I'm looking to get into some music libraries and I got accepted into Audiosparx recently.

Anyone have experience with them? They don't allow you to be part of some other libraries that they say undercut them.

What sort of music do you find gets used the most?

I do pretty well off them every month. Have landed placements with quite big brands too, like, Delta Airlines, Volkswagen, Little Caeser's, etc.

Any of the genres under 'dramatic music' sell the most, but it's pretty hard to pin-point exactly as it always changes.

I'm not exclusive with them, so I can be with any other library I want, and with the same tracks.

The people who run it are super nice and great with feedback. They always get back to me within minutes.

They also have partner sites like 'stockmusicsite' that are royalty free. I get great licenses on there, too. It's taken me like 4 years mind you to see a steady income. They also feature me a lot which adds to more deals being made. The trick is to became a featured artist so you get more exposure, and it's good to cover as many bases as you can, genre wise.

Do you use different artist names?

I'm not sure how to approach the whole thing. Do you do different albums? (let's say like 'punk rock confessionals', '80s Miami' 'Hybrid Techo', 'epic themes' etc)

I don't choose to put together albums, I just do single tracks. (they don't sell a lot of music packs).

I just have one artist name (my name). I get A LOT of people contacting me after they either use stuff from audiosparx or simply just here my stuff. It's not a bad platform actually.

I just write a lot of stuff and put it on. There's no real method.

The only problem about Audiosparx is their lack of quality control. There are some great works on there and then some absolutely horrible stuff that never gets used. If there's anything you want to know about them, how it works or want any advice, I'll be happy to let you know. I've worked with them for ages now.

Great, appreciate that. Most of what I've done recently for clients is 'dramatic' I guess so I'll upload some of that.

There are pieces of music I've done for clients that I seem to be able to reuse over and over again so maybe they'll do well.

I realise all these libraries say they want unique music, but would you consider what you do as unique or maybe just following the trends of what sells?

That word 'unique' is a weird one in library music, because most of the time clients are looking for music that sounds familiar and you could say follow certain 'trends.' I think if you know what you can do and you do it it very very well it doesn't matter too much. I tackle specific markets because I know how to do it to a pretty good standard, but I branch out also.

As long as what you're putting out there is of high quality (which I'm sure it is ), people will notice that.

I just went and checked out a lot of your stuff (I remember you post in the music library thread).

Your 90s children/adventure movie stuff sounds great. Makes me feel very nostalgic for films like Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Do you sell a lot of that stuff? Hope you don't take this the wrong way, but it seems too good for what I often hear on TV.

I noticed a lot of the U2 type stuff seems to do well, which is good for me as most of the guitar stuff I do is really influenced by that sound. Also the dramatic trailer-y stuff I think I could do well with.

Thanks. Well, a lot of my stuff gets used in games and animations - one of those tracks was also used in a show at an aquarium. That's what I like about Audiosparx - it's not just TV. I've had quite a few live performance licenses. The Sony World Photography awards used some of my stuff at the live event, too.

The dramatic trailer-y stuff is good to aim for. I'm trying to get into trailers too. Most of the other types of stuff I do, like TV and Radio music is for other exclusive libraries that I work a bit harder for

You can definitely make good money on buyout libraries, though. I still earn royalties from my placements through audiosparx. I've landed a few TV commercial licenses with them through-out Europe which do well.

Well I uploaded about 10 tracks over the last 2 days.

It takes a lot of time! Lots of great things to tick however. Realised there are certain types of music that are hard to fit into the categories so will avoid them.

Yeah, it's good to write great descriptions and use as many tags as you can. You can 'cross-reference' tracks too, if one of your pieces fits into multiple styles/genres.

I think they are a great company. I got a few decent placements out of them. You can sign up with other companies, as long as they are not the really low paying ones like audiomicro.

Well got my first usage for some Intel thing for web use. Not done directly for Intel but by someone who is doing work for them.

Funnily enough it's the last track I expected to get used! It's an electro kind of Robyn like instrumental.

I guess I'll get the payment around August 15th if I've understood the site correctly.

That's cool news, Amber. Hope you get many more.

You're hopes came through, just had another usage today!

