3 Mistakes to Avoid in Sync Licensing
If you want to get your music placed in TV and film and see a higher success rate in your submissions, here are three crucial things that you want to avoid:
Not doing the research
When you’re trying to pitch your music for TV and film placements, you need to do the research prior to reaching out and pitching music. Before you reach out to a music licensing company or a music library, visit their website and see what kind of music they place and use. Most companies have their catalog on the website which you can go through and listen to. It’s important to do this since you want to make sure that they represent the kind of music that you create. Another thing you can do is use a site like Tunefind where you can research shows/movies and hear the music that’s been placed in them. For example, if you look at a music licensing company’s website and see that they had something placed recently on Teen Moms, you can go to Tunefind to listen to the music that they use on the show. So now when you reach out to that company to introduce yourself, you know exactly what they already need and you can begin to build a demo reel of those styles of tracks.
Not knowing how to structure instrumentals
If you're trying to do background instrumental cues for reality TV, different shows, and commercials, there are certain formats that work best. On the same note, there are certain elements in the track that make it more likely to be used by an editor because it makes their job easy. One of those things is producing short intros - 14 or 15 seconds max. If you can make it shorter than that, even better, because scenes in TV and film evolve quickly. Digging a little bit deeper into the structure, you want to make sure you’re building and adding instrumentation gradually throughout the track. For example, every eight bars you may want to introduce a new sound or melody to keep the track from sounding repetitive or boring. This also gives editors a chance to use and place multiple parts of your tracks, which could increase your placements with just one track. When it comes to endings, you shouldn’t use fade outs. You want to use a sting ending, which is essentially an abrupt ending. This can be achieved through a kick, a crash, a synth sound, etc. hitting one note and ending altogether. Using a sting ending vs. a fade out is a very important element when you’re looking to get accepted into a music library.
Not following instructions well
To put it bluntly, if you want to beat most of your competition, just follow instructions. If you can’t follow instructions, you’ll have a hard time getting placements in TV and film. Even in the submission phase where you're just reaching out, a lot of companies will have specific instructions on how to submit. If you don't follow those instructions, you may get put in a pile of people they’ll never respond to or reach out to again. With that being said, even if you think you understood the directions, go back and reread them because they're there for a reason. It makes everyone’s job easier, and you want to be an easy person to work with since that’s what will continuously get you more work.
