Music/Jingle Houses

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Protools Guy

Hey Joel -

It's a repetitive phrase that continues to come out of my mouth every time I try to get approval from the CFO (my wife) every time I want to buy something new... Only meant as a joke. Maybe you've been there?

Sure, I used to think I only needed one more piece of gear... until lately, where my most recent revelation is that

now I've got pretty much everything I need!

Of course, if Warren at Front End Audio is going to have someone send me a mic or something to review, well, I may re-think this....

By the way, best of luck in your efforts. What I've seen in this business is that determination and persistence carry the day. The only possible way to fail is to stop trying.

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by burst

Nailed it.

Spot on. We're a tiny music house and even we don't have time to listen to demos. I can't imagine how the Bigs handle it.

Best of luck! If you're great and fast, you won't have to be cheap. Great work always find a way to get heard...

true!

i rememebr we just checked the nice looking demos just to "compare" and not stay beghind the competition.
usually o work in the big ones you have to be already known. or start as an intern and earn your way up. maybe working on one demo and the most importasnt thing..

to be different and good at it. i had luck cause i was good at electronic stuff while the other cats have been doing jingles since the 70s. and orchestral "miracles" with midi

[Protools Guy]

Originally Posted by midigod

I think he was referring to the fact that the word "one" seems to be missing from the sig...

-Craig

Oh sh*t! Where did that go?

[retropete]

My day job is as an advertising writer.

Some of the houses I've worked with in NY are...

Sacred Noise
www.sacrednoise.com

tomandandy
www.tomandandy.com

JSM Music
www.jsmmusic.com/

Check em out. They all have their own style. Yet they're all looking for the next big thing. Yeah, in spite of everyone being so busy, everybody is looking over their shoulders to see what's new.

[retropete]

oh yeah... the other "PC" term for jingle is "sound design".

Jingles without words...

[Protools Guy]

Retropete -

Thanks SO much. Very cool of you to divulge that info.

To everyone else:

I had no idea about this facet of the industry.

I greatly appreciate everyone's input.

It's all very enlightening.

[chrispick]

Yeah, terms to use: custom music and sound design. You can say score too (although you won't really mean it).

Do you know any video/film producers? Talk to them directly. Maybe work them a spec deal. That way you'll have a real music-to-picture sample to peddle.

Know that it's gun-for-hire, service-oriented work. You'll fare better if you enjoy mimicking/marginally ripping off existing music.

For example, often you'll receive a rough cut of a piece (say, a :30 spot). The editor will have laid in a temp music/efx track. And you'll spend a lot of energy emulating that track without infringing copyright.

If that's cool with you, and you're capable, you'll do okay.

[bing81]

Originally Posted by robdarling

Jingle houses regularly getting major national spots do not spend time listening to unsolicited demos. Period. I've never, ever seen it happen

I'll second that. I actually do do "jingles" for a production house. We/they get at least one demo reel a week, and I've never (never) seen anyone actually listen to any of them.

Just the way it is. I started when I was doing a bit of moonlighting as an engineer at this place, they needed something at short notice, one of the other engineers mentioned that I was actually a musician/composer and .. well, you get the picture.

It takes time.

[JayH]

For what it's worth, commercial music companies used to clean up when there were "jingles" and to be more complementary, "custom songs". That segment of the business has dried up and what you hear today is mostly the use of licensed tracks from CD's. It takes the responsibility off the advertising creatives who usually aren't that creative. I used to see them thumbing through the music director's cd collection for an idea for a campaign. I believe that instrumental music (underscores) is still a reasonably active area. In the past many music directors and producers at ad agencies were hooked into various music houses and often received kick-backs in return for the work. So it will take a lot of research and hard work but who knows? Good Luck.

[elambo]

Let's be clear on the term "sound design" since it's starting to be misused - it has NOTHING to do with music. A jingle without words is music, not sound design. Sound design is the use of sound effects, whether pulled from a library or created as foley or however. If you're hired to do "sound design" you won't need to be a composer and if you're looking to be a composer, which you are, you won't need to find a sound design house. This isn't vague because it's filed one way or the other - through the musician's unions if music, and not filed through the union if it's sound design. There's an unspoken term of "music design" that is the in-between genre of using traditional chromatic instruments to create sound effects, but since it contains music and musicians there's a musician's contract filed.

Stick to music houses.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

...Custom music can bring $15k for a composition and the work to make it right...

You're LOW by as much as $60k.

[slottman]

Hello All:

We're always looking for new, talented composers. Please feel free to send links to samples directly to my email.

Regards,

Jon Slott
Executive Producer
Juniper Music & Soundesign
http://www.junipermusic.com
slottman@junipermusic.com

[emgbiotch]

licensing is the way to go. although i personally do work better under pressure, it's nice to work at your own pace. royalties arent a bad thing either.

[burst]

Originally Posted by emgbiotch

licensing is the way to go. although i personally do work better under pressure, it's nice to work at your own pace. royalties arent a bad thing either.

A good point... most ad agencies now require you create music as a work-for-hire, which means you are not participating in any future royalty stream. If the upfront $$ are big enough, it can be worth it, but we have built our business on licensing and catalog work. Not to be overlooked.

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by Protools Guy

Mike Tholen! Another secure talent willing to help a brother out!

I have a question for all: What percentage of the $$ do most music houses take?

Thanks again to everyone...

Go look at TAXI.COM you can get deals to write for all kinds of things..and if what you submit souds like waht they asked for..they will pass it on to whoever is in charge...it's $300.00 to become a member butif thats what you want to do it's a good start..just go check out the listings on the website..there may be something you already have lying around that there asking for..or...create what there asking for and submit it..there are deadlines so if you do join look at the deadlines for each listing!! good luck

[soundguydave]

I can tell you no music house or ad agency will listen to unsolicited demos. I've worked at an agency and with a music house and we just delete them. In fact, its more annoying than anything. Most music/jingle houses have in house composers and engineers that write and record the tracks. Your best bet is to create a library of tracks and sell them to a company like APM, Killer Tracks etc.

[neverfeather]

I've been trying to break in to the commercial music business full time since November of last year. I've spent hundreds of hours composing and hundreds of hours networking. Not to bust the lid off, but living in Portland I have gotten a chance to work on demos for several houses across America. Granted I have my strategies/sources, but these contacts were made having no inside connections. These contacts were, on the other hand, developed by months and months of patience and lunacy. Hundreds of e-mails and phone calls. Most of the people I've talked to seem to think that the industry is slowing. By and large I consider it a vein of the industry I want only partial contact with. By and large I prefer the potential of the licensing industry. We will see what's in store for me. It could be back to painting houses. I can say that absolutely nothing has been more emotionally traumatic than working on spec, submitting a track you are proud of, and then either never hearing from them or waiting weeks to finally get in touch with the executive producer who gives you a long list of reasons why your track sucked. Both of these things have happened to me several times and they are SOOOO discouraging. I really can't say I'd ever recommend the music house industry to anyone. I guess I'm hopeful that all this hard work will pay off and I'll really flat out win the trust of a few houses that will employ me regularly long term.

[Daniel Antix]

Originally Posted by Protools Guy

Anyone care to share the names of any reputable music/jingle houses that get gigs for tv commercials?

sounds like you're after a label to sign your production work... somewhere like Universal.

http://www.unippm.com.au/

i use this website to source production music for radio commercials.

hope this helps.

[Umlaaat]

so hows ur hunt going?

[DonPedro]

There's also this, which I happen to own and run. We do a bit of custom ad stuff, a bit of licencing, some film work, some idents etc.