Sound beds for reality TV

[Rick Sanchez]

Originally Posted by scooptraynor

Hey,

We're a small production company based in Shanghai and are about to go into production on a reality TV show for an English-language network. As of last week our budget got slashed pretty drastically and so we've had to cut out our line for a sound designer/music placement guy. So it looks like that's going to fall on our editing team before it goes to sound mix. We could have had the guys who mix the show do music too but their rate is too much for both...

So what I am trying to get at the moment are some recommendations for a good, standard reality TV music library. I've had a look around but there are just so many that it's hard to really weigh them against each other!

Thanks in advance for anyone that might know!

I assume you don't have a music supervisor, but there are literally hundreds of music libraries out there some with many thousands of cues. Most of them you can audition tracks online and if you are doing a series, find something that has music close to what you like or have one of their music supervisors find a style for your show and negotiate a blanket deal with them. It's a very competitive business, so finding something to fit in your budget should not be too difficult.

[scooptraynor]

Thanks for your reply Rick, as post supervisor it looks like I'm going to be taking over the role of micro-supervising all things post, including music, as we all double up on jobs and hope to god we get through the project!

I've come across a lot of the sites in the past but I suppose the reason I posted was to try and skip out on auditioning ALL the different companies' cues and get some recommendations for a select few that I could listen to and work out which would work best for us. Limited time split between gear buying, people hiring and general stressing doesn't leave a lot of time for testing out cues.

Anyway, I have had a couple of recommendations via PM so thankyou to those who sent, but if anyone has anymore feel free to drop me a line!

[Etch-A-Sketch]

most libraries have music suitable for reality TV. some even have "reality" specific libraries. Some of the bigger companies even have in house music supervisors to help you find cues if you don't have a full time music sup of your own.

In shanghai I'm not sure who does what since most US companies use sub publishers outside the US. PM me if you still need help.

[Fajita]

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