Audiosocket - a new type of music licensing?

Hypebot ran a piece yesterday about the launch of 'Music as a Service' by Audiosocket.

That particular bit of their business is a cool way for other web based companies to offer their users access to pre-cleared music for video and web apps and the like. You can read more about that here.

But, just like Gobbler in the previous post, I didn't know about Audiosocket at all!

What it means for you as an artist is another potential outlet for your music and one that can earn you revenue.

As a DIY musician in the modern music busines you will almost certainly have been told a lot that alternative revenue generating methods are key to your survival - they are. And, licensing your music for ads, TV, web use etc is the main one of those routes.

Audiosocket look like a very cool outfit who A&R their catalogue and represent 'culturally relevant' music rather than 'crap stock music'! I like that.

Their 50% commission of any fees might look heavy but as it's free to join, and they offer a non-exclusive deal and you can still license your music yourself (or with another agent) as well, why not submit your music and see if they'll take you on?

Check them out here.

Get your music in Movies & Ads - Do's & Don'ts

Here's two great articles from a blog that is new to me and full of great posts - American Songwriter.

They are both about panels held by music supervisors and have a bunch of great tips on how you can optimise your chances of getting your music used in a movie or an ad.

There were some common threads that ran through the discussion—as far as dos, don’ts, and other things to be conscious of—for those searching out song placement opportunities. Here’s what resonated most:

• Do your research before reaching out to music supervisors.

Know exactly what project they are working on and what kind of music they are looking for. If you send them something that contradicts what they need, you’ll most likely be blackballed from the supervisor’s working order. Make sure to include all “metadata” for your songs for digital delivery. “Track 2” doesn’t work. Deliver songs via DropBox, YouSendIt or a similar method. Don’t send mp3s unless agreed upon beforehand.

Read the Nashville panels tips here.

And here's their article previewing it with more direct tips and insight.

Two things that I do in relation to music supervisors:

1. Whenever I watch a movie, I look for the music supervisor's name or if I see their name in an article like this, I note it down. I then find and follow that person on Twitter and put them in a Twitter list of 'Music Supervisors'. The stuff I find out from that is IMMENSE!

2.  I build a music synch page on my artist's website. On there we create a few players defined by mood and / or tempo (we use Topspin widgets but SoundCloud is perfect as it allows downloads) plus details about availablity of the much loved 'one-stop' (meaning that the 'supes' can clear a whole track and its publishing without needing to get a third party permission) and the availability of instrumentals and cut-downs. We also try to note anything else that we think will help a music supervisor find it easy to pick our artist's tracks! Then, we have a page link that we can email at a moment's notice.

Sweet!

 

10 Tips on Music Licensing - free pdf

Discmakers will give you their free pdf containing 10 tips from experts in music synchronisation and licensing if you go here.

It's not earth-shattering stuff, but it does cover some basics very well - and you might well not have thought about them before.

Such as, make sure you have all your rights in order so that your tracks can be licensed quickly and easily, and make sure that you have instrumental versions at the ready.

To be fair, the guide is about 'getting your music ready for licensing', not about how to snag that $50,000 ad synch!

Read it here.

Music synchronisation opportunities for your music

I was put on to this site by a twitter follower - @jamesbrister.

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it's worth checking out. It has a whole host of features and opportunities, but I'm most interested in the way that you can upload your music and have it put forward for synchronisation licensing opportunities through their site.

Anything that can give you music sychronisation advice, is good with me.

Check out our video tours and see what R&R WORLD has to offer you! Whether you are an artist, music lover, music pro, designer, studio or venue we have something for you! Learn how you could earn as part of R&R WORLD Simple.

Go and watch their videos explaining what the site can do for you.