Latest / 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast / The Many Ways I Make Money Making Music

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The Many Ways I Make Money Making Music · 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast

• 0:29
  Dave Kropf: Jack of all trades but master of none.
• 0:29
  Dave Kropf: I mean, I don't really like that saying, because I think it implies that folks who are able to do a lot of different things really never are great at any one of them. I just don't think that's the case. I mean, because the truth is, nearly every composer I know doesn't just compose. In fact, it's much more common that we each find ourselves cobbling together a career from many different aspects of the industry from writing to arranging to gigging to teaching. So today, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the various ways that I personally make money making music.
• 1:04
  Dave Kropf: Plus, we're gonna take a listen to a cinematic Pop Vocal cue. You heard that right, a vocal cue, written by a member of the 52 cues community on this week's episode of the 52 cues podcast.
• 1:30
  Dave Kropf: What is happening everybody, this is Dave Kropf.
• 1:30
  Dave Kropf: And welcome back to another episode of the 52 cues podcast, a weekly podcast dedicated to all things production and library music, where we talk about industry topics, then take deep dives into the different aspects of being a working production music composer plus, we feature a cue written by a member of the 52 cues community and this week, we're going to be taking a listen to limitless which is a cinematic Pop Vocal cue. Yes, the rare vocal cue. In fact, I don't think I've ever talked about a vocal cue here on the podcast. This is a cue written by Caroline Moore. So you definitely want to stick around for that. If this is your first time here, welcome aboard. I'm so glad you found me. You know, however you found me, I know you have a lot of options out there. So thank you for spending part of your day here with me. I also want to give a special word of thanks to the family, friends, and patrons of 52 cues, who helped keep the podcast, the channel, and everything we do here going along. We are 100% community supported. So you're not going to hear any ads for mattresses, VPNs, or meal plans. But if you know if you want to learn more about how you can help support the 52 cues and unlock perks like live streams, workshops, Zoom feedback sessions, queue breakdown videos and a ton more, then please click on the link in the descriptions or stick around because we're going to be talking all about that a little bit later in today's episode. So I wanted to kind of put my money where my mouth was, I suppose, which is talking about all of the ways that I make money, making music, because it's many, many different areas. It's not just composing, just like it's not just teaching.
• 3:12
  Dave Kropf: So I just these are kind of I guess there are in order of descending, descending payments, like the amount of money that I get paid. And so the first way, the first way that I make money in the music industry, making money making music is teaching music. I have a full time job. I'm a full time music professor at Full Sail University, where I teach Production Music specifically in the their bachelor's degree program for music production. So I teach students how to create cues. It's what I do, it's what I teach all week long to answer emails about what I write curriculum about. And not unlike, you know what I do here on my channel, because it's just an extension of my experience in the industry. And it pays the bills, quite literally. And so I think so many so many composers, you know, have a full time job and need a full time job because of that security. Now I'm the type of person where I really, I really do need that security, I need the biweekly paycheck.
• 4:30
  Dave Kropf: And I suppose I could kind of just put myself out there and try to give like eight hours a week, or eight hours a day to writing music. And but I just, I don't know, maybe I'm too risk averse for that. But I've always I've always needed a full a full time job, not just for the paycheck, but the security brings my family, benefits, you know, with with health plan, and you know, eye coverage and dental and 401k and health, insurance, life insurance, all of those things that full time jobs can bring to the table. Those are really difficult to try to try to wrangle on your own. If you're just out there. And I know there are composers that do that. But I need that security and I'm really fortunate, super fortunate. And I know this to have a job where I'm teaching the thing that I'm doing professionally. And it's very much a hand in glove because I'm teaching students like, so many students, right on the front end of their career, or starting a new career. You know, like we talked about last week with Greg, starting going back to school and starting up from scratch.
• 5:47
  Dave Kropf: And, and so I'm teaching them, but I'm also out here doing it in the industry. So things that I'm learning in the industry, whether they're from publishers, or whether they're, you know, the school of hard knocks, where I'm taking my lumps and, and learning what not to do, all of that gets funneled directly back into my, my full sail students.
