# Non-exclusive Music Licensing sites



## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

Hey!

So I have around 60+ older tracks that I don't use at all and have simply forgotten about. They are from when I started out practicing writing music digitally with samples. 

I want to throw these up on some music licensing site, a non-exclusive one, and I'd simply like to know your experiences with different sites. I am very reluctant to throw them up on AJ as the deal with them is just too damn low % of revenue for the composer.

Any ideas on some great sites that you've had proper experience with? Perhaps I can put them up on several non-exclusive's, as they are just that; not exclusive for any one site (to maximize revenue from them).

Cheers,
W.


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## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

Did a track in less than an hour here now, just for fun. I want to put up things like this, tracks I have no use of otherwise!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12797960/corporate%20bullshit%20done.mp3

Excuse the name :D 

But yeah, any ideas? You guys like Audiojungle or any other place that's better for this non-exclusive stuff?

W.


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## chillbot (Oct 31, 2015)

It's a nice track... excuse me for saying so but it sort of sounds like you did it in an hour. I know you do much better stuff than this... can't you get a live acoustic guitar to play on it? I think the music library industry has come so far and there is so much competition (as you can tell just from reading this subforum) that it is going to be difficult to make a lot of income from your "throwaway" tracks and you might have to settle for a little bit is better than nothing at all. I don't mean any offense I just mean if it was that easy everyone would be doing it.


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## doctornine (Oct 31, 2015)

chillbot said:


> I just mean if it was that easy everyone would be doing it.



Agreed. It's not as easy as everyone likes to think….


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## Baron Greuner (Oct 31, 2015)

Hahah! Corporate Bullshit! I love it to death. :D

Trouble is though I agree with Chillbot. Even an RF library probably wouldn't take that.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

AJ (exclusive) gives me more money each month than every other RF library Im in combined, and that kind of track would be perfect for AJ. But as the other have said, it has to be better produced, this track probably wouldnt get accepted.


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 31, 2015)

Is there such a thing as "not accepted" in RF libs? I have some tracks on Pond, and yes, there is curator checking new tracks, but I always thought it was just a formality to prevent spamming, blatantly stolen stuff etc. I can`t see them actually evaluating this stuff musically.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

Vlzmusic said:


> Is there such a thing as "not accepted" in RF libs? I have some tracks on Pond, and yes, there is curator checking new tracks, but I always thought it was just a formality to prevent spamming, blatantly stolen stuff etc. I can`t see them actually evaluating this stuff musically.


I've heard even Pond5 has begun to reject tracks lately. AJ does not accept everything, just take a look at their forum...


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 31, 2015)

cAudio said:


> I've heard even Pond5 has begun to reject tracks lately. AJ does not accept everything, just take a look at their forum...



This is probably a "broken telephone" rumor, since now Pond is in a process of checking every author`s ID. I was asked to upload my as well, before they proceed any new tracks - still nothing to do with the music.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

Vlzmusic said:


> This is probably a "broken telephone" rumor, since now Pond is in a process of checking every author`s ID. I was asked to upload my as well, before they proceed any new tracks - still nothing to do with the music.


Yes, haven't experienced it myself so you're probably right.


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## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

Haha you guys really think it's that shitty of a track in production? 

Anyways, I hear tracks like these all over the place, even with pretty lame production. But I'm going to upload a few tracks to AJ and Pond5 and see what might come out of it.

My pro tracks are all published through proper music publishers which is going great, it's just about finding some place for my less pro tracks.

W.


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## chillbot (Oct 31, 2015)

I don't think it's bad at all. You just made a track in an hour that sounds like you made a track in an hour, which is a killer skill to have. What you didn't do is make a track in an hour that sounds like you spent all day on it.

If it was me I would record live acoustic guitar on it twice, would take 10 minutes. Pan one hard left and the other hard right and now you've got a nice acoustic track that I could see fitting a lot of places.


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## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

Ah yeah that's very true. I need to invest in an acoustic guitar. I only have a bass and electric guitar - but the acoustic ones are gold for this type of music.

Thanks for the feedback, man!! Really appreciate it. I mostly write filmscore/trailer music, and not this TV stuff, so all the feedback and tips are welcome.

