'm a newbie. Although I've been a musician for 25 years, and have dabbled with composing off and on over the years, it's only been in the last year or so that I've really given it a go at all. But... my sole focus is to write production music. Why? Because I'm a commercial video editor and have been using production music every day for years. And as an editor, I'm looking for tracks that help me tell a story. Some of the tracks I have used move me... deeply. Granted, if I'm editing a commercial it may just be a nice uplifting track that's pretty generic. But not all production music is "corporate music", and I think that's what too many people assume. Just throw together a bland happy track with muted electric guitar arpeggios and crank out as many of those as possible. The documentary shorts I work on are often modeled after something you might see on Investigation Discovery, and so there is a mixture of emotional cues as well as tension cues. And many of those tracks stick with me years later. And being exposed to so much of it inspired me to specifically write production music because I can see the possibilities with it. If you enjoy doing something and can make a living doing it, then that's all that matters.


Thank you for this! It's great to read.


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## mat1 (Feb 12, 2022)

A lot of professional songwriter/producers repurpose tracks that didn't get cut into production music or have a side hustle doing a couple of library albums a year. 

And vice/versa. Tracks that started as production music have launched proper artist projects. Foster The People is a good example but there are loads out there.


There are plenty of routes that don't involve writing music you hate. There is no real downside if you're doing music you would already be doing anyway.


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## Roger Newton (Feb 12, 2022)

Always worth remembering that if you decide to try and have a go at production/library music, you will need a publisher. And those publishers need sub publishers because the bottom line is distribution. And because you will need all of those people, you will also need and want to understand that they do this for money. They don't do it because they need to have arty farty conversations with other publishers down at the local wine bar about the artistic merits of this or that track.
So not only do you need and want to produce your very best material that is totally relevant to television and how it's going to work with visuals and particularly dialogue, you will also need to be able through your music, to convince any publisher you pitch music to that you are definitely in the business of making money first and foremost. Otherwise if that's not the reason you are doing production music, at worst, you will wind up with a publisher that's as naive you are.
That said, the first thing a publisher is probably going to see is your email and possibly then they might listen to a track. When you think about that and how many these people get in a day, you'll realise how tough a game this is.


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## Daryl (Feb 12, 2022)

Many composers find it difficult to wear both creative hats and business hats. Unfortunately it's part of the way you become successful. There ae many posts on this forum where people are upset that they don't get the chances, and to an extent. I agree, but then again many of the same people put no effort into trying to find those chances.

It's a fact of life that in the composing business, most of us don't jsut have opportunities thrust into our laps. Get over it. No point moaning. it won't change that. You can only change it when you're successful, and then you have the chance to give opportunities to others.

So, it order to get to that stage you have to put in hours of research into finding and meeting people, and then persuading them that they need you. It may come to nothing, but if you don't even make an effort, how are you going to succeed?


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## Varishnipu (Feb 14, 2022)

Daryl said:


> Many composers find it difficult to wear both creative hats and business hats. Unfortunately it's part of the way you become successful. There ae many posts on this forum where people are upset that they don't get the chances, and to an extent. I agree, but then again many of the same people put no effort into trying to find those chances.
> 
> It's a fact of life that in the composing business, most of us don't jsut have opportunities thrust into our laps. Get over it. No point moaning. it won't change that. You can only change it when you're successful, and then you have the chance to give opportunities to others.
> 
> So, it order to get to that stage you have to put in hours of research into finding and meeting people, and then persuading them that they need you. It may come to nothing, but if you don't even make an effort, how are you going to succeed?


Very great advice.


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## ControlCentral (May 11, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> In contrast, when I have limitless time stretching out in front of me, I'm likely to wander around, go down one path and then double back, retrace my steps, tentatively explore a second path but with the first still nagging me from the sidelines, and often wind up with dozens of muted ALT tracks that I need to weed through and try to figure out some combination of "maybe" takes that will form a coherent whole...


I'm currently working on my first personal, not-for-hire project with a soft, pretty much self-imposed deadline-- I feel heartened to know that I'm actually following in the footsteps of the greats.


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## ControlCentral (May 11, 2022)

molemac said:


> I agree . I hate deadlines , the Damocles sword of death hanging over your creativity. But more often than not it creates a shit or bust moment. Days of procrastination then self doubt and endless ripping up the page, your life and career flashes before you and then when there is no longer any time or hope , you reach into the depths of the toilet and pull out a mars bar. Last minute.com should have been a composers website .


Hard deadlines do tend to focus the mind in a very crystalline fashion.


