Latest / 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast / Q&A Live!

Transcript

Q&A Live! · 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast

• 0:30
  Dave: If you're watching this live now, then you get the benefit of hearing the little pre-show here.
• 0:37
  Dave: We've got lots of folks hanging out in the chat room.
• 0:40
  Dave: It is so good, so good to be with you live here on YouTube.
• 0:44
  Dave: Got some questions pulled up from some folks over in the 52Qs community who might not be able to be, including this gif of David Hasselhoff which is just peering into my soul.
• 0:59
  Dave: What is happening?
• 1:10
  Dave: Everybody?
• 1:10
  Dave: This is Dave Kroff, and welcome back to another episode of the 52Qs podcast, a weekly podcast dedicated to all things production and library music, where we talk about industry topics and chat about the aspects of being a working production music composer.
• 1:27
  Dave: This is your first time here.
• 1:28
  Dave: Welcome, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening to this audio podcast on the go, and if you're watching on YouTube, then maybe you might be catching this live.
• 1:39
  Dave: I just want to thank you for spending the next little hour or so of your day with me today.
• 1:45
  Dave: Before we get started, I have to give a special word of thanks to the family, friends and patron subscribers of 52Qs who help keep the podcast, the channel and everything going.
• 1:56
  Dave: If you like what I do here, don't thank me.
• 1:58
  Dave: Thank them, and many of them are here in the chat right now.
• 2:02
  Dave: You can thank them, but if you want to learn more about how you can help support 52Qs and also unlock extra subscriber perks like live streams, zoom sessions, workshops and a ton more, then be sure to click on the links in the description, because we would love to have you.
• 2:20
  Dave: We would absolutely love to have you.
• 2:23
  Dave: Oh, so folks in the chat these are all my friends.
• 2:28
  Dave: Dex is like boring.
• 2:31
  Dave: Yes, we are live.
• 2:33
  Dave: It is so good.
• 2:33
  Dave: We are hanging out live for a very, very special live Q&A episode.
• 2:39
  Dave: We're going to be taking questions from YouTube.
• 2:43
  Dave: We're going to be taking questions from folks over in the 52Qs community and we'll go for about an hour or so.
• 2:49
  Dave: Andrea says the universe has amazing plans for you.
• 2:52
  Dave: I could do a live with Dave Heck.
• 2:58
  Dave: Yes, oh, dex.
• 2:59
  Dave: Oh, I know, I know you pull the pigtails or the beard of the one you love, dex.
• 3:03
  Dave: All good, I have come to appreciate your sense of humor and I think we vibe on the same wavelength.
• 3:11
  Dave: But, like I said, we're going to be going for about an hour or so here.
• 3:16
  Dave: It's really good to be with you and I'm really, really excited to be doing these live Q&As and, depending on how it goes today, we're going to be doing these kind of regularly.
• 3:27
  Dave: I like the idea of some live interaction with some YouTube folks, maybe some folks who are watching live, who aren't members of the 52Qs community.
• 3:36
  Dave: To join the community it's free.
• 3:38
  Dave: You don't have to be a paid subscriber, but if you do, then you get tons of extra.
• 3:42
  Dave: But we would love to, absolutely love to have you.
• 3:46
  Dave: Let's see.
• 3:47
  Dave: Andrea says I caught a live with Dave.
• 3:51
  Dave: Yes, yes, and so I love the live interaction.
• 3:54
  Dave: All right, so live Q&A.
• 3:58
  Dave: I haven't read most of these, but I want to go ahead and start with some Q&As from some folks over in the 52Qs community.
• 4:06
  Dave: And Ilya what is good, ilya, I hope you're doing well.
• 4:10
  Dave: Ilya has a question.
• 4:11
  Dave: I don't know what I'm going to do about this.
• 4:13
  Dave: David Hasselhoff, like peeking up over the bottom, all right, so I'm just going to scroll that down.
• 4:19
  Dave: Question about royalties when something gets played on streaming platforms, depending on the agreement, does the composer see anything in terms of royalties and how do they even track all of that?
• 4:29
  Dave: Also, how does old fashioned TV reruns work?
• 4:32
  Dave: Like if I made the theme for Knight Rider, assuming everything is done correctly on the business end, I would see residuals, even when they play it now in 2023.
• 4:40
  Dave: Hashtag love the Hough.
• 4:44
  Dave: Well, two separate questions here, and the first question has to do with streaming royalties.
• 4:52
  Dave: And sadly, streaming royalties right now are like pennies to the dollar not even pennies, just fractions of pennies to the dollar.
• 5:01
  Dave: And part of the reason is this is my understanding.
• 5:04
  Dave: I am not a lawyer, nor am I an accountant, nor am I a royalty specialist.
• 5:08
  Dave: However, my understanding is that, because the FCC or because the industry doesn't require streaming services to report their royalties the same way they require terrestrial broadcasts, we are at their mercy, like whatever they want to tell us.
• 5:33
  Dave: However, the ratings are calculated that's what we are kind of just stuck with and ratings how many eyeballs are seeing a thing that gets on TV that really, really matters?
• 5:43
  Dave: And so if you get something on network TV or even cable, they are required either by the government or by the performing rights organizations.
• 5:52
  Dave: Whoever has forced them.
• 5:54
  Dave: They publish their numbers.
• 5:58
  Dave: We know how many things get seen.
• 6:02
  Dave: But for streaming, because the laws and the policies and procedures haven't caught up with it, we basically just take their words for it.
• 6:12
  Dave: Now, I think the PROs, the performing rights organizations, I think Congress or whoever needs to make them.
• 6:20
  Dave: The streaming royalty of streaming companies report on how many eyeballs are seeing the shows and because we're just taking their word for it, it's fractions of pennies to the dollar and they really, really stink.
