Hip-hop production tutorials, news, review, marketing and ideas.

Great article with a Music Supervisor. Great info if you are trying to get you music licensed….you should ! A great example here with this pepsi ad.

Confused by the music licensing world?

It can be convoluted as there isn’t that much info out there. Lucky for you, you got us on your side.

We had the opportunity to interview Sarah Gavigan, a Music Supervisor who happens to also teach a Class on the subject at UCLA and has an upcoming book coming out entitled, “How to Get Your Music Licensed in a Commercial.” (out December 09)

We were intrigued by her deep experience in licensing music and wanted her to share a little bit of wisdom with you guys. She was very cool and was more than happy to participate.

Enough babbling.. here’s the interview.

1. Can you tell our readers a little about yourself and how you got into music supervision as a career?

I was a talent agent for Cinematographers and Productions Designers in my early 20’s. After leaving ASU (as fast as I could) I wanted to get into Film Production, and I fell into Commercials and short form over Film. That lead me into being and agent and then owning my own Agency when I was 26. In 1999 I was introduced to an Icelandic band called GUS GUS, of whom the founding members wanted to direct commercials and asked for my help. Through knowing them I ended up around alot of Indie Artists and bands. It got me thinking about music licensing in advertising, which was just beginning to be whispered. So in 2000 I started Ten Music to represent Indie Artists, Bands and Labels, and became a Music Supervisor. Thievery Corporation and their label ESL were my first clients.

2. What are the pros and cons you face when working with artists who own their own publishing versus those who artists who are signed to a publishing company?

Working with artists who own their own publishing can be fantastic. It helps me to clear the track quicker and get a price that works for everyone. Publishers are only motivated to make their money back. That being said, if an artist doesn’t know very much about publishing and they have done ANY sampling, it can be a major roadblock. Sampling is the #1 reason I am not able to license a track I love. I cannot stress this enough, If you want to license music, DONT SAMPLE, or rather, sample legally. This is one very good reason to have a Publisher.

3. Could you give us a typical process for an independent artist to get their song placed?

I think the better question is, How do you get Your Music Placed?” That is an entire 12 week class (that I happen to be teaching at UCLA called How to Get Your Music Licensed in a Commercial), but the long and short of it is this:

1.) Learn how to research, always make sure that you know who you are talking to. Music Sups can be found online with good research. Same for Advertising Music Producers.

2.) Have great packaging or a great digital mailer. Looks matter. Remember – you are marketing to marketers. Tough crowd.

3.) Don’t hassle Music Supervisors, but do gently stay on their mind. Its a slippery slope.

4.) Be strategic about who you send your music to. Know what they have done in the past, let them know that and why you have sent your music to them. They appreciate that.

5.) Be organized when you send music – don’t send me a track that has no metadata on it – Register it with Gracenote and save me some time.

4. What are the current licensing opportunities available to independent artists, and what do you see opening up in the future?

1. Film

2. TV – Network and Cable Shows, now more than ever

3. Advertising – TV spots, radio, internet, web, industrial (we are seeing the biggest growth in web content)

If you look at the LONG TAIL (author Chris Anderson) theory, you can see that more opportunities for a band to license music have been created since the world wide web hit critical mass. More Films, more TV shows, and more Advertising outlets – so it’s all growing. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the fees are coming down somewhat, but my feeling is that $$ is always a cyclical issue. The next big step will be a deeper engagement on behalf of the buyer.

For example, a brand wants to use a song in their ad. The song has never been released, so they use the name of the brand to launch the track, by proxy bringing more traffic to the brand through various media outlets. Right now Music Licensing is one dimensional. That will only grow in time. 6 months ago brands didn’t even have a You Tube Channel.

5. What are the qualities/reasons you choose to place one song over another?

I make the initial choices – based on the brief I am given – but the ultimate choice is made by the client. Music Supervisors are truly, Supervisors – we make suggestions to help the Creatives make the best decision they can to carry out their vision.

6. What can an artist do to get placed on a regular basis?

First you have to have music that is placeable. Much of the music that gets sent to me is unusable. In advertising it needs to have a quick hook, have a decent build and more often than not have a simple lyrical hook: “Happy” “Love”, etc. Look at the Apples in Stereo song “Energy” that got placed in a Pepsi ad – it was written to be placed (see below for vid).