• 6:07
  Dave Kropf: That's cool. But with full sail, the classes are each one month long, so I can easily learn something new. And then within a month or two, I'm teaching it to students. Whereas if like a more traditional college, you might have 16, 17 week semesters and, and you only teach the class in the fall. So you're only able to update that type of curriculum, like once a year. So that that can be that can be really, really tough. But But that's really, really, really helpful for me. And it works so well how I can learn things and apply them directly. And it's super fulfilling. And again, I know I'm really really fortunate in this because I'm sure there are folks listening right now have a full time job that maybe have nothing at all, at all to do with with music. So I record and I did that, please believe me, I did that for plenty of plenty of times. I remember being a I've I've worked at third shift at American Express, while trying to like work a music career. This was as a gigging performer. I worked at a print shop, I worked at $1 dollar movie, when dollar movies were still a thing, right? And so yeah, if you if you don't know, if you're too young to remember dollar movies, you had your first run theaters.
• 7:26
  Dave Kropf: And then you had second run and third run theaters that would get the movies after they left the first run theaters, because most theaters didn't have, you know, 50 screens. And so the movie, you know, a movie like Toy Story would stay in the in the theater for several months, and then it would move to a lower tier theater to make room for new movies for the first run theaters. And so, so I worked at $1 movie, it was a literally, you paid$1 I mean, you were gonna pay like five bucks for your popcorn, but to get in the door was $1. But um, yeah, we actually we cleaned with a leaf blower, I mean, we would stand at the back and just, we would just blow all the all of the trash and everything down. And so that was a, that was an adventure. Really kind of disgusting at times.
• 8:13
  Dave Kropf: But that was an adventure. I worked at a roller rink. And I worked at a networking company where I did web design. So always, always have had a full time, full time job. But even while I was doing the full time job, you know, I have my music kind of side hustle happening, whether I was gigging or performing or teaching, performing as well. So being able to have a full time job in music, that is that is the highest wage earner for me.
• 8:48
  Dave Kropf: Absolutely the highest wage earner. So the second, the second way that I make music, or make money making music these days is actually with royalties. It's not as nearly as consistent as full time job. I have had royalty statements as low as 41 cents, you know, a quarterly royalty statement as low as 41 cents, but also, you know, as high as five figures. In one quarter. Now, you want to talk about getting pushed into another tax bracket and taking taking a $10,000 hit on your taxes. I learned that lesson the hard way. But everything in between it's wildly inconsistent.
• 9:36
  Dave Kropf: And it's all like 1099 for taxes, right? And so you have to make sure that you're taking care of all of that the business side of things. There are zero benefits. Like there's no insurance plan, there's no retirement, 401k, no health insurance, that's all on you. But you have a ton more flexibility. And I know there are some some, some composers and some musicians who don't necessarily have that full time job with benefits, but they still kind of cobbled together cobbled together their career, doing these other things, but royalties right now with the libraries have have amassed enough to where it's regularly, regularly, I'll go ahead and just be transparent. My last royalty check was about $9,000 right But I've also had you know, $23,000 checks and 41 cent checks, and practically everything in between. But it does it is an upward slope, right? It is increasing. In general for you look kind of year over year it does is increasing, but it just takes tons of time. Will there be a time when I make so much in royalties that I will leave teaching and drop the full time job?
• 11:00
  Dave Kropf: I'm not sure. I mean, I enjoy teaching so much what I'm doing right now is a direct, direct result of my love of teaching. And I do like the benefits, you know, and having like paid vacation and being able to, to, like have Shannon on my on my insurance, right, Shannon isn't working full time, like a full time job. She has things she's pieced together, she's really thrown herself into 52 cues, and supporting that business side of things. And she does all the design work. And you know, she's been on the show a couple of times, and she's a music director and does like theater and church stuff. But none of that's full time with benefits. So I'm able to bring her along onto my insurance. So I'm not sure. I wonder, you know, if I would be singing a different tune if, if it wasn't full sail, and if it wasn't a job that is so closely related to my composition stuff. I would probably be singing a different tune if I was an accountant or like a Greg, we talked to you last week, you know if it was social work something So, so far removed, the Venn diagram has zero overlap of those two worlds. Maybe I've been singing a different tune, but as it is right now, and how closely related my composition work is to my teaching gig at Full Sail? I don't think so. I don't think so I think I would, you know, continue to get up early and be in the studio late and that kind of thing. Before I would drop one that would have to be really, really consistently? Well, I think, as I'm just processing this out loud in real time on a podcast, I think if I got to the point where I was really under serving either my libraries, or what would happen if my my composing gig got so, so big, that I started under serving my students at Full Sail. That's when I would have to take a really sobering look at that, like can can I act actually do these things, which is a challenge of juggling, you know, all these all these bowling pins in the air. Sometimes in bowling pins. Sometimes they're golf balls.
