# How many media composers vs cues & how has it changed in 10 years?



## mc_deli (Nov 11, 2015)

Bear with me for a second... and then school me please...

Let's take epic trailer music... it is made for action films, action games and reality TV, right?

In the year 2000 how many epic trailers did the A/V industry need per year... 10,000...? and a lot were pitched... maybe 30k pieces made by 5k composers...? No idea. 2000 actual well produced trailer cues...? More, a lot more?

And in 2015, there are a few more films being made, more TV programs being made and more games, no doubt, but how many more... has the need for trailer music even doubled... more made on spec and pitches...? 20k cues needed, 60k made... is this even remotely plausible.

So the number of composers doing this stuff... in 2010, 5k composers doing 30k epic trailer tracks... or 500 composers to 8k tracks or what...?

And now, in 2015, 60k composers doing 60k tracks that will ever see the decision maker about their intended use, but making a total of 200k... more... another 60k might sit on an online library... or... ?



...it's like a ring manufacturer making 70 billion rings and then another 70 billion... yes.. we could all wear two at once...


But how do these numbers really stack up... how many global usages are there for different cue types... and where are the dead horses being flogged... how many media composers are there now compared to 2000?

Edit: obvs title should say 15 years - I am to be trusted with the math(s)


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## Christof (Nov 11, 2015)

Well, the world population in the year 2000 was 6,1 billion, in 2015 we have 7,3 billion.
Some of them are media composers


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## mc_deli (Nov 11, 2015)

Think Christof, that has put it all into perspective


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## Dean (Nov 11, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> Bear with me for a second... and then school me please...
> 
> Let's take epic trailer music... it is made for action films, action games and reality TV, right?
> 
> ...



Hey, I think its hard to count,..its more like an endless flood.The thing is if the price is right (free) clients are happy to let as many composers as possible compose as many cues as possible (like its the last days of Rome),..it costs them absolutely nothing unless your track lands and if/when it does land the price is driven down by the fact that the supply outweighs the demand,..Pop is now eating itself! .Anyway I agree that there is a total over saturation of media composers / music libraries etc,..but I think THAT very fact actually increases the hunger for truely great music and composers,..of course that all depends on where you pitch your tent,how good you are and how much 'luck' you're willing to make! D


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## wpc982 (Nov 11, 2015)

Good grief, surely those numbers are way off? How about 1,000 trailers done by 50 composers?


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 12, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> Bear with me for a second... and then school me please...
> 
> Let's take epic trailer music... it is made for action films, action games and reality TV, right?
> 
> ...



Wow... I think it is going to be nigh impossible to work out the exact number. There would have to be a world-wide census. Wrt to trailer music, I can certainly say that 10 years ago (plus), was the equivalent of the gold-rush years, not many companies out there doing it, charging big fees, full orchestral albums making a return after just a few months. Those days are gone. Too many companies, too many composers trying to squeeze in, sure they might get one placement a year, but that doesn't amount to a living. Quite a few of the trailer companies come and go these days as well. In the general media composer market the situation is similar. Too many people doing it. This is partly down to the fact that it has become very easy to produce a reasonable result with little knowledge, and has led to the rise of the One Fingered Composer (cue image of composer holding down middle C on a keyboard to trigger a really cool loop in Aeon/Signal/Orbit/Evolve/Damage Etc Etc). Don't get me wrong, I love those products. So there is an army of composers who make a little money whilst holding down a day job/being supported by partner/wife/parents delete as applicable (this is not a criticism of their modus operandi - we all have to get started somehow, and it's hard in the music business). Then there is a smaller group of people who scrape a living (and I have seen cases of friends in this situation where they then had to leave the music industry once a mortgage/decent car/children had to payed for). There there is an even smaller group how make a decent living, and an even smaller group who make loads of money.

Just my observations, again, I don't mean to offend anyone relying on their day job, some of you are and/or will be great composers.


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## mc_deli (Nov 12, 2015)

SillyMidOn said:


> Wow... I think it is going to be nigh impossible to work out the exact number. There would have to be a world-wide census.



Not even a guess to make me look daft...?


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## D.Salzenberg (Nov 12, 2015)

People with experience please correct me if I am wrong, but surely in trailer music, although it is obviously very overcrowded, those who are really really good do get regular placements and make good money. I follow the facebook pages of Lex, Twelve Titans, Superhuman, Ninja Tracks, Dos Brains etc and they are all getting good placements all the time. Obviously its not easy to get to that level, and more and more trailer music labels are starting up all the time, but is it still not the case that if you are good enough to stand out and determined enough you can still do well?