Pretty happy as this is all old stuff I was commissioned to do and was non exclusive. Why didn't I do this ages ago?

congrats. i just got in with them about 2 weeks ago and hopefully it will generate some good placements. i'm with a few other libraries that are my bread and butter but looking forward.

amber & anyone else: you have a link to your audiosparx page? would love to check your stuff...

I prefer to stay anonymous here. Especially as I talk about clients, problems etc. Don't want someone googling me and finding me asking how to do something I've told a client I can do!

understood.

Smart in my opinion. Even beyond clients.... humans can be real whack-jobs. Put your real name out there and piss off some forum lunatic (plenty of those around here)... next thing you know your getting harassed, your dog gets murdered in the back yard, or worse.

Most of the reasons I've read for abandoning anonymity online is just ego BS. I don't need to prove to anyone online the validity of my words or work.

I'd LOVE to see someone try to murder my dog in the back yard..... heh heh I have the ambulance on speed dial.

As far as Audiosparx - I have some stuff with them. Compared to other on-line libraries, they have been quite disappointing. Not sure why. Maybe their clients are just not a good match for what I have put there.

I will say one thing. Very nice people who try to be helpful, but they are the most left-brain centric and difficult / convoluted library I've ever seen. Their upload process is archaic and like getting a tooth pulled. Their philosophies on search, etc. seem to be the study of a PhD, but hasn't panned out well on this end. Have had a few placements, but small percentages comparatively speaking.

Yeah, the upload process is crap.

I really dislike filling in all the descriptions as well. I find it quite hard to be honest and then categories are a bit stupid.

I'm not with any other libraries. I submit to Jingle Punks every now and then and get turned down. Will probably submit some stuff to Extreme Music in the next few months.

Amber, what sort of prices have you seen success with on AudioSparx?

Dr., what libraries do you find the best for you?

You can PM me if you wish not to make your answers public!

JP has been pretty good to me, although unfortunately they seem to be going away from non-exclusive and have now restricted the amount of non-exclusive you can have with them! Which is unfortunate!

Have you tried going Exclusive with JP Amber? They may have more interest in that right now!

Where do you even submit for extreme music???

To be honest, I just went with the prices Audiosparx suggested apart from maybe 5% of what I uploaded.

The first two I've had in the last 10 days or so were $229 which I received $91 commission on. I don't think doing big elaborate orchestral tracks would be worth it for me, but these two tracks probably took me about 5-8 hours to finish and I was paid around $800 to compose/produce each one. These aren't really commercial sounding pieces of music either.

I have some more stuff I'm going to upload this weekend that has a huge commercial factor (one which was a non exclusive TV ad, the other was a pitch that was rejected because the company gave the wrong brief!)

As for Jingle Punks, I've sent the three tracks and I've not even had chance to say if I'll be exclusive or not. Saying that, my stuff doesn't really sound much like that what license.

What sort of stuff do you have with Jingle Punks? They seem to try and offer something the other libraries don't have.

As for Extreme, I imagine you'd sent a link to some excellent work and hope for the best.

Pop/hip-hop/dance/electronic/rock music!



the 40% hurts for sure, at least they allow you to administer your own publishing! for 40% it just isn't worth creating original material! you're smart to utilize work that is already done.

i make records and always have songs that don't make the cut! this doesn't mean they are lesser songs then what did, just that they didn't fit anywhere! so for me they are already done, i figure it's better to try and use them somewhere rather then them sitting on an encrypted hard-drive doing nothing!

I submit all sorts to audiosparx and don't do too badly. It could be a way better library, though.

I got through to JP recently and have some stuff up on there and now they're requiring more. For some reason, I just don't think I'll do well with them.

I prefer doing custom library work now which I do for two other libraries. I think Extreme is a lost cause for most because they have a lot of their bases covered so well and the composers on their roster are insanely prolific - people like Steve Jablonsky, other guys who work in Zimmer's team and composers who are long dead.

The only reason I do well with Audiosparx is because I have quite a lot of stuff up there and am a featured artist. I'm going to have to be a lot more proactive in uploading to JP.

Jazz4, I know you're in the UK.

How do you deal with only getting 50% of the royalties since it doesn't let you put 100%? I don't have a pub deal and don't really want to set up a publishing company just to collect the other 50% in the US.

Also, do you remember what sort of stuff did you send to JP to be screened? First time I sent some orchestral stuff, and the second my quirky stuff. JP seem to license a lot of the kind of redneck, banjo, ukulele stuff.