• 13:20
  Dave Kropf: Sometimes they're, you know, chainsaws, but you're still you're still juggling them. And as long as I'm able to keep that going. And I have been for the past several years, five or 6, 7, 8 year I've got going on eight years now, then, yeah. But I think if it got so big, that I wasn't able to pour into the students at full sail, and I owe it to them. I owe it to every student who's paid tuition who's sitting there in a lecture, whether it's virtually or sitting there, you know, on campus.
• 13:50
  Dave Kropf: And they're, they're watching me waiting for me to impart something to them, I owe it to them. To give them everything I got. That's, that's, that's the deal. That's that's the the academic contract that that I have entered into with my students.
• 14:17
  Dave Kropf: And so if my composing, royalties got so big, and the need serving my libraries overshadowed that, then I would have to take a real relook at it. And we'd be at a at a real crossroads, I imagine.
• 14:30
  Dave Kropf: But that's for future Dave, and maybe never Dave, but that's for future Dave. Right now. I don't see that necessarily happening. But but we'll see. All right. So the next kind of larger, or, you know, kind of going down into descending would probably be, I would guess, here here recently, would be 52 cues, and serving the community at 52 cues, in the form of their subscription services, you know, that they offer obviously, 52 cues is free to join, you can do the weekly feedback threads and all of those things, but there's a whole other, you know, subscription tier that that I pour into thing from, from our friends level, which is you get access to the Week, the weekly live streams.
• 15:23
  Dave Kropf: I've just started posting weekly cue breakdowns where I do a long form breakdown of a queue that I've heard and talk about the sounds and the production process and all of that, and access to the monthly workshops. And we have one coming up in just a couple of weeks with a Steve Cox, who is the music manager for Warner Brothers discovery.
• 15:43
  Dave Kropf: And so we're gonna be talking about like, from pitch, from pitch to placement and how cues kind of travel, travel that path. So that's coming up in a couple of weeks. And that's friends, friends, that's a benefit. It's a benefit of being friends.
• 16:00
  Dave Kropf: And then our family tier has all of that plus weekly office hours where I answer questions like in the Zoom Room, and, and interactive feedback sessions. So it's everybody kind of getting together and listening to each other's cues. And I give a video feedback in real time. And then I have mastermind groups, where we get together and it's more very much more career focused. And that's a 12 week program. And one on one sessions, you know, and, and video feedback, that's all kind of 52 cues at all kind of gets gets kind of mashed together. And so that's an ongoing, you know, and it's really coming up, but it hasn't, it hasn't eclipsed my royalties, and I don't think it ever really, really will. And that definitely haven't hasn't eclipsed full time job because I can't give it full time energy. Like Full Sail gets my full time energy as it should, they're paying me full time to be a full time employee. Being a composer doesn't get full time Dave, energy 52 cues doesn't get full time energy, Shannon's putting in full time energy. So if you if it looks like everything's really really happening, and super together, that's man, that's, that's all on Mrs.
• 17:20
  Dave Kropf: 52 cues over there. But I would say it would be 52 cues and supporting that community. And, and you know, being able to support ourselves, being able to, to, to support the community itself, doing this podcast, doing the video production and all the live streams and the Zoom sessions and all of that, so much of that costs money. And so the community supporters and the subscribers help help with all that.
• 17:50
  Dave Kropf: So I think a super close I guess we're on like number four now, the super close to that would be studio production. I have you know, a production studio here it's just a room of her garage you know, but um, but I think I think it looks nice, it's kind of man KV but but the family is was really good kind of gave me this whole area to turn into a studio and I was able to put like stuff on the walls and, and buy say stuff i mean like sound reinforcement and baffles and bass traps and, and all of those things and set up a drum set and it looks looks really good. That's a really nice space. I'm still working on getting natural light into the room, the desk backs up to a pretty big window like a window you'd see over garage. But first of all, Florida, tons of heat just barrels into here. And for sound reinforcement, I've got curtains that I keep darkening room darkening curtains and sound dampening curtains. But I only really need to have those open or closed when I'm when I'm producing or when it's crazy hot or if I'm like recording a video. So right now they're closed. But I need to work on getting more natural light in here because I feel like I need a lot more vitamin D in my life. But I also you know, so I do some recording.