• 6:35
  Dave: This is part of the reason that the writers and the actors are on strike right now, because the streaming platforms are paying peanuts compared to how royalties worked previously.
• 6:49
  Dave: Which takes me to your second question, and your second question was if you made a theme and it gets rerun, do you see royalties?
• 7:01
  Dave: If you got a theme for a TV show like Night Rider, then you would see royalties.
• 7:09
  Dave: You would see residuals every time it gets played.
• 7:11
  Dave: Composers royalties and actors residuals.
• 7:14
  Dave: They're really cut from much the same cloth.
• 7:18
  Dave: So the writers and actors are striking for this very thing right now because of this, and so if you got a theme, then every time it played you would see back end on it.
• 7:34
  Dave: That would be the goal.
• 7:36
  Dave: But the streaming services, we just hope they're right and it's not great.
• 7:46
  Dave: It's really really not great.
• 7:48
  Dave: And this is Apple TV, this is Hulu, this is Netflix, this is Spotify, this is Apple Music, any of those streaming royalties.
• 7:57
  Dave: It's not great.
• 7:59
  Dave: But if the business is done right, like you said, across the business end.
• 8:04
  Dave: If it's done right, then you would see residuals, no matter how many times it reruns, because every time it plays you get paid.
• 8:13
  Dave: I still receive royalties from the first season of Temptation Island that I had music placed on, even though it's been several years.
• 8:21
  Dave: I often make more royalties from an episode of Temptation Island than I do a Final Four placement on the NCAA, on CBS, because the NCAA tournament airs once.
• 8:36
  Dave: But Temptation Island gets rerun across multiple networks.
• 8:40
  Dave: It's showed up on, I think, like in-flight TV, like on Delta and all of that stuff.
• 8:45
  Dave: So that's a real challenge.
• 8:48
  Dave: That's a real challenge.
• 8:50
  Dave: So, ilya, I hope that helps.
• 8:51
  Dave: Thank you so much for sending that question along, and I've got to get David Hassel off my screen.
• 8:57
  Dave: Let's see Some folks in the chat.
• 9:01
  Dave: Yes, reed says don't forget to smash that like button.
• 9:06
  Dave: Yeah, 100%.
• 9:07
  Dave: Bo says I'm a full-sale student, you taking attendance.
• 9:09
  Dave: I don't know If you're more than 15 minutes late.
• 9:12
  Dave: That's two hours out, man.
• 9:13
  Dave: You got to take it off.
• 9:18
  Dave: And Bo said BMI and ASCAP just changed their fees to joint, did they?
• 9:22
  Dave: I did not know that.
• 9:23
  Dave: I know BMI just announced getting sold to a private equity firm.
• 9:28
  Dave: Now I would hope that there would be some kind of pay it forward dare I say, trickle-down effect, even though that didn't work out too well for everybody in the 80s.
• 9:41
  Dave: But I would hope that that means a good thing.
• 9:45
  Dave: I'm with CSAC, and CSAC is privately owned and they do pretty well.
• 9:50
  Dave: But if all of the CEOs of BMI are banking a ton of money and the composers and songwriters and authors they get hosed, I don't think that's really great.
• 10:02
  Dave: But Dex is right, we're not quite sure what that means for composers.
• 10:09
  Dave: Yet I am cautiously optimistic based off of my own experience with CSAC.
• 10:15
  Dave: Yeah, but I think it has officially been sold.
• 10:22
  Dave: I believe.
• 10:23
  Dave: I believe Yep, for sure.
• 10:28
  Dave: All right.
• 10:29
  Dave: So for you live folks.
• 10:31
  Dave: Remember you can always ask questions.
• 10:33
  Dave: Just pop those into the chat and I will make sure to jump on board.
• 10:37
  Dave: But next up we have Doug Doug.
• 10:40
  Dave: What is good?
• 10:40
  Dave: My man, doug, asks what's the best way to set optimal loudness levels when mastering with ozone?
• 10:48
  Dave: Now, I don't know if this is the best way, but this is the way that I do it.
• 10:54
  Dave: That works pretty well for me.
• 10:56
  Dave: I have a cue, a cue pulled up here.
• 10:58
  Dave: This is called indict for sore eyes and it is a pulsing tension cue.
• 11:07
  Dave: And what I do because production music tends to be, it doesn't have huge dynamic swings in general what I tend to do is find the loudest sustained portion of the cue, the loudest sustained phrase of the cue Typically that's going to be somewhere towards the end, like the final phrase leading into that final button, and so this cue is kind of cooking along the whole time.
• 11:39
  Dave: It has a chord change, then it goes into a breakdown, so it's kind of building and then coming down and then building again.
• 11:51
  Dave: This juju beat says I put a question in the composer cafe or should I add it here?
• 11:58
  Dave: I would probably add it here or add it to the event over in the 52 cues, this event here, the event with this here, and I'll refresh that to make sure.
• 12:12
  Dave: All right, so we're coming down out of our breakdown here and we're going to go into our loudest portion and I tend to isolate the loudest sustained phrase of the cue and I do 90 to 95% of my mastering from this spot.
• 12:45
  Dave: And then I got to tell you I've been using ozone 10.
• 12:48
  Dave: Ozone 10, its mastering assistant does really, really well and so I use it and then I add some extra, some extra something, something to help out.
• 13:00
  Dave: A lot of times what it will do is it will just blast the loudness like really, really loud.
• 13:06
  Dave: So I don't keep that.
• 13:09
  Dave: But it does a really good job in general and I pick the loudest spot of the cue and I will kind of fuzz around if I'm using the mastering assistant with a preset.
• 13:27
  Dave: That kind of works rock versus cinematic.
• 13:30
  Dave: I don't always take its word for it, but I will add an EQ.
• 13:36
  Dave: I'll add my own EQ, set it to mid side and in the mids I will scoop out right around 3K or so where dialogue likes to sit, boost up the lows, and that's the mids, and then in the sides I will offset what I just scooped out.
