Music licensing expense and time
 

Is anyone else getting fed up with music licensing. I still to this day begrudge forking out. It all adds up over a year of bookings and it's one thing I never factor in to my business outgoings.

I've checked around the other sites (I use musicbed) and found them to either be poor choice and usability or extortionately expensive.

There's also a limited number of decent songs that are long enough for my highlights!

Anyone else fed up?

Are there any new kids on the block providing music licenses that I may have missed?

I also generally ask my clients to choose, but occasionally they tell me to choose. Its a choice that always uses up at least an hour of my time since I'm so fussy!

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

I have started to use audiojungle on themeforest as I needed a few songs for some company videos, audiojungle was a lot cheaper then the musicbed because once you don't use it for weddings on the musicbed the price can increase up to 8 times (from 49 to 399 dollar for the same song) which I find ridiculous. On Envato you also can get musicpacks with several songs to be used for company videos and they are very cheap. Last musicpack I got like that was 10 dollar per song.

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

It's worth looking here Sound Image, Eric has some nice stuff on his site and will compose specially for you too.

No, I have no connection to him, other than he composed a piece for me, but I haven't used it as he hasn't quite got the sound I am looking for yet. It's called The Greek Isles and it's on the Work Bench page. Can I ask you to do me a favour, listen to it and tell me if it says "Greece" to you?

Cheers,
Dave

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

There are a few interesting compositions on Sound image for use in a trailer.

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

I've been using musicbed and songfreedom at the going rate of $49USD. SF will occasionally run specials for $29 but it's hard to stock up when you don't know exactly what you're going to need for the next project. To minimize my expense, I've been creating some of my own music. Using software like Toontrack EZKeys, Ignite, etc. you don't have to be a musician to construct some decent tracks using pre-recorded royalty free loops. It's more like music "construction" vs composition. I create these for segments where I just want some ambient music in the background behind some narration.

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

Personally, I'm not fed up.

Similar to knowing I'll have to pay out $50 in USB/DVD case costs, I build the licensing into my price, and assume 2-4 songs, and will ask the client if they want an online video or not prior to giving a quote. I use the Music Bed, and when I find a song I like, license it for 5 uses, bringing the cost down noticeably.

I'll have a sort of listening party every few weeks, play through a number of songs on their site, and note some that will work great.

It meant that, of 15 wedding videos I made one year, most used some combination of the same couple of songs. This year, I found a song, just over 5 minutes, that fits one style of highlight perfectly, and I've already used 3 of the licenses in a row. Obviously I'm not posting all of those as examples for my clients, though :)

Re: Music licensing expense and time
 

Here's some royalty free stuff.


Sublime Lighting LLC