• 19:06
  Dave Kropf: Since the pandemic I've been doing a less in studio recording. Even though my podcast production hasn't slowed down at all. I have ongoing weekly podcast recording sessions that I'm now doing remotely with clients clients who live across town here in Orlando, clients who live in Oregon have another podcast host who lives in downtown Manhattan. And so and so I'm able to use a recording service called riverside.fm. And I'll have a link to that in the show notes that you can check out that that enables us to record remotely, but we're recording uncompressed WAV files, both both for audio and mp4 video, and then I can edit those together. So if you've ever seen any of the interviews that I do, usually it's not through zoom, you know, that's through that's through Riverside, because that allowed that to happen and to get the best possible audio and that that service came up through COVID When all the studios shut down, you know, the services popped up that that equipped folks to continue to make what they need to make. And even though you know things are kind of opened up now, folks don't come to the studio anymore. Mike my cross town, a host used to come to my studio like every Monday at at 7am to come to the studio Oh, we record and then she'd be done. Now, she stays in her pajamas. You know, I guess, you know, she's on camera. So I guess he kind of dresses up a little bit. But, um, but yeah, she stays in her space. And over the pandemic, I equipped all of my hosts, I'm like, hey, you need to get this mic, you need to get this camera and this lining and all this stuff.
• 20:47
  Dave Kropf: And they've just kept doing that, which is totally fine with me completely fine with me. And so it is enabled me to kind of transition the studio from, like, it was kind of set up to where I could shoot video, you know. And so it was a lot of space. And it was significantly more modular. And I couldn't see, you know, set up the drum set or any of that business. But now, now, I've been able to do that.
• 21:09
  Dave Kropf: And because nobody's really coming into the studio, but I do a ton of podcast production, which is, which I enjoy, which obviously, you know, if you're listening to this or watching this, then you know all about that a lot of audio cleanup and dialogue editing, which also points to some of the audio book stuff that I've done, which I'm not really doing a ton of that much anymore.
• 21:36
  Dave Kropf: Now, a few years ago, there would have been a segment of the industry that I participated in that I actively made money that would have been much higher up that up this list, and that is gigging live performances as a drummer as a performer. And I did a ton of this. I mean, this was my whole world. You know, back in Memphis, you know, I was I was a percussion instructor, you know, and I head up the music department of visible music college and all of that. But I gigged all the time, whether it was jazz gigs, whether it was a cover band, I was in a cover band, where we'd play like bars and that kind of stuff. I was also I did a ton of theater, I love doing theater work, mostly because schlepping drums is my least favorite part of being a performing drummer. So with theater gigs, you just you just install once, and then you're done.
• 22:31
  Dave Kropf: You're done. You're done, right, you install once you play for like two to four weeks, and then you load out to one load in one load out. And the pay isn't always amazing, but not having to schlep gear every for every night. That was that was Yeah, absolutely worth it. So so when I moved to Orlando, then I I've really focused much more on composing. And I'd still talk for a little bit.
• 22:58
  Dave Kropf: And I started getting heavily into the gig scene, specifically the theater scene and a little bit of the jazz scene here. I played with a few few jazz artists here in town and church work. A church musician, I didn't really I did a little bit of church musician work in Memphis, but I was on I was on like a home worship team. And so that pretty much tied me tied me up for that. And that didn't necessarily pay. But coming out here. Yeah, doing paid church work. You know, because I could read music, I could play with dynamics. And I was I was able to, with a church, I ended up with able to bring a drum set that I wasn't really actively using. So I was able to leave it at the church and had a had a weekly church gig. And I did a ton of that, like I said a ton of music, music theater.
• 23:49
  Dave Kropf: But I remember sitting in a tech rehearsal.
• 23:49
  Dave Kropf: Several years ago, probably about three years by now, with COVID. It's all just a blur. But I think I was about three years ago, and I was sitting in a tech rehearsal, and anybody that's done. Anybody that's done theater knows all about tech, which is just a lot, a lot of just sitting around. And you might be it might be like a four or five hour block, sometimes even six hours, right? We need you there from like, from like four to 10. And so you're just sitting there and they're ironing out lighting, and they're working on all that new, no sound and all the technical things. And it's not like a run through of the show. It's just painful and slow. And lots of start start the queue starts to start the cue start the number of stops, the number started again, stop it, we're ironing things out. Nobody can hear, the monitors sound terrible. Oh, the mics are feeding back and the lighting isn't working and the fog machine isn't on...all these technical things. And so I was sitting there in a tech rehearsal about three or four hours in and I and I had all of these other composing library requests starting to pile up and I had the epiphany. I'm like, I could be making more money right now. If I was in my studio working because now I'm underserving this this other part of my world and so i semi-retired. I have a handful of folks that I will I will work with here in town, and not not not for like any nefarious like, "I won't work with them." No, it's just If I wasn't actively going to find work, I wasn't hitting up the Facebook groups, you know, I wasn't, you know, sending out my number. And if I was given your my number was given to somebody now I've started turning down gigs. Last Christmas I did big at a garden theater because I really liked Garden Theater and it was paying really, really well. And he called me up for the next show that music director, I said, Man, I just really can't, I can't do that.