• 13:56
  Dave: So I will do a boost at 3K and then work on the lows to make sure I don't have any real low lows in the sides.
• 14:06
  Dave: This is a way of getting high mids out of the way of dialogue.
• 14:13
  Dave: And then I adjust the limiter I shoot for I don't know, anywhere between minus 14 to minus 12.
• 14:20
  Dave: Luffs just really depends on how loud the library is asking for and that kind of thing.
• 14:28
  Dave: And so I've done a lot of comparisons of my own mastering process, some of which I've talked about here on the YouTube channel, some of which I've done during live workshops.
• 14:40
  Dave: But this mastering assistant I keep coming back to it.
• 14:43
  Dave: It's not bad at all, and so I start with that and then go from there.
• 14:49
  Dave: You can see I'm getting into a minus 14, and that tends to help out.
• 14:54
  Dave: As long as you're isolating the loudest, sustained phrase of the cue, then it tends to give me pretty good readings.
• 15:03
  Dave: Now what can be different with this is if you're dealing with a trailer track, especially a trailer track, which might start off super quiet and get giant loud.
• 15:13
  Dave: That's a little bit different and kind of goes into this next question that I will talk about here in a second.
• 15:19
  Dave: All right, so Jerome asks let me see, let me pull up, let me pull up, jerome.
• 15:25
  Dave: Oops, there we go.
• 15:27
  Dave: Jerome says the 52 cues weekly videos of one cue each week are mostly missing from YouTube.
• 15:33
  Dave: There's only like seven of them.
• 15:34
  Dave: They were really helpful.
• 15:36
  Dave: Any chance of getting them back?
• 15:38
  Dave: Do you mean the weekly videos of one cue per week?
• 15:45
  Dave: Do you mean the cue breakdowns?
• 15:48
  Dave: Is that what you're talking about?
• 15:54
  Dave: Because the cue breakdowns have moved and they're actually a friend's benefit now, where I do a weekly breakdown of a cue that I wrote.
• 16:10
  Dave: If that's what we're talking about and they live over here into the cue breakdowns.
• 16:16
  Dave: Yeah, it was a couple of years back where I did a, where I did like this is an ominous tension cue and that kind of thing.
• 16:25
  Dave: Yeah, it's actually a benefit for the friend's subscribers and so that's where they live, that's where they moved to.
• 16:33
  Dave: Yep, they're all, they're all right there.
• 16:37
  Dave: I've thought about releasing releasing like really, really old ones, you know, and kind of backfilling and doing maybe one a month, but I want to make sure that at least for a year, like the folks who are friend subscribers have kind of first, but but yeah, that's that's where they, that's where they have all gone to.
• 16:59
  Dave: I'm not trying to gatekeep anything, just trying to add value to the friend's subscription.
• 17:03
  Dave: So so, yeah, I hope that answers your question.
• 17:07
  Dave: Let's ask is there a playlist for the cue breakdowns?
• 17:13
  Dave: No, there isn't, but they're individually posted there in the in the 52 cues cue breakdown section for the, the.
• 17:23
  Dave: It's the friends and family subscribers.
• 17:24
  Dave: It's part of of the benefits of those folks.
• 17:27
  Dave: Yeah, you said, asked that question, all right.
• 17:34
  Dave: Miss Ju Ju beats asks how important is sound design in a cue.
• 17:38
  Dave: Is it important to have your cue stand out with sound design?
• 17:42
  Dave: That is a fantastic question and is something that I talked about with Venus theory, cameron Gorham, aka Venus theory, on an interview, and I want to thank Nigel shout out to Nigel who really helped coordinate that interview.
• 17:58
  Dave: Thank you very much.
• 18:00
  Dave: But that is coming up very, very soon.
• 18:03
  Dave: I just need to find a spot.
• 18:04
  Dave: A lot of interviews that I've recorded that I haven't released yet just takes just takes time.
• 18:10
  Dave: I don't.
• 18:11
  Dave: I don't want to do an interview every single week, so I have to kind of spread them out.
• 18:17
  Dave: I was doing them once a month, but I have so many it would be until like March before before they all got out, so it's once every two to three weeks.
• 18:29
  Dave: His takeaway is and I agree with it is that as music, composition and sound design merge, like the sense of what is musical composition is morphing, and we can maybe think Hans Zimmer for that or whatever, but sound design?
• 18:47
  Dave: I don't think.
• 18:47
  Dave: I don't think composers can be completely ignorant of sound design like we once were the job of the pencil onto staff paper, sitting in front of a piano and handing it off.
• 19:00
  Dave: I think that I think those gigs are gone, especially, I mean, they never really existed for us production music folks anyway, but but they don't really.
• 19:11
  Dave: They're not really a thing.
• 19:12
  Dave: So if you're wanting to get into, especially games, film scoring, then sound design becomes a thing, a real need.
• 19:22
  Dave: The other thing that sound design enables you to do is craft your own sound.
• 19:27
  Dave: One of the things that Cameron talks about in his interview is, you know, making cues, and every single sound is created from scratch.
• 19:37
  Dave: So you know that the sound that you are using isn't just a preset off the shelf, isn't just a plug in, but is something that you crafted.
• 19:44
  Dave: And if we are to believe which I do but if we are to believe that creativity, uniqueness and originality are going to become increasingly valuable commodities in production music, then I don't think.
• 20:01
  Dave: I don't think we can avoid sound design, which means getting your hand on this, some synth, getting something like this right, just getting this is a zoom HN1, go record some sounds, bring them into a sense to make your own pads and make your own bell sounds and that kind of thing.
• 20:22
  Dave: So I don't think we can really avoid that.
• 20:26
  Dave: Other questions from the chat.
• 20:28
  Dave: Let's see, things are scrolling by faster than I thought.