W.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

Walid F. said:


> Haha you guys really think it's that shitty of a track in production?
> 
> Anyways, I hear tracks like these all over the place, even with pretty lame production. But I'm going to upload a few tracks to AJ and Pond5 and see what might come out of it.
> 
> ...


I really didn't think it was shitty either!! Just sounded unfinished and, like chillbot said, like you had spent one hour making it.
Because the market is oversaturated and the competition is huge I think it makes sense to make the best music one can in the shortest time possible, but without sacrificing quality. I dont do corporate music myself, but the ones i've heard that are top sellers are very well produced. ..and very similar.


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## chillbot (Oct 31, 2015)

Walid F. said:


> I mostly write filmscore/trailer music, and not this TV stuff, so all the feedback and tips are welcome.



Yeah I listened to some tracks on your site, they're very good.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

I listened to some of your tracks too, great stuff!


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## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

Ah thank you very much guys, totally appreciate it. And yes, I completely understand what you mean with the fact that it sounds like it has been made in one hour. Trick is to make it sound completely finished and rendered to its potential in a short time (or really the time isn't that important, as long as the result is the preferred one by clients).

I will listen to more TV music and this corporate stuff to get a better feel of their production, what tricks they have up their sleeves.

So, do you guys have any experience with these RF sites? Would you recommend anything else than AJ? Really, I'd be focusing like 98% of my time on proper projects and putting out very good music that is licensable and modern, but those 2% of tracks that don't make it in there I want to just throw up somewhere for randoms to use for a small fee.

W.


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## Walid F. (Oct 31, 2015)

I actually only have a bass and electric guitar, but tomorrow I'm going out to buy a steel-stringed acoustic Ibanez guitar for this purpose. Will be MUCH better to feature in the tracks I create.

W.


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## cAudio (Oct 31, 2015)

I would recommend trying both AJ and P5. I think AJ has most traffic and bring most sales in general, but P5 has the advantage that you can set your own price. 
And remember to get a capo with that guitar


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## Andrew Goodwin (Nov 1, 2015)

Very interesting reading this, I have a lot of tracks I'm working on polishing up and adding things too. I've been looking around at licensing sites and trying to decide what/where to put mine. I've been listening to tracks on those sites, but I wanted to ask you guys as well, were would a track like this fall?

Would it do well on pond5 or audio jungle or should I be seeking a more curated site like say the musicbed or a publisher? I have around 15 more in this quality. I've been doing lots of projects, but I want to break for a bit and build a library of licensing material.


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## Baron Greuner (Nov 1, 2015)

Walid F. said:


> I want to just throw up somewhere for randoms to use for a small fee.
> 
> W.



I sometimes get random fees that make me want to throw up.


If I was looking at RF, I would look at Music Loops. Not sure about it, but I think you need 50 tracks so you have what? 60 tracks? So that might work out. Don't know if there is any kind of audition first though.


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## cAudio (Nov 1, 2015)

Baron Greuner said:


> I sometimes get random fees that make me want to throw up.
> 
> 
> If I was looking at RF, I would look at Music Loops. Not sure about it, but I think you need 50 tracks so you have what? 60 tracks? So that might work out. Don't know if there is any kind of audition first though.


Music Loops is a great alternative. There's an audition, you just send a link to a playlist with your 50+ tracks.


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## Baron Greuner (Nov 1, 2015)

Andrew Goodwin said:


> Very interesting reading this, I have a lot of tracks I'm working on polishing up and adding things too. I




This track is very nice, but to me it's muddy down below. Maybe it's my hearing. Ambient tracks are a hard sell when it comes to non royalty free libraries in my experience. I submitted an Ambient track to the library I contribute to recently and didn't even get a look in for this particular album I was shooting for. I thought it was a pretty good track but the guy they have that does their ambient series is wayyyyy better than I am in that genre. The production quality is right up there because it has to be.

If you have 15 more ambient tracks of that quality my advice would be to get some feedback from royally free libraries if possible and see what they say about your sound quality. If there's no problem then you're good to go. I would forget non royalty free libraries with this genre probably, but that's just me though.