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## doctornine (Nov 12, 2015)

I know some trailer guys, I even dabble myself. But I honestly don't personally know anyone that makes their living purely from trailer music……


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## maro (Nov 12, 2015)

Recently I read about robots that master tracks and compose music with a "finger on the middle C". Imagine the competition for 10 years. Please do not compete with robots. In this case will turn into robots. Leave robots make music for robots. Keep act as people and write music that will remain human for 10 years, 20 years and forever. Sorry, I'm a little bit platonish today.


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 12, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> Not even a guess to make me look daft...?


It would be impossible to make you look daft, as to come up with your numbers is already some feet. I just wouldn't be able to hazard a guess. Hell I'm sure if you spoke to 5 different publishers they'd come up with 5 different figures. I do know that it's crowded, though.


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 12, 2015)

maro said:


> Recently I read about robots that master tracks and compose music with a "finger on the middle C". Imagine competition for 10 years. Please do not compete with robots. In this case will turn into robots. Leave robots make music for robots. Keep act as people and write music that will remain human for 10 years, 20 years and forever. Sorry, I'm a little bit platonish today.



You're not far off, really. With these powerful loop machines (Signal, Aeon etc etc), we are already at a point where editors can start using them without the need for composers for simple tasks. There are rise designers, slam designers etc, so why licence a rise(r) or slam form a library? Not good.


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 12, 2015)

D.Salzenberg said:


> People with experience please correct me if I am wrong, but surely in trailer music, although it is obviously very overcrowded, those who are really really good do get regular placements and make good money. I follow the facebook pages of Lex, Twelve Titans, Superhuman, Ninja Tracks, Dos Brains etc and they are all getting good placements all the time. Obviously its not easy to get to that level, and more and more trailer music labels are starting up all the time, but is it still not the case that if you are good enough to stand out and determined enough you can still do well?


They guys you mention are obviously the labels themselves, so they will make more money than one of their composers will (unless as a composer you work for more than one label), but yes, it is possible. BUT if you are starting now, in 2015, geeez.... it will be hard.


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 12, 2015)

doctornine said:


> I know some trailer guys, I even dabble myself. But I honestly don't personally know anyone that makes their living purely from trailer music……


You do now.


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## Vin (Nov 12, 2015)

SillyMidOn said:


> You're not far off, really. With these powerful loop machines (Signal, Aeon etc etc), we are already at a point where editors can start using them without the need for composers for simple tasks. There are rise designers, slam designers etc, so why licence a rise(r) or slam form a library? Not good.



If there are sample libraries, why are orchestras still needed? Sh?%ty composer with AEON/Evolve/any other loop library or without it is still a sh&%ty composer.

I must say that I stopped caring about these pessimistic and tiresome _"Industry is flooded", "Loops are bad", "10 years ago was easier to start", "Don't bother" bla bla bla_ threads a while ago. I see people that succeed every day. If you're good at your craft, you'll find work. Focus on now, not 10 years ago, on your craft and you'll do well.

Getting back to my brass orchestration study now.


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## Daryl (Nov 12, 2015)

Vin said:


> I must say that I stopped caring about these pessimistic and tiresome _"Industry is flooded", "Loops are bad", "10 years ago was easier to start", "Don't bother" bla bla bla_ threads a while ago. I see people that succeed every day. If you're good at your craft, you'll find work. Focus on now, not 10 years ago, on your craft and you'll do well.


However, if you run a business it would be foolish not to understand trends in income. Whilst there may be pessimism, there are still areas where it's possible to make a good living. However, many composers are bad at business, which is why they don't make a good living.

It's also not enough to be good. Many clients can't tell the difference, so not only does it put you in the same category as thousands of others, but you can be beaten on price as well. BTW this doesn't just apply to music, it applies to most crafts. So if you want to be financially successful you have two main options:

1) Write as much sh*t in as short a period as you can, making sure that your production standards are good enough so that most clients can't tell that you spent no time on any of the music. The cluster bomb method.
2) Take your time and craft good tracks, knowing that the client base for this is very small, but the talent gene pool is also very small, the pay is usually better, and artistically it is more satisfying.

D


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## mc_deli (Nov 12, 2015)

You are preaching to the converted here.
I am genuinely interested in the numbers... I guess the only people who could make a good estimate would be software developers who have put real effort into market research... Apple, Steinberg, Avid surely know their addressable market and how it has changed in the last 15 years... Native Instruments probably have a very good idea of different composer segments... other developers I'm not so sure they would have a clue... of course it would be very interesting to know how many e.g. Albion owners there are out there...

Part of the fascination for me is that there are business and creative decisions to be made... and what/when to buy is part of that... what libraries to target... where to focus... but in the end I am genuinely interested in the numbers...


