Re: Your thoughts on music libraries and commercials?

Tim, we have been a Firstcom customer for 20 years. Every 3 years I re-evaluate the alternatives and come up with the same conclusion - you get what you pay for.

Smartsound and Digital juice are always in the running, but a large selection of the exact type of music we need seals the deal. Buy-out libraries offer many genres and seem like a good deal, but most of the genres are inappropriate for the work we do.

If you take the political, movie-type themes, sports themes, heavy metal, guitar riffs, hip hop, calypso, world beat, olympic fanfares, classical, polka and other non-corporate type music out of the mix, we are left with several dozen discs of acoustic underscores and tracks that have a contemporary sound. None of the other libraries have come close to this variety.

It seems like a lot to pay, but variety when you need it and consistency of particular types of music is worth it.

The Firstcom website has a pretty powerful engine for selecting instruments or moods and it finds sample tracks. The new contract will have web-only downloads, no more discs. I too think browsing a disc is more efficient than the web, but this internet thing seems to be here to stay.

Mike Cohen