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## Vin (Nov 1, 2015)

I'd steer clear of AudioJungle and similar microstock sites. 35% of ~$19 minus tax? While it's probably a convenient way for hobbyists (amateurs) to earn some side cash, any self-respecting artist should look elsewhere, but that's just my opinion. And your music is better than that. 

Music Loops, Jingle Punks, Soundscape Media, Muziko are just some of the non-exclusive alternatives. I'd recommend you getting Emmett Cooke's excellent licensing manual for starters.

You also may find this thread interesting.


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## cAudio (Nov 1, 2015)

Vin said:


> I'd steer clear of AudioJungle and similar microstock sites. 35% of ~$19 minus tax? While it's probably a convenient way for hobbyists (amateurs) to earn some side cash, any self-respecting artist should look elsewhere, but that's just my opinion. And your music is better than that.
> 
> Music Loops, Jingle Punks, Soundscape Media, Muziko are just some of the non-exclusive alternatives. I'd recommend you getting Emmett Cooke's excellent licensing manual for starters.
> 
> You also may find this thread interesting.



+1 on Emmett Cooke's book. I would also recommend Music library report.

I believe Jingle Punks has gone exclusive for new composers, haven't they?

I agree that selling non-exlusive at AJ is a poor deal. Exclusive composers on the other hand get from 50-70% (depending on total sales) and there is 5 licenses available ranging from 19$ to 304$ depending on use. The average price on Pond5 is 23$ and on Music Loops its around 40$ (based on the 5 first pages of new tracks). In the end different libraries work for different composers and I guess there are amateurs, hobbyists and professionals in all of them.


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## Andrew Goodwin (Nov 2, 2015)

Thanks guys! Got the licensing book and will be checking out the sites. I have some high-end tracks that I want to find the proper place for, but I also have a lot of well played stuff scraps that would be perfect for micro sites.


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## SampleScience (Nov 23, 2015)

Andrew Goodwin said:


> Very interesting reading this, I have a lot of tracks I'm working on polishing up and adding things too. I've been looking around at licensing sites and trying to decide what/where to put mine. I've been listening to tracks on those sites, but I wanted to ask you guys as well, were would a track like this fall?
> 
> Would it do well on pond5 or audio jungle or should I be seeking a more curated site like say the musicbed or a publisher? I have around 15 more in this quality. I've been doing lots of projects, but I want to break for a bit and build a library of licensing material.




To me, this is a really good ambient track, and I listen to a lot of ambient music (I cover that genre for a webzine and my own blog).


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## Andrew Goodwin (Nov 23, 2015)

Thanks for checking it out SampleScience. I've been sitting on tracks like this for over a year have been working on them for licensing. Really would be nice to get some extra mula flowing in


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## zacnelson (Nov 23, 2015)

Walid I actually loved the melodies in your track, it was just all the sounds that and the mixing that need work. I'm sure if you re-recorded it, it could be great, as the core idea really works!


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## dannymc (Nov 23, 2015)

> Atleast you can set your own price on Pond5, and i've had a decent amount of sales on there the past year.
> Around 5-10 tracks generated around 150 sales since last december with no promotion or anything, and they're all priced in the 40-50 $ range.



150 sales at 50 $ thats $7,500 in a year for a hobby you love doing. that sounds amazingly great to me


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## Vin (Nov 23, 2015)

dannymc said:


> 150 sales at 50 $ thats $7,500 in a year for a hobby you love doing. that sounds amazingly great to me



Keep in mind that fees are split 50/50 usually, so it's half of that  But yes, it can be great extra income even as a hobby.


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## Andrew Goodwin (Nov 24, 2015)

Yeah snagged a sale off of a cue I wrote for a 48hr film fest on Pond5. I definitely want to make high quality work, but if some of the okay demos that don't make it can still generate funds I'm all for it. I looked at AJ too and though people say they've had success, I just cringe at someone else setting such a crappy license fee on top of the fact that they hide how much they are paying you, which I figured out to be 30% non-exclusive. They are conniving like comcast! I'm just trying to break into this and generate some funds for starters. All the info has been very helpful guys(read emmetts book btw)


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