For Film and TV it is a bit more broad, you can use clean Hip Hop, heavy metal – much of that cannot be used in ads. I would say that in order to be placed regularly, you have to treat this as a business. Write music that follows trends, be diverse and make sure you set up all of your online channels to make it easy for Music Supervisors to find you and contact you. I had one very smart Music Supervisor say something simple to me once that sums it all up, “If the music is good, we will find it.”

Ill be back around August 29th!

Great blog entry by the always interesting Seth Godin here.

There seems to be a little confusion about the name of it. As one article calls it CDX and the other CMX.

Here is the main idea behind it (pretty much beat Apple):

The ‘big four’ major record companies have joined forces to launch a new digital album format that they hope will take on Apple.

Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are putting the finishing touches to an album download that will include a digitised version of the record sleeve, including artwork, lyrics and videos.

Dubbed CDX and launched in November, the new format is designed to boost interest in a digital album sales, according to The Times. While online music has flourished via sales of single tracks, sales of whole records are still suffering. While nine out of ten single sales are digital, that figure is reversed with nine out of ten album sales being physical.

The alliance apparently approached Apple, the giant behind iTunes, last year with the plan - but were rebuffed. Apple are now apparently developing their own album format, codenamed Cocktail, which they plan to launch in the next two months.

A label insider told the paper: “Apple told us at first but were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on. Ours will be a file that you click on, it opens and it would have a totally brand-new look, with a launch page and all the different options. When you click on it you’re not just going to get the ten tracks, you’re going to get artwork, the video and mobile products.”

A spokesperson for the Entertainment Retailers Association said there was a demand for digital music to embrace the old qualities of a physical album. They added: “It is the great conundrum of our age: what would an album look like online? At the moment a download in no sense replicates that satisfying quality of a physical album.

“Think about the importance of the gift market for albums. Online it’s stripped down to bare music, and there’s a lot more to an album than that.”

Is there really a demand for digital music to embrace the old qualities of a physical album????? To a certain extent I think so. As a vinyl enthousiast, I love the sound and the physical contact of having the record and putting the needle to the grooves. As a iPod user, I love having everything in one device and just head on the subway….I think it will work for them but Apple must have something reallllly dope on the way. I put my money on Apple!

SpiralFrog executives always had a simple plan to grow their business: build an audience through aggressive marketing and then turn casual visitors into loyal users. Schrieberg and the board agreed that the main goal should be to attract what the former CEO calls “tier-1 advertisers,” companies such as Nike, AT&T, and McDonald’s.

“When I visited McDonald’s and some other tier-1 accounts,” Schrieberg said in an interview, “we found that in order for a tier-1 account to place ads on a site like SpiralFrog, (it) needed a minimum of 5 million monthly unique (visitors). Our thought was that we needed to build volume and then swing over to quality. If you didn’t build the volume, you could never get ads on the site from tier-1 advertisers.”

My man Steezo from Illmuzik.com posted this great serie of Q’s to ask yourself while mixing!

By Bruce Bartlett

1. Can you hear everything?
This seems obvious, but sometimes a musical part gets hidden. While the mix is playing, listen just for the sound of each track, and make sure it’s there. No matter the genre of music, the minimum requirement for a good mix is that you can hear all the instruments and vocals—nothing is missing and nothing sticks out. Sometimes you need to mute or turn down some tracks to make a hidden track come out.

2. Can you understand the lyrics?
If you can’t tell what the words are in certain spots, raise the vocal level with a volume envelope (automation). Also, you might compress the vocals, make sure they have enough clarity around 5kHz–10kHz, and maybe reduce the level of instruments that compete in the same 3kHz–6kHz range as the vocals. Don’t overdo vocal effects. Some engineers use this guideline: The lead vocal in rock music should be just loud enough so you can understand the lyrics without straining. In ballads, traditional country, or folk music, the lead vocal can be a few dB louder than that.

3. Is there too much reverb or other effects?
A little goes a long way. If the mix seems to be distant, rather than present and engaging, try adding about 25ms of predelay. Also try reducing the reverb sends a dB at a time, and see how little you can get away with. Some engineers ask, “Can I notice the reverb only when it’s turned off?”

4. Is there enough stereo spread?
If you pan vocals and most instruments to the middle, you have essentially a mono recording. Spread things out a little. Try panning two similar guitar parts hard left and right, or pan guitars left, and keys right.

5. Is each instrument’s sound appropriate for the song?
For example, a twangy bass or an edgy kick seldom work in a ballad. Turn down the upper mids if those sounds are too bright and distracting.