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## method1 (May 11, 2022)

52 cues in a year? Luxury! 
I'm way past that and its only May!


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## Varishnipu (May 17, 2022)

Three cues a day is easy work for the true composers….interns and servants do the work to boost the numbers to 20 a day…..dump the trash and three brilliant cues are for albums to be released


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 17, 2022)

Varishnipu said:


> Three cues a day is easy work for the true composers….interns and servants do the work to boost the numbers to 20 a day…..dump the trash and three brilliant cues are for albums to be released


So.....what is a true composer? Enlighten me. Are you also insinuating we all have interns and servants?


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## Daryl (May 17, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> So.....what is a true composer? Enlighten me. Are you also insinuating we all have interns and servants?


I think it's supposed to be humour.


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 17, 2022)

Daryl said:


> I think it's supposed to be humour.


I hope so. This is the same poster who is against PRO's and advises not to write for American publishers.


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## Chris Schmidt (May 17, 2022)

Step 1. Die inside


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 17, 2022)

Chris Schmidt said:


> Step 1. Die inside


No offence, but if one dies inside because they need a non-musical job to earn a living, they have bigger issues.


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## Chris Schmidt (May 17, 2022)

Daryl said:


> Many composers find it difficult to wear both creative hats and business hats. Unfortunately it's part of the way you become successful. There ae many posts on this forum where people are upset that they don't get the chances, and to an extent. I agree, but then again many of the same people put no effort into trying to find those chances.
> 
> It's a fact of life that in the composing business, most of us don't jsut have opportunities thrust into our laps. Get over it. No point moaning. it won't change that. You can only change it when you're successful, and then you have the chance to give opportunities to others.
> 
> So, it order to get to that stage you have to put in hours of research into finding and meeting people, and then persuading them that they need you. It may come to nothing, but if you don't even make an effort, how are you going to succeed?


Obviously, there is an amount of truth to that, but honestly: I think you are oversimplifying it. 

Firstly, It's debatable to what extent "networking" actually matters in industries where the serious moneymakers are quite small and essentially a "club" with very low rate of turnover or new members. For years, I used to chat off and on with the audio director from a well-known game developer. He would often say "We like your music! But, we've worked with X from the start and I just don't see that changing anytime soon". I heard this from many connections I made over the years. I'd even get invited to go out for drinks with these people, but never wound up working for them because they "already have a guy".

So you can make all the connections you want, but especially if you're going to the big industry tradeshows and festivals and such but the fact is: You're likely talking to people who already have their needs met, for the next few decades, in the music dept. Most of the smaller-time people aren't making anything anyone wants to watch or play, so you probably won't find much "success" networking with them either.

A composer I know from LA often says "The best business card you can have is really great work" and I agree with that. Many composers in film and such were already successful in the music industry in general. People already know who they are and they go to them. Various kinds of producers deliberately seek them out for their projects because they are already familiar with this person's music via another project they did, the internet, an album, etc. 

So it's not really true that opportunities don't just come seeking musicians, but you have to have a good calling card. Even I've had some offers just through my YouTube channel.

In fact, I'd say most of the gigs I ever got were through someone finding my music on their own, or telling someone else about it, rather than me finding them. Most of the time, I got a job when I wasn't even looking for one, and all the times I was looking, nothing came up.

So based on my own experience, it seems like in the modern age, bringing people to your doorstep is more likely to lead somewhere than knocking on doors yourself

This leads to the next problem: Globalization.

Hollywood Composers and Pop stars can now dominate even the smallest, local economies in film, TV and games. If I had been born even 15 years earlier, I probably would've only been competing against people in my area for the job, but now: I'm against the ENTIRE WORLD.

Literally the entire freakin' world.

Now, an indie film maker or game dev can negotiate a deal with a (famous) composer from halfway around the world, bypassing everyone in their area. A small studio barely anyone has heard of in the middle of Salmon Arm BC can hire Hans Zimmer if they have the money together and can get him interested.

So I really feel that the "just work harder" and "make more connections" sort of advice is advice from a bygone era.

If you're making good music, and you're doing something a little different than the endless Zimmer clones and trailer music, someone out there wants it. You'll eventually build a following and you just never know who is actually listening.

They just might not be in any "industry" or located within the Cyberpunk Dystopia of Los Angeles.

All you can do is put your best foot forward and see what fate holds for you.


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## Chris Schmidt (May 17, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> No offence, but if one dies inside because they need a non-musical job to earn a living, they have bigger issues.