• 26:00
  Dave Kropf: And so being kind of semi-retired as a performer has, means that gigs have kind of come down much further in the in the list, but I'm pouring and pouring that time and that energy that would have been taken up gigging into into being a composer and into my library music and Production Music. To the point now that I don't I'm not even I'm not even doing a Sunday morning church gig. I'll do that do the spot, kind of fill in here or there.
• 26:29
  Dave Kropf: Just last Sunday I filled in because their normal drummer for the church I played that was out of town. So I yeah, I'll sit in. But I'm not committing to a weekly thing anymore. Right, because gigging has just, it's much lower. It's much, much lower. And so because of that, it's not really, you know, it's not really a high on my list here. All right, there are a handful of other ways that I make money in the industry make money making music, and one of those is kind of related to royalties, and that is upfront fees for production music. Now, it doesn't happen a ton.
• 27:06
  Dave Kropf: Because so many production music libraries, it's all on spec. So you are, you're rewriting, and you're hoping it gets placed so that you can get royalties. Now, I've since this kind of changing kind of over time, where more libraries are paying up front, but upfront money probably goes above gigs, probably I would say, you know, if I'm looking, I'm looking at my little list here, I would say probably be up above it. So like the work I do with discovery has some upfront. The work I do with a handful of other libraries.
• 27:45
  Dave Kropf: There's a little bit upfront, it's not a ton, but it's just a little bit of upfront money. But anything I've ever done for CBS Sports, there's no upfront money for that. I only get paid if I get played. And so that is changing. But I do make--I do make some money in the industry with upfront upfront fees on top of the back end royalties.
• 28:04
  Dave Kropf: Another way that I make make money is through arranging. You know, I get, I use arrange me, I think it's arrangeme.com used to be sheet music plus, and if you don't know about it, arrange me is a service that allows you to do arrangements of copyrighted and public domain, but they've secured the copyrights for all of the songs. And so I've done some arrangements of I did of flute duet arrangement, or might have been flute and clarinet of a million dreams, like from the greatest showmen. And that makes me a few bucks, you know, every month, I did an arrangement of like, Call Me Maybe, which was for woodwind trio, like bassoon clarinet and oboe. And that makes a few bucks every month as well. Now, this is something that I don't do, a lot of, I can't, it's just like, I've I've lost count, or I've lost track of the last time I opened up, you know, so Baleia. So I couldn't tell you. So I don't do it a lot. But that that skill is there, and I get a few bucks, a few bucks kind of on the side. And so that's cool.
• 29:23
  Dave Kropf: I enjoy every time I see you've got a commission and it's not it's not a lot. It's like maybe seven or eight bucks for one, and then maybe like $1 or two for for the other one, because you don't charge a ton for Call Me Maybe. And you definitely not it's not 50% You're getting maybe like 20% royalties, because it's a copyrighted work. But the good news is, is they take care of take care of all of that they just give you the the little chunk of legalese that you have to put in the bottom and, and they take care of the rest that's arrangeme.com I think is what it is, but it's a service of sheet music plus, and you can post your own arrangements and your own things up to sheet music. Plus, I've gotten an arrangement of How Great Thou Art for flute that is up there, then that might be a flute duet as well. My sister plays flute and her daughter is an amazing flutist, and so I did a lot of little arrangements for them and then put them up there. I also did a woodwind trio of Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye. And, and I don't know if that that one might have been pulled because I think they lost the copyright or something like that, but But yeah, listen sheet music stuff. And it both, it pulls in a few bucks. And then finally, I would say that the last, the last way that I make money making music would be through through monetization through YouTube. But it is not a lot. You know, it's like maybe 30 bucks a month, you know, I've got a pushing, getting up to about 2000 subscribers, and I'm over the threshold for monetization. But to be honest, that's not really the point of these of the channel at all monitis.... Because if that was the point of the channel, you know, doing a I'm now like, 30 minutes into an episode 30 minute long content hour long podcast episodes, no, the algorithm wants these little bite sized little snippets. And I'm not, and I have no interest in trying to focus on gaming the algorithm to try to get as much monetary monetized money for for making income. I mean, it's cool. It definitely doesn't hurt, you know, but, but I'm not aggressively trying to use YouTube as an income source. For me, YouTube is a vehicle to, to allow me to share, it's an extension of my teaching. And it helps bring awareness to 52 cues and everything that we're doing over there in that community. That's where That's where, like, most of my non full time, energy, about full time, job energy, non composing energy, that's all going into 52 cues. So those are like the three big like the tent poles, the legs of the stool, and how I make money, full time teaching, composing, and that includes royalties, and I'll go ahead and roll up like upfront fees, and with that, and then 50, to cues. Everything else is is there, but it's just ancillary, and YouTube, it's just ancillary, it's, uh, I make about as much money selling sheet music for a million dreams, as I do in YouTube. Because I'm not trying to necessarily monetize, like, I'm not aggressively doing all of the practices, that all the folks who say, Hey, if you want to make money in YouTube do this, I'm not doing those things.