• 20:33
  Dave: Let's see, that was Ms Jujubis.
• 20:36
  Dave: I was wondering, after viewing your cue and review of the reasons, new module object I thought the module added something special and noticeable 100% and that was just an off the shelf, off the shelf thing.
• 20:48
  Dave: And so, yes, it says how often do I use reference track feature on ozone 10?
• 20:55
  Dave: These days Not really often, but when I first started using ozone I used it religiously, probably used it for wow, two to three years solid, put a sorry, I was reading the chat two or three years solid.
• 21:15
  Dave: I would bring reference.
• 21:15
  Dave: And I thought it was really helpful, especially early on.
• 21:19
  Dave: It helped me learn ozone and it.
• 21:22
  Dave: It taught me a lot, you know.
• 21:27
  Dave: So I would bring in a track and I would use the EQ match and then figure out okay, how, why is this sounding the way it is?
• 21:34
  Dave: You do that enough, you just learn.
• 21:36
  Dave: You just like learning new headphones or whatever.
• 21:38
  Dave: You just learn what works and what doesn't.
• 21:40
  Dave: To be honest, I don't remember the last time I used it, but I used it religiously.
• 21:45
  Dave: When I first got it.
• 21:46
  Dave: First got it, a DEX asks or a DEX says, I was wondering.
• 21:53
  Dave: I'm sorry, I found myself using ozone and adding the default adaptive limiter to logic to get a minus one DB Interesting.
• 22:00
  Dave: Yeah, I found I find that with with ozone, if I just set the maximizer here and set my ceiling to minus one, as long as it's the last thing in the chain, it does really really well.
• 22:15
  Dave: It does really really well.
• 22:17
  Dave: So again, yeah, set my ceiling to minus one and that helps out.
• 22:22
  Dave: That helps out Great deal.
• 22:25
  Dave: Let's see.
• 22:31
  Dave: Nigel asks you often talk about artist versus artisan approach, how we don't make 100% art.
• 22:40
  Dave: Has that changed with the advent of AI, and will libraries evolve to seek more artistic, unique sounds, slash music?
• 22:48
  Dave: This is a great question.
• 22:49
  Dave: It's a really great question and something and something that that the last year has kind of challenged my own take on this.
• 22:59
  Dave: But for me, being an artisan isn't about, isn't about mass producing, it isn't necessarily about creativity, it's about the mindset of what you're making and making sure that what you're making has used to someone else, that you're not making something for yourself, you're making something that somebody can use.
• 23:31
  Dave: Now, what's been really interesting and I think exciting is over the last well, over the last year especially, but over the last amount of time, libraries seem to be searching for more unique voices from production, music, composers, for whatever reason could be AI coming and chomping at our heels, langalir's style, or it could be that channels just like this one, and, and Clint's and Eric's and Stephen Beddoll's and Jesse's and all you know, the usual cast, cast of characters, us folks, production music, folks on YouTube having courses and discords, and communities.
• 24:27
  Dave: Production music's not a secret anymore, it's not.
• 24:30
  Dave: You know, this underground thing, it's pretty mainstream.
• 24:33
  Dave: I mean, we have, we have 3,300 and so subscribers and that's not giant, but it's only production music here.
• 24:43
  Dave: Jesse Josephson's channel has synced, synced.
• 24:47
  Dave: My music has, you know, tens of thousands of subscribers.
• 24:50
  Dave: So word is out.
• 24:53
  Dave: But that also means that I think the lowest hanging fruit, which is either going to be gobbled up by AI which I think it will you know, I'm looking at you like pond five and yet but also the mass produced, just crank it out, crank it out, crank it out.
• 25:11
  Dave: I don't think.
• 25:12
  Dave: I don't think so.
• 25:13
  Dave: Think of it this way I am an artisan looking to sell at a farmer's market.
• 25:22
  Dave: I'm not an artisan looking to sell to Walmart.
• 25:26
  Dave: Artisan five is the Walmart of production music and Walmart needs to exist.
• 25:35
  Dave: I am not hating on Walmart, I am not disparaging the Walton family, but if I was an artisan baker looking to fulfill an order from a Walmart.
• 25:49
  Dave: I'm going to look to cut corners, to mass produce, to assembly line things and that's fine, that's not.
• 25:56
  Dave: That's not what I'm doing.
• 25:57
  Dave: But artisan brain, for me, is much more about the mentality when you set out to write something.
• 26:07
  Dave: But to your point, I think libraries are seeking more unique sounds.
• 26:13
  Dave: Yep, I think I think that's true.
• 26:19
  Dave: All right, greg had a question.
• 26:23
  Dave: Greg's question was follow up from your drum programming workshop.
• 26:27
  Dave: Can you go over ride in out, edge and bell and how I use all of those?
• 26:34
  Dave: Well, I don't have a drum set up.
• 26:36
  Dave: Ride in out, edge and bell and how I use all of those.
• 26:42
  Dave: When you say ride in, how do you mean, like when to use the ride symbol?
• 26:50
  Dave: My old drummer brain tells me use the ride symbol on the chorus and or the bridge.
• 27:00
  Dave: You go to the ride.
• 27:02
  Dave: Hi, hats are for verses, ride symbols are for the bridge.
• 27:04
  Dave: Yep, oh, that's Logix Pro categories.
• 27:09
  Dave: So use the.
• 27:13
  Dave: So that's, when I bring a ride symbol in as far as the edge, that would be like I use it as an additional crash symbol.
• 27:23
  Dave: But because ride symbols are typically thicker, they don't open up as quickly and they tend to be a little bit more bongy just rory and bongy right and so I will use it as a lower volume crash, like here here behind me that is a, that's a point to it.
• 27:43
  Dave: That's a 22 inch corope symbol, a corope ride, and that is an 18 inch crash and I can ride on that, but I don't.