I think I'd have to die inside to write 52 cues in a year


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## method1 (May 17, 2022)

That's the business though - lets say you got a 6 parter from a streaming service - 10-12 cues (at least) per episode, already takes you over the 52 namesake of the thread,


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 17, 2022)

Chris Schmidt said:


> I think I'd have to die inside to write 52 cues in a year


Oh yes! Sorry, I misunderstood. Actually, I’ve been trying this and I’m on a roll.


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## Leslie Fuller (Jun 5, 2022)

Thought I’d post a link to @davekropf fairly recent YouTube interview with Dan Graham, whose book Dave references regarding “52 Cues”.

See here: 

Dan Graham is also know for the Gothic Instruments (Dronar etc) Kontakt Libraries.


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## GtrString (Jun 5, 2022)

So what is the debate.. numbers?


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## Leslie Fuller (Jun 5, 2022)

GtrString said:


> So what is the debate.. numbers?


Primarily yes! Interesting insights from many, such as @charlieclouser, if you want to read the whole thread.


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## David Enos (Dec 12, 2022)

molemac said:


> I agree . I hate deadlines , the Damocles sword of death hanging over your creativity. But more often than not it creates a shit or bust moment. Days of procrastination then self doubt and endless ripping up the page, your life and career flashes before you and then when there is no longer any time or hope , you reach into the depths of the toilet and pull out a mars bar. Last minute.com should have been a composers website .


BWA HA HA!!!!!!!! Best post ever, can totally relate. Loved the "your life and career flashes before you" and "you reach into the depths of the toilet and pull out a mars bar" phrases. Priceless! Thanks for the laugh


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## David Enos (Dec 12, 2022)

Have a question for those of you involved in production music/music libraries. While I have made _some _money from music library submission, my main gig right now is composing for video games so I'm really pretty new to this side of things. I'd like to do more and offer my library music in different formats, specifically as loops of different sections as well as offering different layers for clients that may want to "build their own" from the track. How do you handle splitting up a two minute (or more) cue into loopable sections? I worry about clicks and pops as well as instrument crossfades. Do you take the time to test them first? Every time? Also, how do you offer tracks that are offered in stems? drums only, rhythm section only, melody only, accompaniment (horns, string layers) only? Am really interested in your workflow in this regard! Thanks in advance and great thread


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## Roger Newton (Dec 12, 2022)

@David Enos

What you want to do is to go onto a library and check out the cuts. Usually you will see the 'main track' (let's say 2 minutes) and then what generally happens is 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds and a Sting that could be up to 10 seconds. There could also be an Underscore track.
Stems are more prevalent these days. Never used to be. I send in stems nowadays because I have to. Always try and keep the Bass stem separate. You can't really send in too many stems so you want to keep stems as say, strings, brass, efx, woodwinds, voices, ect.

I don't understand what you mean by loopable sections. Cuts aren't generally loopable but then it depends on what type of thing you write.

I used to do all the cuts (60 secs) ect, but I don't do that anymore; the publishers do that for me. I don't give tracks names or write any kind of blurb or description of the music or keywords ect. The publishers do all of that.

The publishers tell me what they want; also known as a brief. I mix it and I'm pretty good at mixing library tracks and keep it at around -6db. The publishers then master the tracks.


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## David Enos (Dec 12, 2022)

Roger Newton said:


> @David Enos
> 
> What you want to do is to go onto a library and check out the cuts. Usually you will see the 'main track' (let's say 2 minutes) and then what generally happens is 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds and a Sting that could be up to 10 seconds. There could also be an Underscore track.
> Stems are more prevalent these days. Never used to be. I send in stems nowadays because I have to. Always try and keep the Bass stem separate. You can't really send in too many stems so you want to keep stems as say, strings, brass, efx, woodwinds, voices, ect.
> ...


Thanks for the response Roger! What I mean by loops is that you might have a track that's (for example) 2 minutes long, and every 30 second section (let's say) can be looped. So, for example, the video editor buys your track but decides he likes the first and 3rd 30 seconds a lot, so he loops the first 30 seconds twice, plays the next 30 seconds, loops the 3rd 30 seconds twice, plays the 4th and final 30 seconds (the entire music cue amounting to 3 minutes now because of the loop). My concern in doing this is proper crossfading without clicks/pops as well as instrumentation sounding seamless when looped.


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## Roger Newton (Dec 12, 2022)

I wouldn't concern yourself with that too much. Just write tracks and let the sound editors worry about what they're going to use. Writing good sounding tracks that generally support visuals and particularly dialogue is the way to go. Good luck with it all and let us know how you get on.