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## Dean (Nov 12, 2015)

D.Salzenberg said:


> People with experience please correct me if I am wrong, but surely in trailer music, although it is obviously very overcrowded, those who are really really good do get regular placements and make good money. I follow the facebook pages of Lex, Twelve Titans, Superhuman, Ninja Tracks, Dos Brains etc and they are all getting good placements all the time. Obviously its not easy to get to that level, and more and more trailer music labels are starting up all the time, but is it still not the case that if you are good enough to stand out and determined enough you can still do well?



It is still the case. D


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## D.Salzenberg (Nov 12, 2015)

Thanks Dean!


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## tav.one (Nov 12, 2015)

Christof said:


> Well, the world population in the year 2000 was 6,1 billion, in 2015 we have 7,3 billion.
> Some of them are media composers



Eldest composer from that lot would be 15 today


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## doctornine (Nov 12, 2015)

SillyMidOn said:


> You do now.



But we haven't even been introduced


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## Dean (Nov 12, 2015)

doctornine said:


> I know some trailer guys, I even dabble myself. But I honestly don't personally know anyone that makes their living purely from trailer music……





SillyMidOn said:


> You do now.



make that two people you know now.  (well I do other stuff too.) D


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## Rodney Money (Nov 12, 2015)

Vin said:


> If there are sample libraries, why are orchestras still needed? Sh?%ty composer with AEON/Evolve/any other loop library or without it is still a sh&%ty composer.
> 
> I must say that I stopped caring about these pessimistic and tiresome _"Industry is flooded", "Loops are bad", "10 years ago was easier to start", "Don't bother" bla bla bla_ threads a while ago. I see people that succeed every day. If you're good at your craft, you'll find work. Focus on now, not 10 years ago, on your craft and you'll do well.
> 
> Getting back to my brass orchestration study now.


Tell me more about your brass orchestration! I get excited by that.


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## jasonachapman (Nov 12, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> You are preaching to the converted here.
> I am genuinely interested in the numbers... I guess the only people who could make a good estimate would be software developers who have put real effort into market research... Apple, Steinberg, Avid surely know their addressable market and how it has changed in the last 15 years... Native Instruments probably have a very good idea of different composer segments... other developers I'm not so sure they would have a clue... of course it would be very interesting to know how many e.g. Albion owners there are out there...
> 
> Part of the fascination for me is that there are business and creative decisions to be made... and what/when to buy is part of that... what libraries to target... where to focus... but in the end I am genuinely interested in the numbers...



I'd love to know these numbers too! Facebook likes can be an indication of how many users a company has. Keep in mind though that not all users are professionals. The majority are in the "prosumer" market or dedicated enthusiasts.


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## erica-grace (Nov 12, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> In the year 2000 how many epic trailers did the A/V industry need per year... 10,000...?



It is really difficult to put a number on this, so anything we talk about is of course an approximation.

In 2000, I think there were 300 films released. Most have one trailer, some have two, and a handful have three. Maybe a couple have four? So, if all have one, half have two, and 25 have three, that's 475 trailers.... is my math correct? Let's say 500 trailers... but that's not all; other things need trailer music. But if you start with 500 for films, you cant possibly get anywhere near 10k for everything.



mc_deli said:


> and a lot were pitched... maybe 30k pieces made by 5k composers...?



No - most trailer music tracks are already written; where the trailer house chooses a track off of a music library cd, or out of the library's catalogue. There is some pitching of course, but that's a small minority. Dozens maybe? Certainly not 30k.



mc_deli said:


> So the number of composers doing this stuff... in 2010, 5k composers doing 30k epic trailer tracks... or 500 composers to 8k tracks or what...?



No - the numbers are probably similar to what I posted above. Although the number of trailer tracks available on the market have gone way up in the past 15 years, the number of films has not risen dramatically, nor has the need for these types of tracks. Sure it has risen, but not THAT much.


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## mc_deli (Nov 12, 2015)

jasonachapman said:


> I'd love to know these numbers too! Facebook likes can be an indication of how many users a company has. Keep in mind though that not all users are professionals. The majority are in the "prosumer" market or dedicated enthusiasts.


Interesting. Firstly, I strongly disagree that Facebook likes can tell you how many people are in a market or own a product.
But the prosumer point is a good one. The story behind the numbers is the affordability of prosumer gear, the numbers of prosumer composers (Garagebanders up to orchestral mocker upers), and their affect on the volume of release-quality music - combined with the debatable point that library-quality has probably brought down the level of release-quality in the last 15 years.
Still looking for more guesses on the numbers - how about guessing the number of library cues produced per annum vs usages since 2015?


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## mc_deli (Nov 12, 2015)

erica-grace said:


> In 2000, I think there were 300 films released. Most have one trailer, some have two, and a handful have three. Maybe a couple have four? So, if all have one, half have two, and 25 have three, that's 475 trailers.... is my math correct? Let's say 500 trailers... but that's not all; other things need trailer music. But if you start with 500 for films, you cant possibly get anywhere near 10k for everything.


