EP3 - Why Your Best Songs Might Fail in Music Licensing
If there is one thing that stops music from getting a sync placement… it’s likely the same thing that will make you quit listening to this podcast I shot for you.
Find out why AND what it means for your recordings you are trying to get into TV & film.
____
- If you want more tips and ideas on how to get your music into tv and film:
https://syncsongwriter.com - For my free cheatsheet that shows you how to connect with the right people in licensing:
https://syncsongwriter.com/guide - To join the Art Of The Song Pitch - a proven step-by-step process that shows you exactly how to license your music to TV & film successfully in precise detail, where we personally introduce you to top music supervisors:
https://artofthesongpitch.com
____
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hey, it's Chris, and you know how I love using metaphors, examples, analogies, for things I'm talking about. Today, I got this crafty idea to come out and go on a windy day here in the Sea of Cortez and have the wind blowing into my microphone to give you an example of bad production. Because today I wanted to talk about production and sync.
I also am staring more or less into the sun squinting away. And maybe my hair is all messy from the wind. I have no idea. But the bottom line is, I want to give you an example of what music supervisors... their reaction when they hear your music, if it's not produced properly.
It's so critical that your music be produced right. And I'm gonna talk about why. And I'm also gonna talk about ways to actually make that happen even if you're a beginner.
So the bottom line is that when you first submit your music and a supervisor puts it on and listens to it, the very first thing they listen for is the production value. And I'm talking about within the first few seconds of playback.
If the production value is not above the threshold, if it doesn't sound like everything else getting into TV and film, it goes into their version of the trash and they move on to the next one. They're very busy people. They don't have time to get back to you to explain, here's what the problem was, or here's what I would fix, or here's my impressions. They simply don't have time for that, so you have to get it right the first time.
In order to get that right, a lot of people think, well I'll just spend more time in my home studio. If I spend a certain amount of money, maybe under $5,000 for your computer, your interface, your microphone and your guitar, whatever instruments you've got. Then all you gotta do is just spend time until it's right.
The problem with that approach is you're not ready yet. You're not there. When I first started out recording my friends for beer, I listened back to those recordings. I spend a lot of time on them, and they still make me cringe.
So all I'm trying to say is, don't waste the great songs that you're writing now on mediocre production. As you're getting better at what you do, the solution to that is to hire somebody else who's better than you at certain things and let them bring what they've got to the table so that they can make your music great while you're learning from them.
So you're working with them, right? Allow them to kind of produce or engineer or do whatever they do, and learn from them about how they're doing what they're doing on your music. Pull the sessions into your computer, get better and better at it, and before you know it, you'll be producing your music above that threshold.
Now, this is something that I do at my own studio, Sundown Sessions Studio. I have an online recording studio. I went out and hired some of the best of the best. These are world class players, engineers, programmers, composers, whatever you know, all the roles that we have. And we work as a team and a lot of these people are better than me at certain things.
I spent a lot of time producing records. Over 20 years, I've won awards doing it. And I'm not saying I'm the brightest crayon in the box. I recognize that. That's Steve Jobs' philosophy that I've really taken to heart. That's how he started Apple. He said, collect the best people you can around you. Let them self-manage. Your job as the leader, beside your contribution, is to remind them of the vision, what you're trying to do.
At my studio, our mission statement, if you want to call it that, is world class production at an indie budget. Okay? So whatever your version is of that. Make sure that you hire, you don't have to hire my studio, there's lots of people out there who you can hire, but go and take the time to get people who are better than you.
The argument against that is saying, Chris, I don't really have the money to do that. I really just need to do it on my own and so on. Remember that money and time are inextricably linked, so when you are spending your time, that's time you can't be making money. It's time away from your loved ones. It's time away from hobbies. It's time away from writing new songs. So there is a cost. There's always a cost with time. So whether you spend money or you spend time, the costs are gonna be really similar.
So you may think about, I'm gonna be better off if I hire somebody who's better than me for now. So I'm gonna save my money. I'm gonna take that extra time and make more money, or whatever it is. But just think about those two things as linked and don't just feel that, if I spend more time, then it's gonna be kind of free, cause it's never free.
The last thing that I want you to think about is that your music is your legacy. It's something you leave behind. It's gonna outlast you. It's something your children are gonna hear, your grandchildren if you decide to have kids. It's gonna be something that other people hear before anything. It's a part of you. So it's worth the investment. It's worth it sounding as good as it can be.
And again, not trying to stress you out and make you feel like, oh man, I'll never sound like the latest, greatest record. That's not the point. The point is just to get it good enough so that it sounds like everything else.
So how do you know that? Right? So here's a solution, a trick that you can use...
Take your mix, put it in a playlist with other artists or bands that you admire, and put it on random, and then go do something like chop carrots for dinner. Don't focus on it. Don't listen to it directly. Just listen to it indirectly as background music almost. When your track comes along in the playlist, what was your reaction? If your reaction's like, oh yeah, my head was still bobbing, and I was having a good time and great. You're golden. You're done. That's a good job, right? If your track comes along and you're like, you know, I just didn't really sound as good as everything else that was on the playlist. You've got some work to do. You've got some things you need to sort of address.
So leave me a comment below. I read them all. I respond to every single one. I would love to know where you are at on your production journey, or maybe you've got it figured out, what do you do by yourself? What do you outsource? Share it with us. We'd love to know in the community. That'd be amazing. So hit me up in the comments. I'll get right back to you and I hope you enjoy this. Not sure if my faux bad production on this came across at all, but I was doing my best. And we will catch you on the next one.
Have a great rest of your week and we'll see you there. Bye-bye.