Re: Your thoughts on music libraries and commercials?

[Jack Gray] "At the highest end, custom music houses and licensed pop music (ranging from unknown indies to major artists) will get most or all of the business."

Jack-
Yes, this is true for high end national and many regional spots. Custom music or clearance for pop music is almost always part of the budget and is expected to be there because the agency creatives want something which EXACTLY hits their cues and EXACTLY carries the mood they're looking for. This doesn't mean that the right piece of stock music couldn't accomplish the same thing, but there's a budget for custom music and in the world of high end TV spots nobody is into "cutting corners." (What they call saving money.)

BTW, if you'd like a prime example of stock music being used where one would ordinarily expect custom I refer you to HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. The show's open/close theme as well as the internal music is from Killer Tracks and available for anyone to license.


[Jack Gray] "At the lowest end, cost will win, so even the most generic stock music will do."

Yes, but. There are some producers who are looking for something better than generic crap and there are some low cost pieces which are decent. Not many, IMHO, but some.


[Jack Gray] "A company that caters to that niche market, has a viable catalog, cares about results as much as clients do, and does it all at competitive rates should have a shot in this marketplace."

Yes. Provided that company can provide enough of an outreach (marketing program) to get to the people who will actually use it. The real market that exists these days (IMHO) is mid-priced, higher quality stock music. Less expensive than the major libraries, and of better quality than the majority of royalty-free / buy-out stuff that's out there now. Do some with a corporate flavor and I could easily be a customer.


[Jack Gray] "My thinking is that folks would prefer a library that has a straightforward website / search and a selective catalog, doesn't overwhelm you with CDs, DVDs, drives, etc."

I'll be honest here. We have seven of the Killer Tracks libraries here, several hundred CDs, and I am very unhappy about their decision to go entirely electronic starting January 1. Why? Because by loading disks into three different machines I can audition music and narrow my searches MUCH quicker than I can by going one----- disk--------at------- a------- time. I've tried their online search engine and HATE it.

[Jack Gray] "will give specific recommendations or referrals if called."

Killer has (and I assume many other libraries have) an on-staff librarian who makes recommendations and can help producers find what they're looking for. It's not always perfect, but the service is available.

And why are you limiting yourself to spots? Maybe it's because we're in the corporate/industrial business, but there's a lot more out there than spots and I avoid anything that only comes in 60, 30 and 10 second lengths. I also think that a single niche model is somewhat dangerous unless you can really NAIL it and, as mentioned early, are able to penetrate that niche so they know you're there.


[Jack Gray] "customizations (at no charge)?"
Wake up, Jack. Under this plan success would quickly put you out of business. You really can't customize music on an on-demand basis. Good production music is produced in such a way that editors can cut and overlap it to get what they want. They're the ones who customize, not you.

Hope some of my rant is helpful.