...what about 2000 game trailers... could the number get up to 3-4k... and how about 2015... has it doubled while the number of trailer cues has multiplied 30-fold...?


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 13, 2015)

doctornine said:


> But we haven't even been introduced





Dean said:


> make that two people you know now.  (well I do other stuff too.) D


 Well, Doctornine and Dean, pleased to meet you both (virtual handshakes and high fives all round.


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## SillyMidOn (Nov 13, 2015)

jasonachapman said:


> I'd love to know these numbers too! Facebook likes can be an indication of how many users a company has. Keep in mind though that not all users are professionals. The majority are in the "prosumer" market or dedicated enthusiasts.



Ohhhhh careful with that. In my experience there are trailer libraries that do a lot of publicity, say on sites like Trailer Music News, which is not a bad site, that is not what I am saying, but the people doing the most shouting (seeking publicity) aren't alway those making the most money. Much like in real life. There are some trailer libraries that really seek to stay under the radar, and hardly publish their "wins". Part of it has to do with the fact that they don't want the general public bugging them to release the music publicly, and they don't want to be inundated by new composers sending them demos, as many companies do (... but then how the hell do you get in, I know, I know....), and there is a real need to keep new cues out of the public arena, as editors are most of the time looking for brand new, fresh and unheard material.


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## kclements (Nov 13, 2015)

Daryl said:


> ... So if you want to be financially successful you have two main options:
> 
> 1) Write as much sh*t in as short a period as you can, making sure that your production standards are good enough so that most clients can't tell that you spent no time on any of the music. The cluster bomb method.
> 2) Take your time and craft good tracks, knowing that the client base for this is very small, but the talent gene pool is also very small, the pay is usually better, and artistically it is more satisfying.
> ...



This.


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## Daryl (Nov 13, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> ...combined with the debatable point that library-quality has probably brought down the level of release-quality in the last 15 years.


Yes that has happened, but by far the biggest factor in bringing down the quality is use of samples, rather than recording the music. Obviously if one is writing an electronic track, this doesn't apply.

D


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## kclements (Nov 13, 2015)

Daryl said:


> Yes that has happened, but by far the biggest factor in bringing down the quality is use of samples, rather than recording the music. Obviously if one is writing an electronic track, this doesn't apply.



I agree.

I just did a cue and brought in a live trumpet player to replace my mock ups - made a world of difference! Seriously, it was so much more fun just having this single player doing his thing live - and it elevated the whole track. Next week, same thing but with a flute player. I working to get to the point where I am using more live players than samples. But with budgets as they are I am a bit constrained. But that's my goal.

kc


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## Dean (Nov 13, 2015)

Daryl said:


> Yes that has happened, but by far the biggest factor in bringing down the quality is use of samples, rather than recording the music. Obviously if one is writing an electronic track, this doesn't apply.
> 
> D



I dont know about you but Im far more concerned with the music itself,..Ive heard some truely awful music performed beautifully by live players (some using those VERY affordable remote recording sessions) and I've heard breath taking music performed using obvious samples.I prefer the latter. D


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## Daryl (Nov 14, 2015)

Dean said:


> I dont know about you but Im far more concerned with the music itself,..Ive heard some truely awful music performed beautifully by live players (some using those VERY affordable remote recording sessions) and I've heard breath taking music performed using obvious samples.I prefer the latter. D


True, but there is far more bad music using samples, than live players and if both are bad I would rather hear live every time. It's not about the samples. It's about the bad performances. Using samples. Of bad music. There is no way back from that particular triple threat.

D


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## Dean (Nov 14, 2015)

Daryl said:


> True, but there is far more bad music using samples, than live players and if both are bad I would rather hear live every time. It's not about the samples. It's about the bad performances. Using samples. Of bad music. There is no way back from that particular triple threat.
> 
> D



I agree (in part), re more 'bad sample music out there',..even a live orchestra just tuning up sounds more engaging and beautiful than the vast majority of sample based orchestral music but thats purely because the tech is so cheap and accessible. A live orchestra sounds so incredible and stunning right off the bat that it can very easily mask a terrible piece of music.( Anyway,I know what Im trying to say but Im not making my point very well i think.  ) D


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## NoamL (Nov 14, 2015)

In 2000, that's still the Don LaFontaine / Hal Douglas era of doing trailer voiceovers. Plus, back then people would just license a popular track and stick it on trailer after trailer. Remember Requiem For A Dream on the LOTR Two Towers trailer? That would never happen today.


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## mc_deli (Nov 17, 2015)

"Deep voice"! Hired him once for a trans atlantic isdn vo in 97. Golden years... Er...


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