• 32:39
  Dave Kropf: Except for thumbnails. I am proud of my thumbnails. I've upped my thumbnail game. So the last question that I have for myself is, where do I want to go? Like, what's next? Are there areas of the map that need to be filled in for me? And so I think there are three main things that I see myself getting into, and I could see being future streams of income for me. And one of those is games. I would love to get into games. Absolutely.
• 33:18
  Dave Kropf: It's something I've always just been interested in. You know, it's, it's something that I've wanted to do the overlap of how you arrange Production Music with with layers and consistent energy. And I think that goes really hand in hand with the way games are put together. It just needs to be kind of the right project. And the right the right people. I am right now kind of working with a game developer friend of mine from Memphis that I've known for a while, probably 15 years by now. And we've had some some some near misses over time, right? Some some close calls where we've tried to pull something together, but it just didn't coalesce.
• 33:59
  Dave Kropf: That's fine. That's how it goes in the gaming industry, you get kind of a concept, a little bit of energy, and then it just kind of fizzles for whatever reason. But we've got something going on right now, which I think might go the distance.
• 34:09
  Dave Kropf: And that will be my first completed game. Now I've done some like giving music and recording on game projects before. But I want to do a game project, which I guess I'll say, Hey, if you're interested, if you're a game, if you're a game developer, or if you're, if you're looking for game music, I'd love to talk to you. Because if that's an area of the map I want to get into, I want to explore that part of the career. The other thing is a custom scoring. You know, I do I do a little bit, or I'd rather I have done a little bit, but it's something I'd love to get much more into. But Production Music just takes up so much oxygen, that I haven't really had a chance to aggressively pursue that, but it's something that I would like to get into. And then finally, the the third way that I could see, and I feel like this is the logical progression of so many production music composers, which is getting into Production Music publication. Now, does that mean does that mean?
• 35:14
  Dave Kropf: I'm gonna start running my own label? Right, does that mean I'm going to start running my own library? I don't know. I don't know if I have the networking chops. You know to go I suddenly pitch in all of that. But what I do know is I feel like I have a really good ear for hearing what's gonna work, what's not gonna work, helping bring composers along, shaping cues, educating them, these are things that were really done for me, as I was coming up in the ranks of Production Music, talking to publishers who were educating me like giving me a hard knocks, education on form structure, harmonic choices, melodic development, what does all that mean? Emotion, nailing the emotion, nailing the consistency of all the things that I teach, and I do during my coaching, was helped. And I was coached by publishers. And so I could see that being the next kind of step in a career. Does that mean that 52 cues is going to be a publisher? I don't know. I'm not ruling it out.
• 36:20
  Dave Kropf: I'm not ruling it out. Because suddenly I have, you know, I have come, like, I have exposure to so many amazing composers all doing their thing. And they're, they're, they're, they're essentially like posting up cues. I'm like that this is amazing. I hope it finds a home somewhere. I hope I hope taxi doesn't reject it. You know, I hope it gets placed. And I hope you know, everybody makes money making music. But that also, that's kind of how publishers think and how libraries think. So I could see, I could see that being something that I do next. And I've waded into the very, very shallow end of that doing some co-publishing things. But, but who knows, I think if I get another 10 to 15 years on this engine, on this engine of a career, I could I could see me going that direction. Because like I said, I think it's a pretty logical, logical extension of where a lot of composers start because you're in the industry long enough. You eventually make connections and contacts, and you have these relationships. And suddenly, you're talking to someone who is now a music supervisor. And they're like, hey, we need music. I like Dave and Dave, you know, you have access to all these composers. And, and can you put something together for me? And suddenly you find yourself being a publisher? But what about you?