6. Is the mix appropriate for the genre?
For example, if you’re mixing punk rock, a clean, tight sound probably won’t work. If you’re mixing a folk song done by an acoustic group, you probably don’t want to hype the highs and lows. Instead, leave the tones natural.

7. Is each instrument in its own spectral space?
If multiple instruments play in the same range of frequencies, they can cover up each other’s sound. Then, they blur together and sound indistinct. You might roll off the lows in the guitars so they don’t compete for space with the bass guitar. Then, thin out the kick and keep the bass full, or vice versa.

8. Is the mix competitive with commercial CDs?
Plug a CD player into your monitoring system. Put in a CD (or several) of the same genre that you are mixing. Switch back-and-forth between your mix and the CD playback. You’ll quickly hear if your mix has enough bass, midrange, and treble compared to the commercial CD. This can be very enlightening.

9. Are the vocals too sibilant? Are the “s” and “sh” sounds too piercing and annoying? Some singers are very sibilant, or the mic used on the singer is too bright. Solutions: Use a de-esser, which is a multiband compressor set to compress only the range from about 3kHz–20kHz. A high-frequency cut around 7kHz–10kHz helps too.

10. Are the vocals too loud or too quiet sometimes?
Either apply compression, or adjust the vocal levels with automation. The latter sounds more natural.

11. Do the vocals sound too small or squashed?
Usually, that means you are applying too much compression. You might reduce the compression ratio to 3:1 or less, and/or raise the threshold so that the gain reduction is 6dB or less.

12. Is the overall sound harsh, or is it warm and pleasant?
If it’s harsh, maybe there is too much 2kHz–4kHz in the mix. Or maybe there’s some distortion caused by excessive track levels or clipping plug-ins. Try reducing the amount or type of compression, too. If the mix sounds edgy, reduce the highs a little, or use a tube or tape plug-in.

13. Is the overall sound muffled?
If the mix seems lackluster or weak in the treble, maybe you need to boost the upper mids or highs a little. Try boosting electric guitars around 2kHz–4kHz, vocals around 5kHz–10kHz, toms around 5kHz, kick around 4kHz, and cymbals around 12kHz. Or cut a little around 250Hz–600Hz instead.

14. Is the mix dynamic?Do the choruses get more sonically exciting than the verses?
If not, you might need to bring up the overall level a dB or two in the choruses, switch to a different guitar timbre, add a doubled vocal, increase the reverb-send level, add harmonies, increase the panning width, and so on.

15. Is the mix creative and exciting? Are you employing unusual effects or instrument sounds? Or are they like everybody else’s record?
Try to do something different, but tasteful.

16. Are solos at the right level?
Generally, a guitar solo should be just as loud as the lead vocal. Guitar licks in the holes (vocal pauses) should be quieter than that so they are not too distracting.

17. Does the mix seem to have a focal point? At any part in the song, is there something that grabs your attention, or is everything equally loud?
You know the vocal is too quiet when it doesn’t stand out from the background a bit.

18. Are vocal harmonies at the right level?
Generally, a harmony vocal’s level should be below the lead vocal just enough so that the melody of the lead vocal is clear. If a harmony line is too loud, the listener isn’t quite sure who’s singing the melody line.

19. Is the arrangement too busy?
If too many instruments play at the same time, a mix can turn to mush. Consider having guitar licks just in the holes, not playing continuously. Think call-and-response. Start the mix with fewer instruments, and gradually bring them in so that the mix builds.

20. Is the mix musical?
This one is hard to define in tech terms. Can you feel the emotion expressed in the lyrics? Does the song make you want to move or dance?
That depends on the song and its performance, but it also depends on the mix. When you no longer hear anything you want to change, the mix is almost done. A day later, come back with fresh ears, and see if anything needs tweaking. If not, congratulations on crafting a great mix!

Translation:

Let’s celebrate this with a cigar!

DJ Khalil + Talib Kweli working on Blokhedz ACT II from DJ KHALIL on Vimeo.

Dope little segment by Steve Stoute about how he signed Will Smith to Sony to get the soundtracks for his next films and found out it he could make money with a lot of products beside record sales.

Must Watch for any business entrepreneur:

Bridging the Gap is a strong showing from both the old timer and the newcomer. Both dudes are at the top of their spit game and the production is top notch!

Strada’s work on “Bridging the Gap” provides the kind of funk bass samples that Dr. Dre mastered before he went into seclusion as well as a production highlight for the record.

# 9 CMJ Hiphop chart:

More to come……