• 27:51
  Dave: I crash on the 21 every now and then but it's not my main crash back there.
• 27:55
  Dave: As far as the bell, I'll use those for accents If I'm doing like a funk thing and then I will do, you know, bell tip, bell tip, or if I'm doing off beats.
• 28:14
  Dave: But you got to use sparingly A little bit of ride.
• 28:20
  Dave: Bell goes a long way, goes a long way.
• 28:22
  Dave: I hope that helps, greg.
• 28:23
  Dave: I hope that helps.
• 28:25
  Dave: I don't have a, I don't have a session pulled up with that, so I and I I could get into the weeds trying to pull something up really super quick.
• 28:34
  Dave: Let's see Some other folks from the chat.
• 28:38
  Dave: Shane says any thoughts on overcoming the obstacle or fear of submitting works to the libraries?
• 28:43
  Dave: Sometimes the composing process is the easiest part.
• 28:46
  Dave: Putting your work in front of others can be stifling.
• 28:49
  Dave: Well, I was talking to somebody recently and we were talking about this and about how you kind of you can get really beat up.
• 28:55
  Dave: And here's the here's, here's an you know me, I'm captain analogy.
• 29:00
  Dave: So here comes another analogy Fear of rejection and being being afraid to hear no or hear nothing from a library is like being a boxer expecting not to get hit in the face.
• 29:26
  Dave: Being afraid of getting a return, whether it's taxi or whether it's an email, unsolicited whatever, being afraid of rejection in the creative arts is like being a boxer and being afraid of getting hit in the face.
• 29:42
  Dave: It's just part of it and the gig isn't don't get hit in the face.
• 29:52
  Dave: I think we kind of fall into that trap.
• 29:54
  Dave: You know, don't get hit in the face.
• 29:59
  Dave: And so you bob and weave.
• 30:01
  Dave: Right, boxers bob and weave not to avoid getting hit in the face, but minimize.
• 30:07
  Dave: They are going to get hit in the face, you're going to get punched.
• 30:11
  Dave: But the real sport is how many blows can you give back while taking the hits in the face?
• 30:26
  Dave: Taking the body blows and all of that?
• 30:28
  Dave: That's, that's the game.
• 30:31
  Dave: So if you're afraid of rejection, then don't.
• 30:38
  Dave: Don't try boxing.
• 30:39
  Dave: I guess I've never been in a boxing ring before.
• 30:41
  Dave: I was just assuming.
• 30:42
  Dave: But Boxer's train on how to take a, how to take a punch doesn't make it hurt less, right?
• 30:50
  Dave: When a boxer takes a hook to the face, it still hurts.
• 30:55
  Dave: You know, if you cut me, do I not bleed?
• 30:58
  Dave: Right, it still hurts.
• 31:01
  Dave: But their focus isn't on the rejection, their focus is on OK, I got to, I've got to fight this guy.
• 31:08
  Dave: I got to land my own blows while taking the punches.
• 31:16
  Dave: So the obstacle and fear of submitting works to the libraries, Just do it, just do it.
• 31:24
  Dave: The absolute worst that could happen is they could just say no, that's like the worst.
• 31:30
  Dave: Getting ghosted, hearing nothing, that's not the worst.
• 31:37
  Dave: And here's what's not going to happen.
• 31:40
  Dave: Like I don't want to say it's not never going to happen, but it's unlikely to happen that a library is going to call you up and just say you are terrible, stop, you're bad, and that was bad and you should feel bad.
• 31:55
  Dave: Libraries aren't going to do that.
• 31:57
  Dave: I mean, they don't even email you to tell you no sometimes.
• 32:01
  Dave: So you think they're going to think they're going to take the time and energy to to to lay waste to you.
• 32:08
  Dave: No, they're just going to move on.
• 32:10
  Dave: They're just going to move on and that's cool.
• 32:13
  Dave: Yep, mad about nothing says.
• 32:17
  Dave: The worst is never submitting anything and wishing you had.
• 32:19
  Dave: Yeah, what is it?
• 32:20
  Dave: Was it a Michael Jordan quote?
• 32:22
  Dave: You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
• 32:24
  Dave: Yep, when I hear here's a story, dave is a little kid story incoming.
• 32:34
  Dave: When I was a kid, I was in a little league and I believe it or not, don't let.
• 32:39
  Dave: Don't let my six to 250 pound physique fool you.
• 32:44
  Dave: But I used to be able to run really fast and so because of that, I was on in our little leagues.
• 32:52
  Dave: We had, like minor, we had T-ball minor leagues and major leagues and I was on the major leagues because I could run fast, believe it or not.
• 33:04
  Dave: But what I couldn't do is hit the stinkin ball.
• 33:11
  Dave: I was terrible, it was absolutely terrible.
• 33:17
  Dave: But the coaches knew that the pitchers in a little league aren't that great, and so my little league coach told me Do not swing at the ball, still swing at it, you have a higher percentage of getting walked.
• 33:36
  Dave: Then you do actually hitting the ball and getting on base.
• 33:41
  Dave: So I got walked all the time because little league kids you know, seven and eight year old, nine year old kids aren't great pitchers.
• 33:49
  Dave: And so I would get on base and I could.
• 33:54
  Dave: I could steal bases super easily.
• 33:59
  Dave: By the way, this coach also knew the rules inside and out and he would tell us when you take your base, when you walk, technically it's a live ball and he would say just keep walking, just keep walking to second base.
• 34:13
  Dave: It was about four games into the season before the other coaches got wise.
• 34:18
  Dave: So I would like it would be like ball four and I'd put my back down and just walk to first base and then just turn the corner, moving on to second base.
• 34:28
  Dave: Yep and I, because once I got on the first, it's live ball and I stole second and so.
• 34:40
  Dave: But now, some 40, 45 years later, or whatever, I regret never taking a swing man because I was told by my coaches not to.