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## Emanuel Fróes (Dec 12, 2022)

This is interesting. I gonna ask Pond5 how to know my uploads of this year. I actually lost the count. https://www.pond5.com/artist/emanuelfroes . 

If you go for speed, pls remember from deleting things from time to time or doing a "rescan" , it is likely that you are dellusional sometimes. I uploaded things that later I never believed it SHOULD get accepted haha 

As the Selfinflicted said, i see this generally as chess:

*
learn to get deep first


then practice speed from there.

*
But the contrary I believe as well:


*learn to be fast

then go deeper from there.*


Said this... The only time i recomment speed is after you learned some exercises well. For example, a student of mine is getting very good, so now i said to him to not complicate to much counterpoint and just (fucking) arrange the given melodies fast on piano.

Quoting from my handout:

*Music is a language, although not natural language: you learn there rhetoric and grammar. Rhetoric ( eloquence) is practiced fast ; grammar needs deep thought. This is why latin and greek are key for deep thought. The same as counterpoint in music. While improvisation is linked to musical eloquence.

*
If you master this, you can also compose music for library in good quality. Just don´t ask that a sheap dish tastes so sophisticated as the expensive and laborious one.

But for this, daw workflow is a huge milestone in the way, so pls let me know on dm how to make program change switch channels in Logic...This question burns me.


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## Soundbed (Dec 14, 2022)

David Enos said:


> I'd like to do more and offer my library music in different formats, specifically as loops of different sections as well as offering different layers for clients that may want to "build their own" from the track. How do you handle splitting up a two minute (or more) cue into loopable sections? I worry about clicks and pops as well as instrument crossfades. Do you take the time to test them first? Every time?


About loops:

What we do for this is referred to as building in "edit points".

So, yes, you need to build cues that have them. And yes, you can worry about clicks and pops and crossfade opportunities.

I had one publisher who specifically wanted every edit point to go all the way to silence, which is a little extreme. Usually editors just use a rough cut around an edit point. They don't necessarily all have a "tab to transient" feature like we have in DAWs, and they cut at a "frame" (like 24 frames per second, 30 fps) in their video editing software. But if they hear anything annoying they can quickly add a short crossfade.

Assuming your music will be looped, though, is slightly less likely than you might imagine.

A more common scenario is the middle will be removed.

So, you'd want to have an intro that can cut to the climax.

I generally feel satisfied if 45 seconds of a 2 minute cue gets used.

The most common "consumer" of my cues are reality TV shows.

TV moves quickly. The energy and mood of the music changes every 15 seconds or so ... even if it's ramping up in energy with the same mood for 45 seconds (low -> medium -> high energy) before switching to a new location, scene or mood — which for us means a new cue.

Of course there are nature documentaries, long format news shows that use drones and so on, but usually they need the music to make the boring content feel more exciting and energetic, so the last thing they want is a loop.

All you really need to check is that it CAN get edited. And again, that it can get edited using the blunt instrument that is a video editor's timeline (some are more sophisticated than others, but imagine only being able to cut at 30 places in a second e.g., 30fps!)

Some of my tricks for this are:

suckbacks that leave silence, so the editor can switch to any other section (downbeat)
don't use pickup notes. in fact, start melodies on the "& of one," or a later beat in the measure, so the editor can cut to the downbeat (percussion or a chord) and the melody / instrumentation will sound totally intentional. because pickups cross downbeats of new measures and disrupt editing flow without extra brain work by the editor.
don't finish a phrase — leave it hanging in suspense.
start new sections with percussion / "atonal" so they are easy to cut
basically, end and start each edit point so that each section can transition to every other section.


These are basic guidelines and tips. there are more advanced techniques and there are plenty of special cases and exceptions but these give you some starting points for the bread and butter stuff.
We don't need to treat the editors as musical dummies because many of them are incredibly musical and have a fantastic sense of timing, but, we need to write in a way that facilitates their workflow and makes our product easy for them to cut and shape for the scene. If they like editing our cues, you can be sure they will look for our cues in the bin over the period of a season, and reach for them to help define the sound of the show, or certain types of scenes for that show, that season.



David Enos said:


> how do you offer tracks that are offered in stems? drums only, rhythm section only, melody only, accompaniment (horns, string layers) only? Am really interested in your workflow in this regard!


The only best answer is to ask your publisher, because it can vary greatly.