• 37:54
  Dave Kropf: How are the different ways that are? What are the different ways that you make money making music?
• 38:00
  Dave Kropf: And if you have a full time job, and you're composing on the side, and that's not your side hustle? What kind of job is it? And do you find it's, can you talk about the challenges of balancing full time job, which has nothing to do with music, and trying to bring music into the fold? I'd love to hear from you. Or if there's something that you do that that I didn't even talk about, I would absolutely love to hear from you.
• 38:20
  Dave Kropf: Please let me know in the comments below. I read all the comments and I make an effort to answer those or at least give them a little heart or something like that. But yep, would absolutely love to hear from you. So we're gonna take a quick break and you're about to hear a little bit from Mrs. 52 cues, he's going to be talking about the 52 cues community. But when we come back, we're going to be taking a listen to a queue called limitless which is a pop, vocal cue or cinematic Pop Vocal cue. Now I don't do a ton of work with vocal cues for quite frankly, because I'm not a vocalist, nor am I a songwriter. But she had some mixing questions and I wanted to talk about how vocal cues can get used for sync. So we're gonna take a quick break and talk about that on the other side.
• 39:12
  Shannon Kropf: Hey, y'all, I'm Shannon Kropf And I want to tell you that the 52 cues podcast is made
• 39:16
  possible by viewers and listeners just like you: composers and producers who are looking for a better way to connect and collaborate. You see, 52 Cues isn't just another website selling static pre-recorded videos to a mass audience. It's a fun, vibrant and positive community that comes together online for sharing cues, getting feedback and discussing what's up in the production music industry. You'll find both personalized feedback and live interaction which are the best and fastest ways to grow your skills and earn more placements. The best part is that the 52 Cues community is absolutely free. And when you're ready to take your career to the next level, we offer Friends and Family subscriptions which unlock weekly live streams, live interactive group feedback sessions, monthly interactive workshops and more. Head over to 52cues.com and sign up today. And while you're there, check out our personalized feedback videos, private lessons, and of course merch! I can't wait to see you at 52cues.com.
• 43:36
  Dave Kropf: Right that was limitless by Caroline Moore, thank you so much for sending this along.
• 43:43
  Dave Kropf: And I wanted to feature this for a couple of reasons. First of all I wanted to help you out with with your mix, but also to underscore the fact that vocal music gets gets used in sync, right? In fact, I think there are some libraries which really kind of focus on this I think like art list I think focuses or is it motion array one of those stock libraries really focuses in another service, I think it's called midio M i d i o if I'm thinking of that correctly. And it's essentially helping songwriters, or producers put and publish songs that can get placed. And I also know that taxi all the time asks and looks for songs. In fact, I think our taxi started really, with with songwriters. Right so the instrumental side of things and production music libraries, I think are are relatively new additions to taxi, it's 30 year career it's 30 year history started out with songwriting. And so if you're a composer listening to this watching this and you write songs, just know that that you can find homes for for your songs on sync. It's just for me, I don't do a ton of it. It's not anything that 52 cues is necessarily focused on now because we focus on cues and cues are typically instrumental pieces of music for media. But I wanted to I wanted to feature this so that we could talk a little bit about about songs, but I'm just know that I'm probably not the most qualified to talk about like mix our vocal mixing and that kind of thing. But you know, I do I do have ideas and I've heard music before so I thought I would give it a go.
• 45:30
  Dave Kropf: Coming out of the gate the piano. Well, it sounds like it might be a live piano as opposed to MIDI.
• 45:39
  Dave Kropf: And it sounds I can't tell if it sounds far away or if it sounds like mono mic it just doesn't feel nearly full enough the thing that hit me out of the gate was it it sounded mono but it doesn't sound it Yeah, it's just I think it's the piano recording. So I don't know if it just needs to be brought up in the mix EQ to where there's some some lows because it doesn't really Yeah, just kind of sounds thin and flat. It's just doesn't sound big enough to hold up to where, wherever eventually going. Which is is pretty, pretty dense text really speaking. So we just I feel like the piano just doesn't really hold up.