• 34:51
  Dave: So the only way to overcome the fear is just do the reps and keep doing it.
• 34:57
  Dave: Don't get afraid, don't.
• 34:59
  Dave: You can't live in fear of getting punched in the face.
• 35:01
  Dave: That's the gig.
• 35:02
  Dave: You're a boxer, you're in the ring, you're going to get punched in the face.
• 35:07
  Dave: The real game is for you to land blows while taking taking your punches.
• 35:13
  Dave: Big shout out to Eric what's good?
• 35:17
  Dave: Man, just gave you a, give you a.
• 35:19
  Dave: Shout out.
• 35:20
  Dave: And Stevie B what is good?
• 35:23
  Dave: Mad says I have a very punchable face.
• 35:25
  Dave: I don't know.
• 35:28
  Dave: We have the same barber.
• 35:29
  Dave: I think don't?
• 35:29
  Dave: We don't.
• 35:30
  Dave: We have the same barber.
• 35:31
  Dave: Let's see some folks, other other folks in the chat.
• 35:36
  Dave: He says asking for a friend.
• 35:39
  Dave: Ms Jujube says ask.
• 35:45
  Dave: After constructing and in the process of checking my cues arrangement, are there things that I should make sure it includes?
• 35:50
  Dave: That is a, that's a.
• 35:53
  Dave: That's a really big question, I think.
• 35:55
  Dave: Make sure you have editable phrases and layering that an editor can take and it all makes sense whether it's symmetrical or not.
• 36:03
  Dave: Make sure you have a solid button ending on the on the downbeat following the final phrase.
• 36:08
  Dave: So one cord hold to do jazz hands.
• 36:11
  Dave: American Idol little ending.
• 36:12
  Dave: I know it might feel cheesy from a creative standpoint, but editors need solid button endings and just make sure that you're following directions.
• 36:23
  Dave: You know, make sure you're following directions.
• 36:26
  Dave: What's good, keshia, really good to see you.
• 36:28
  Dave: Thanks for joining us.
• 36:29
  Dave: Keshia says I was always taught that you got to roll with the punches or suffer the consequences.
• 36:35
  Dave: That's right.
• 36:35
  Dave: Right, it's not.
• 36:36
  Dave: You're not going to get hit, you just got to know how to take it.
• 36:39
  Dave: Read, ask questions.
• 36:41
  Dave: Composers are increasingly using loops and one shots from splice and loop cloud in their composition.
• 36:45
  Dave: Is it okay to use them or as is?
• 36:48
  Dave: Or should you splice them, stretch them, change keys etc.
• 36:51
  Dave: I think in order to survive in the increasingly content ID to shazam, sound, mouse, all of that, you know, it's becoming more important for us to manipulate our samples Right.
• 37:08
  Dave: What we can't do is just put them naked in there and call it a day.
• 37:12
  Dave: If you are working with stems, you might be in breach of contract and you might violate the terms of service.
• 37:20
  Dave: For example, if you use a splice drum loop and that's all there is a splice drum loop and you stick it on there and then you are bouncing down alternate versions and stems for for your library and you give them the percussion only stem because that's what they're asking for, then you are in violation of splice as terms of service, because what you can't do is redistribute the samples on their own.
• 37:45
  Dave: Now, as soon as you start mangling them, slicing them apart and pitching them and beat juggling, then we're okay.
• 37:52
  Dave: But I will always.
• 37:55
  Dave: I will always stack loops.
• 37:58
  Dave: Even if I take like a hi-hat loop and don't do a ton with it, I will layer it with other other loops Just to make sure that it's not just all naked by itself.
• 38:10
  Dave: Chord progression, loops, bass, lines, melodies, vocals those are most likely to trip up content ID algorithms.
• 38:18
  Dave: So I think we got to be super careful with those.
• 38:21
  Dave: And so, yep, use responsibly, but I don't think we should hard avoid them.
• 38:29
  Dave: Now I will say splice, not splice.
• 38:32
  Dave: A Serato sample just released Serato sample 2.0, including being able to isolate, like the vocal stem and the drums and the bass and the other chords and stuff, and that's really exciting, because I had a subscription to Serato Studio because that did that, and today I downloaded Serato sample 2.0, canceled my Serato Studio subscription because Serato sample 2.0 does stem isolations.
• 39:05
  Dave: It's pretty darn, pretty darn good.
• 39:07
  Dave: At the end of the day, though, reed, I would say check with your library.
• 39:11
  Dave: Some libraries get.
• 39:13
  Dave: Some libraries get really sticky about it to the point where they will actually add verbiage in their contract saying no splice loops, and so just just watch out.
• 39:24
  Dave: I did a video a while back on using splice responsibly and how I feel like splice gets a little unfairly maligned.
• 39:31
  Dave: I think they're kind of the punching bag.
• 39:35
  Dave: But yeah, just use responsibly, let's see.
• 39:40
  Dave: Linda asks when reaching out to additional libraries how long is it reasonable to wait for a response, given that you already sent them a gentle reminder some three weeks prior?
• 39:49
  Dave: My feeling is to just move on.
• 39:53
  Dave: Well, let's see.
• 39:54
  Dave: It depends on how hot the lead was.
• 39:56
  Dave: If it was a cold, unsolicited message and you didn't hear anything back, then I will do like a two week bump, then I will do a three to four week bump, then I will do a six to eight week bump and then maybe a six month bump after then.
• 40:14
  Dave: I think it's time to move on.
• 40:15
  Dave: If it is a warm lead and you have gotten some communication back, I tend to err on the side of optimism, right, instead of thinking, oh my gosh, the library has totally dropped me and they're terrible and they're poorly run, chances are, the organization is much smaller than we probably think it is and they might just be busy, and so err on the side of optimism.