But what you want to practice is that all your stems sound exactly like your master when added to a new timeline. This is tricky for folks who have gotten used to piling a lot of plugins on their master buss. Because any sonic coloring gets multiplied per stem, etc.

If that's not an issue for you, then work with your publisher on their requirements.

Some publishers actually want me to remove silent sections from stems, or re-write so there are not silences. Other publishers want me to deliver stems with silent sections (like 30 seconds of silence before a timpani roll when the percussion enters).

~

I have been toying with the idea of putting everything I've learned into a class or a book (or both) but I'm not sure it would be profitable.


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## Markrs (Dec 14, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> I have been toying with the idea of putting everything I've learned into a class or a book (or both) but I'm not sure it would be profitable.


After watching quite a few of your videos I think you would do a great job


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## Soundbed (Dec 14, 2022)

Markrs said:


> After watching quite a few of your videos I think you would do a great job


But, would anyone buy it?


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## SupremeFist (Dec 14, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> But, would anyone buy it?


I would definitely buy you a pint. Which in London costs more than most books.


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## Markrs (Dec 14, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> But, would anyone buy it?


I’m sure they would. There are lots of people in production music, lots of YouTube channels have memberships that people pay to be part of. I think Dirk Elhert did a course on production music. 

I think it depends on how much effort you think it would take and how much it would cost. I think the other consideration is whether it would be something you would enjoy doing? If it is then that normally makes it easier to do.


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## David Enos (Dec 17, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> About loops:
> 
> What we do for this is referred to as building in "edit points".
> 
> ...


Great advice Soundbed, thank you!  How do you insert/mark the edit points for the publisher if I may ask? Are you just talking about cutting the audio at two different points and offering it to the publisher that way (i.e., start of track to an audio cut at 30 seconds, then another cut at 60 seconds, then another cut at 1:30, etc.)? BTW, I'd love to check out your videos. Are they on YouTube?


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## davidnaroth (Dec 17, 2022)

@charlieclouser I think deadlines are the only way to get fast. Before I started writing for TV It would take me days to write something sometimes. And then I had to learn fast how to write fast. Even now if I'm writing something and there is no deadline (or a far out one), It feels sluggishly slow for me.


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## Soundbed (Dec 17, 2022)

David Enos said:


> Great advice Soundbed, thank you!  How do you insert/mark the edit points for the publisher if I may ask? Are you just talking about cutting the audio at two different points and offering it to the publisher that way (i.e., start of track to an audio cut at 30 seconds, then another cut at 60 seconds, then another cut at 1:30, etc.)? BTW, I'd love to check out your videos. Are they on YouTube?


Edit points are not marked, and you do not cut them. You create them at musical points, and video editors look for them in the visual waveform of the cue.

They are not every :30, :60 … those are what I usually refer to as cutdowns. (There might other names for them.) Edit points are usually every 8, 16 or 32 bars, depending on tempo. 

As horrific as it sounds to musicians fighting against the loudness wars, video editors don’t mind (and sort of prefer) a “stick of butter” waveform that looks like it has been broken up a couple times. It’s easy for them to see the edit points then.

(My vids are here.)


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## David Enos (Dec 17, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Edit points are not marked, and you do not cut them. You create them at musical points, and video editors look for them in the visual waveform of the cue.
> 
> They are not every :30, :60 … those are what I usually refer to as cutdowns. (There might other names for them.) Edit points are usually every 8, 16 or 32 bars, depending on tempo.
> 
> ...





> Edit points are usually every 8, 16 or 32 bars


It seems like most music for these libraries would have edit points/are loopable then, yes?


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## charlieclouser (Dec 17, 2022)

davidnaroth said:


> @charlieclouser I think deadlines are the only way to get fast. Before I started writing for TV It would take me days to write something sometimes. And then I had to learn fast how to write fast. Even now if I'm writing something and there is no deadline (or a far out one), It feels sluggishly slow for me.


100% agree.


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## Soundbed (Dec 17, 2022)

David Enos said:


> It seems like most music for these libraries would have edit points/are loopable then, yes?


Yes, it’s essential. Although it’s easier in some “genres” or styles than others. Pretty difficult in a drone cue (but possible).

Again, loops are what TV music tries to avoid. 

“Sounds like a loop” is a common criticism. Or, “too repetitive”.

And while video editors can construct a multitrack loop-based underscore from stems, it takes more time than simply selecting sections of a stereo bounce. 

Edit points are usually used to shorten your music, not extend it.