Yeah, see that split is terrible, but I sort of can't rely on myself to do my own publishing since I'm a bit of a laymen when it comes to the process and the paperwork. I just have to make a great deal of output and hope I land A LOT of licenses to see okay money.

It's also bad for us because we get paid in dollars. The exchange rate is pretty lame..

I submitted all sorts to JP and maybe that's why they greenlit me. I supply them a lot of varying styles - mostly TV stuff/reality stuff. Now I'm doing custom reality tv stuff for another library. I don't tend to like doing loads of varied things because I don't think anyone can do every genre and sub-genre to an expert standard - it's more about picking your niche. I have no idea what they license most, or if they have specifically popular styles. I've seen their library crop up on TV shows and Vice documentaries, all varied music.

there's no other way around it, to collect the publishing share you need a pub company registered with your/a PRO!

i have to open a second one, it's just the way it is!

What are the other library sites called?

Regards, Delusi.

Sorry for the negative intrusion.
But I just had to chime in... I'm am NOT a supporter of this company anymore.

They take a 60% cut and don't really do much for it (except host your music).
Just think about it. They have you do ALL of their work (i.e; upload, tag... tons of metadata, categorize and set the pricing) and then they don't bother selling your music for the price point you set!

When I initially uploaded... I used tracks that had been hibernating in my hard drives. I figured "what the hell?" Soon thereafter, I was getting placements for phone app games, ringtones, hotel lobby music, ethnic/world music placements internationally, etc.
Then I would receive their royalty payment statement. When I did the math... the hours spent uploading and meta-tagging, etc., versus the measly royalties and saw their cut... I decided that was it. They have an excellent model for the "entry-level" composer looking to move some tracks but for the true professional or someone that seeks to involve themselves to a greater degree in the composing world, it is best to stay away from AudioSparx.

Needless to say... it degrades your value especially in the eyes of the major libraries. I had one such situation recently. I had submitted to a "top 5" music production library that was curious enough about me to do some research and when they found out I was selling my music on AudioSparx and they decided to pass on me. I pleaded with them to understand that I don't submit anymore and haven't submitted any music to them in over a year. I also told them that AudioSparx won't release me from their agreement (the fact that I reassured Lee Johnson/AudioSparx that I will never place anymore music with them, I didn't think there was any real reason to leave a disgruntled composer on their roster) despite my verbal and written request to terminate my agreement.

Thankfully... this library rescinded their decision and signed me exclusively and for that I am grateful. However... the entire AudioSparx experience has left a bitter taste...

Best of wishes to one and all.

I can't really disagree with you since their cut compared to the actual work they do is pretty awful.

I used this library as an 'entry point' and it did well for me. This has allowed me to branch out considerably.

When I started taking my business elsewhere they weren't particularly happy and actually asked me what libraries I was getting onto which was odd.

It seems they've made their agreement so awkward now - I haven't uploaded anything for ages on there because I get good library work elsewhere and they stopped promoting me on their site for changing plans.

I actually wanted to take some of my tracks off there and put them to better use somewhere else but they said that recently a 'huge' client found a track they loved on audiosparx and after said client got the go ahead from his superiors, discovered the artist had removed the track, costing (audiosparx mainly) a big licensing deal. Now they don't allow you to remove material.

The worst thing about audiosparx in my opinion is still their quality control. There is so much awful **** on there that clearly makes no money and it saturates the site with way too much music. The whole pay per click thing they have going now made me lose a whole lot of interest, recently.

I've made audiosparx a lot of money the past few years and I haven't really seen that much of it when I boil it down. As a side, for random bits of unused material you have lying around it's not so bad, and I don't think Amber is wrong for trying it out for a bit of extra cash.

As my material strengthens, the more I stay away from those big buyout libraries - the amount of time it takes to upload and configure just one track is ludicrous, too.

Luckily, if you're in a position where libraries are approaching you, there is no need to put up all your material on a site like audiosparx - I didn't have that oppurtunity when I was first starting out, but now I do, I don't work with them so much anymore.

You mentioned the measly royalties...that hit me hard with them...I earned good royalties off one commercial I landed with them but I get a lot of in-store usage too and earn hilariously little - it may as well be gratis.