• 40:45
  Dave: But if you've signed contracts and all of that stuff, then that two, four, six, eight week window gets a little bit more compressed.
• 40:58
  Dave: If it's a gentle reminder after three weeks, I would give it another three or four weeks, send them a gentle reminder and then, if you haven't heard anything back, then just move on for sure.
• 41:09
  Dave: Yep, for sure, by the way.
• 41:17
  Dave: Thank you guys so much for the questions.
• 41:19
  Dave: I'm gonna go ahead and take a question from the 52Q's community over here.
• 41:24
  Dave: Got a ton of really great questions popping in, but let's see.
• 41:29
  Dave: So Yens asks a question which is kind of related to the question we had earlier how do you handle an increase of loudness during the course of a queue?
• 41:41
  Dave: I usually experience that layering additional instruments step by step leads to a much louder end compared to the beginning of the queue.
• 41:50
  Dave: If I am finally have to set up the lust to a certain value, I learned to take the loudest part for that, but then often the beginning of the queue feels a little too quiet for me.
• 42:03
  Dave: Is automation of the volume of the stereo out a solution to counteract this effect?
• 42:07
  Dave: Because the production music too drastic dynamic changes over the course of a queue is probably not wanted.
• 42:12
  Dave: In general, you're relatively right.
• 42:16
  Dave: However, it really depends on the type of the queue.
• 42:18
  Dave: Trailer queues can get away with much, much broader extremes of dynamics than you would necessarily hear in, like a tension queue or especially a sports queue which has very little dynamic changes, and so it really depends on the type of your queue.
• 42:38
  Dave: I have found, like I said, in 95% of my queues, isolating the loudest portion, doing my mix and master from that point, gets me the way.
• 42:48
  Dave: The other 5%, yeah.
• 42:50
  Dave: I'm doing things like what you're talking about, either automating volumes or automating velocities and that kind of thing.
• 42:59
  Dave: The nuclear option the nuclear option is to print it out and then take the waveform and then just increase the gain of that portion of the waveform.
• 43:11
  Dave: That's how I do a ton of my audio editing.
• 43:15
  Dave: Like I'm gonna edit this in post and if I'm rolling a piece of music or something like that, then I won't use a fader automation, I'll just increase the waveform.
• 43:27
  Dave: But what I wouldn't do is overly compress and if the queue calls for it, you might be okay with that.
• 43:34
  Dave: It might be a feature and not an error.
• 43:37
  Dave: So check with your library first.
• 43:39
  Dave: I would say If it is a really delicate queue and the whole point of it is to have that slow build over time, then the fact that it's really quiet at the beginning might be okay.
• 43:51
  Dave: So I would check with that, jens.
• 43:53
  Dave: Awesome, excellent, excellent, excellent.
• 43:57
  Dave: Jeff asks a composer's bread and butter is backend royalties paid out over the course of years, or sometimes decades, due to reruns, marathon syndication.
• 44:07
  Dave: In comparison, writing queues for sports is a different animal.
• 44:10
  Dave: How lucrative can sports queues really be if games are not reared over many years?
• 44:15
  Dave: No one's watching a game from 2013 at two o'clock on a weekday.
• 44:18
  Dave: Those spots are taken by housewives and Kardashian reruns.
• 44:21
  Dave: But here's the deal.
• 44:23
  Dave: I don't know why I said it like that.
• 44:26
  Dave: Here's the deal.
• 44:27
  Dave: Here's the deal.
• 44:29
  Dave: Sports can hit network and, regardless of all the streaming, everything we got going on, regardless of whatever network in Peacock versus Hulu versus Netflix versus Paramount Plus all of those numbers completely pale, are towered over by network error.
• 44:52
  Dave: And while, yes, I get more over the long term, I get more money off of a placement on Temptation Island than I do a placement on NCAA tournament, but that apples to apples, placement to placement.
• 45:08
  Dave: Sports is more lucrative.
• 45:13
  Dave: But here's the other thing with sports these sports guys are more lucrative than sports.
• 45:20
  Dave: These sports guys and girls gals, sports producers, have a playlist and they love dipping into the same.
• 45:33
  Dave: Well, now, I don't have many cues that I wrote in 2015 still making air in reality TV because trends shift, but I still like last week I think got a placement from a cue written in 2015 because the producers, the music supervisors just love the cue and it keeps working its way in and showing up all over the place, so it is a trade-off.
• 46:09
  Dave: It's a trade-off, you're not wrong.
• 46:11
  Dave: Not many people.
• 46:12
  Dave: Nobody's watching a rerun from 2013 unless it was a classic episode.
• 46:17
  Dave: The one exception to this was the summer of 2020, during lockdown.
• 46:21
  Dave: Was they rerun?
• 46:24
  Dave: They did a rerun of the master's tournament from the previous year, which just happened to be the year that Tiger won, and so that was pretty lucrative.
• 46:34
  Dave: That was the rare rerun and if they ever do rerun, like on ESPN classic, often they're not rolling the music that was played in real time.
• 46:44
  Dave: But what we're really wanting to do is get good network placements and that can be really lucrative.
• 46:52
  Dave: At the end of the day, I wouldn't put all of my eggs in sports basket.
• 46:57
  Dave: I wouldn't put all of my eggs in Kardashians basket.
• 46:59
  Dave: I hope that helps.
• 47:02
  Dave: I'm gonna refresh the page here.
• 47:06
  Dave: Next up we have Michael Sene.
• 47:10
  Dave: Michael Sene asks a major trend in trailers over the last few years have been cinematic covers or parts of a well-known song integrated into the larger piece.
• 47:19
  Dave: Have you ever used a commercially released track from an artist?
• 47:23
  Dave: If so, was clearing the track affordable?
• 47:26
  Dave: I have never personally done this Anytime.
• 47:29
  Dave: I've ever even seen a brief for like trailerized versions of this cue or that or this song or that song.