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## Emanuel Fróes (Dec 18, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Yes, it’s essential. Although it’s easier in some “genres” or styles than others. Pretty difficult in a drone cue (but possible).
> 
> Again, loops are what TV music tries to avoid.
> 
> ...


drama has with "proccess" to do. In this sense loops are the antithesis of drama. The Sonata form brings the possibility of drama, and this is what Beethoven used to the limit. Later this musical stle that rose from the development sections of the sonata form, as we hear in Beethoven, started to influence the operatic writing and to be the proper way of underscoring vocal lines and stories. This is the romantic opera. Ever<hting is development and proccess going forward. In this sense, loops are really ideal for video games, news... or to be used consciously in some serious cinematic storytelling.

But the ciaconne, so much as the passacaglie, is the precursor of "loops" (not because they are genealogically related, but because it comes first) . Here you can use repetition but without loosing the sense of progress , or - better said- the sense of proccess. It was assugned a mystical quality to this musical form because of the relation between repetition and variation, remembering the circular, espiral movements (sacred). Example:


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## David Enos (Dec 18, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Yes, it’s essential. Although it’s easier in some “genres” or styles than others. Pretty difficult in a drone cue (but possible).
> 
> Again, loops are what TV music tries to avoid.
> 
> ...


Thank you Soundbed!


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## David Enos (Dec 18, 2022)

Emanuel Fróes said:


> drama has with "proccess" to do. In this sense loops are the antithesis of drama. The Sonata form brings the possibility of drama, and this is what Beethoven used to the limit. Later this musical stle that rose from the development sections of the sonata form, as we hear in Beethoven, started to influence the operatic writing and to be the proper way of underscoring vocal lines and stories. This is the romantic opera. Ever<hting is development and proccess going forward. In this sense, loops are really ideal for video games, news... or to be used consciously in some serious cinematic storytelling.
> 
> But the ciaconne, so much as the passacaglie, is the precursor of "loops" (not because they are genealogically related, but because it comes first) . Here you can use repetition but without loosing the sense of progress , or - better said- the sense of proccess. It was assugned a mystical quality to this musical form because of the relation between repetition and variation, remembering the circular, espiral movements (sacred). Example:



Perhaps the same could be said of Phillip Glass or John Adams


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## Roger Newton (Dec 18, 2022)

David Enos said:


> Perhaps the same could be said of Phillip Glass or John Adams


Philipp Glass and Steve Reich didn't really do loops. If you want to get into library production music you have to avoid thinking in terms of loops. You don't need to have cuts that loop. Sound editors don't want that. They don't want overlong fade outs.


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## David Enos (Dec 18, 2022)

Roger Newton said:


> Philipp Glass and Steve Reich didn't really do loops. If you want to get into library production music you have to avoid thinking in terms of loops. You don't need to have cuts that loop. Sound editors don't want that. They don't want overlong fade outs.


What I meant was the repetition


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## Roger Newton (Dec 18, 2022)

Right. Repetition isn't a bad thing in library production music providing it's not a loop if you get what I mean. Things can repeat but the variation comes with different orchestration and build ups and so on. You master that fairly well, and you'll get your fair share of placements.


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## Emanuel Fróes (Dec 19, 2022)

David Enos said:


> Perhaps the same could be said of Phillip Glass or John Adams


This is interesting. Some repetitive music has its value (when it has) due also due to some* feeling of changing and proccess by repetition*, in the listener, like an ecstasy. I guess this was the point of Philip Glass. I would say, it is the best argument i could have for his music as art music (Kunstmusik). 



BUt perosnally i am not his fan; or better said, i dont like him compared to Stravinsky and Ravel. Even Fukamachi, the synth composer, i find more interesting. However Philip Glass is certainly the father of a new musical style, very influential.


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## Roger Newton (Dec 19, 2022)

David Enos said:


> What I meant was the repetition


This is repetition. it's a track I'm working on atm. This is loosely based on Glass/Reich minimalism with baroque undertones.. But it's not a loop. working title Frantic.


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## Roger Newton (Dec 19, 2022)

Another repetition one but entirely different. The trick is to add little details here and there and always remember it's for TV and dialogue. No loops. working title Proggers Revenge.


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 25, 2022)

I write 4 tracks a month and I am so happy with them


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 25, 2022)

wunderflo said:


> I'm just sometimes wondering why artists are doing this to themselves.. turning this wonderful thing called music into something as horrible as a sports competition.


I love this comment so bloody much! Makes me feel good. Love my 4 tracks a month even more now, thank you sir


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