• 46:33
  Dave Kropf: And so if that's a real piano, I I wonder if if you should use a MIDI piano unless you have, you know, paired condensers and all of all of that thing, where you're like, a ribbon mic or not that you have to have all that fancy business to get a good piano recording. But this doesn't really feel like it was miked as effectively as as what we're used to hearing a pianos. And so because of that, it sounds sounds kind of demo-y. You know what I mean? It sounds it's it sounds like this, this isn't the final produced thing. This is just a demo scratch scratch track. So again, I hope you kind of understand my heart and I don't mean to bag on whoever played and recorded is a fine performance. I have no qualms with the actual piano performance, but the recording quality I think is undermining the first impression is undermining the professionalism of where this is kind of going to end up going. I think the vocal sound okay. Probably could use a little bit of a little bit more reverb again I'm not I don't I do what's funny I do a ton of dialogue editing in spoken word but actually singing quite embarrassing myself I feel like there needs to possibly be a little bit a little bit more energy here right so maybe just a little Chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk, just a little something this this this is really working absolutely working here like the look I think the melody everything is really really working I like the I like the addition of the strings here I think the strings could be a little crisper, maybe EQ the mids I'll see if I was kind of sweeping somewhere around maybe six or 700 hertz just in the string part there is Phil dark I like all the vocal things you got going as some stereo imaging there do you have I'm noticing the guitar on the left we have something on the right offsetting that guitar feels a little left heavy and gum gum gum. So moving forward but in general, I think I think all of your pulsing instruments can be crisper. And I think they can they can just pop out of the mix just a little bit more. Anything that's sustained kind of pull that down a little bit in the mix, because it's feeling a little I don't know there's the energy isn't necessarily there keep the I would do some palm muting junk junk junk junk because now that we've introduced the eighth note energy one, we need to keep that going because this feels like an energetic step backwards. And we do want to pull back but this feels like we've gone a little bit too far back. So right right in here, jump, jump, jump, jump, and I would keep some drums or something going through here that's why Pat pads want to want to hear some some drums as well ka - ka - ka - ka - ka - ka - ka - ka - ka ka going into that the big halftime target needs actual drum set. I like that I like all of the countermelody things we have going on here. But it just it just feels like it's all getting kind of drowned, drowned out this feels kind of dark and a little muddy I guess.
• 52:04
  Dave Kropf: Think this is all working again, I like the vocals the string production all that is fantastic this works. Now I would be prepared to do a mix or an edit an alternate version with an ending right there. And the ending with this long coda.
• 52:34
  Dave Kropf: The same to that piano versus that piano. This piano sounds better. Versus that piano at the beginning not sure why it's different. Or maybe I'm imagining things. So I keep going. If you're listening to the pod... you're like "what's he doing?" I'm going to the top. With that sounds kind of demo-y that just feels like it fills it out a little bit more. I don't know if there's some stereo imaging you've done there? Or what?
• 53:15
  Dave Kropf: But I think that's that's working. Yep. But a really, really nice song. I think it's really good. And I could totally, totally see this working. I totally see this working for for, like sports broadcasting for sure. Or for trailers or, you know, like the closing scene, you know, of a crime, procedural drama, you know, and they're like, Finally, like busting through and like, it's, it's a montage of them, like catching the bad guy or whatever. And they play these types of songs. So I can absolutely see, see a home for these. And the idea of limitless and it's it's the lyrics aren't so like, specifics. You know, it's not, not necessarily like, this is something that happened in my life. That is art. And I, it's I want people to relate to me. It's just kind of general lyrically. And I think that is an absolute feature of what you need to have happening for, for cues for cues like this. So this cue was written and was submitted during our week 31. Week 31 search. And Caroline, thank you so much for submitting those. We do something every week here at 52 cues is that we have searches and so this is something that you're interested in, then head over to 52cues.com and why don't you join us, you know, and if you'd like personalized in depth video critique on your own cue kind of like what I did here where I write down things like form structure, harmony, the mix, and a ton more, then head over to 52cues.com/coaching. And you can get started today, you can get started today. And while you're there you can check out my other coaching services, including one on one zoom sessions, where we can work together towards your career goals in production music. So once again, I want to give a huge shout out to the family friends and patrons of 52 cues who helped keep the lights on here, but you know what that is going to do it for me today. Be sure to tune in next week, where we have to talk about waves Waves plugins, waves business model I'm in the middle of switching over from my old 2014 iMac to a new MAC studio. It's not installed yet. But this has drudged up my love hate relationship with waves plugins, so you definitely want to stick around for that. Because I don't know, I might be done with waves, but that's going to do it for me. I hope you had a stellar week. And I know that the universe has amazing things in store for you. But until next time, peace. The 52 cues podcast is copyright 2022 Dave Kropf. All rights reserved.
• 56:09
  Dave Kropf: The music played on the podcast is copyright of their respective owners and is used for educational purposes only. For more information including joining the 52 cues community and submitting your Q for consideration on the podcast head over to 52cues.com