• 47:37
  Dave: The library almost always handles that.
• 47:42
  Dave: My only experience in this was actually doing arrangements for a jazz duo, jazz vocal duo, and they were putting a show together and they wanted to sell an album and it was all jazz arrangements think like post-modern jukebox of 80s theme songs I think that's what it was or 80s music, and then we had a theme song, melt.
• 48:05
  Dave: So we had a lot of medleys in and I had one track that was a Michael Jackson medley that had four or five different Michael Jackson songs in one.
• 48:16
  Dave: Well, each one of those required its own independent Harry Fox agency mechanical license At like 35 cents a pop, I think, 35% up cents per unit sold.
• 48:32
  Dave: Back then we were selling CDs and so you have five songs in one medley.
• 48:38
  Dave: That's five times 35 cents.
• 48:41
  Dave: Then suddenly your profit margin completely evaporates and so I just personally have avoided it.
• 48:52
  Dave: I don't really get much into it.
• 48:53
  Dave: I don't get much into it.
• 48:54
  Dave: But if anybody here in the chat or if you're watching this in the archive, if you know, let me know in the comments.
• 49:01
  Dave: But in my experience the library almost always, is always going to handle that.
• 49:09
  Dave: Excellent, excellent, excellent.
• 49:11
  Dave: All right, let's see.
• 49:12
  Dave: I think that's all the questions from the cafe.
• 49:19
  Dave: So Dex asks if I'm asked to write a two minute queue, how many edit points would you put in and how would you time them?
• 49:26
  Dave: Obviously it depends on the requests.
• 49:28
  Dave: I tend to put edit points in between major structural changes.
• 49:33
  Dave: So if it's a trailer queue that has an act structure, I would put an edit point in between the acts.
• 49:43
  Dave: If it's your typical type of tension queue that has a build up to around the 50% mark, which is, if it's a two minute queue around the minute mark, it could be anywhere between 45 seconds up to a minute and five seconds.
• 49:59
  Dave: Right, it's pretty big soft landing zone.
• 50:01
  Dave: I would put an edit point of some kind right before the breakdown and then coming out of the breakdown Not always both, but at least coming into the break, going into the breakdown or coming out of the breakdown.
• 50:17
  Dave: And those are the likely candidates that I start with are the main structural points.
• 50:24
  Dave: Not every type of queue requires an edit point or, as we learned from Josh Siegel, editor out in LA, stop downs, I think that's what they call them.
• 50:34
  Dave: That's what the non-composer community calls it.
• 50:36
  Dave: Basically all of the editors and so I'm trying to absorb the term stop down more often, but not every queue requires a stop down.
• 50:47
  Dave: Like we don't put stop downs in sports queues, but trailer queues have giant stop downs and horror trailer queues have even more because there's even more editing that gets done with that.
• 51:01
  Dave: See, the reason we put edit points in is so that an editor can go in and insert dialogue and all of that right.
• 51:09
  Dave: But if it is a sports queue, those get dropped in alive, right, it's just needle dropped, needle dropped from the beginning and go Editors, the producers aren't editing that piece of music, live underneath highlights.
• 51:27
  Dave: So it needs to be big and strong right from the beginning, so edit points aren't required.
• 51:32
  Dave: In fact, big giant edit points that create builds into a five chord and then nothing and then slant.
• 51:38
  Dave: That actually becomes distraction because there's tons of dialogue going on and the last thing we want to do is have our sports queue pull focus, and so edit points can do that.
• 51:48
  Dave: It's not to say that we can't have some kind of energetic contraction and then expansion.
• 51:55
  Dave: We can do all of that, but we don't put them at, whereas a tension queue and a trailer queue.
• 52:02
  Dave: Those get heavily edited.
• 52:03
  Dave: Trailer queues have big giant stop downs at the ax, at the ax ACTS, not ax.
• 52:10
  Dave: They have big stop downs because editors will often cut, slice, insert dialogues, punch lines, whatever, and then go from there.
• 52:21
  Dave: Things like corporate queues, those kind of tasking queues, those types of queues that just kind of roll into the background, those don't require big FedEx truck size edit points.
• 52:32
  Dave: What I mean by that is edit points so large you can drive a truck through them.
• 52:36
  Dave: So yeah, I hope that helped.
• 52:40
  Dave: Great thanks for the question.
• 52:41
  Dave: Really, really appreciate that.
• 52:43
  Dave: Let's see.
• 52:44
  Dave: Stevie B asks does BMI or ASCAP track and distribute performance royalties for tracks that are used for advertisements that end up in broadcasts?
• 52:52
  Dave: If those ads are getting reported and queues sheets are getting submitted, then yes.
• 52:58
  Dave: Sometimes, however, ad placements are considered buyouts and so you'll get a big chunky upfront and they might not necessarily the ad agency might not be submitting queues sheets for that, but that would depend on the production company.
• 53:15
  Dave: They would need to submit those queues sheets, otherwise you won't see any back end, and if you're not, then make sure you get pretty chunky front end for that, but that would entirely depend on the.
• 53:26
  Dave: That would depend on the production company for sure, let's see.
• 53:33
  Dave: Ms Juju Beats asks, in my opinion, from the list of most requested types of queues, which is the easiest to get started writing?
• 53:39
  Dave: I have yet to write my first queue and there are so many of them to choose from.
• 53:42
  Dave: Well, that is a that's a loaded question, and so I want to give you the.
• 53:49
  Dave: I wanna give you the response that a music supervisor, or a panel of music supervisors gave when they were asked this.
• 54:02
  Dave: I think it was last year.
• 54:03
  Dave: It was either at the road rally or it was at PMC.
• 54:07
  Dave: It's all kind of a puller, the whole fall that LA twice in six weeks, not never again.
• 54:15
  Dave: Anyway, they were asked what kind of queues should I be writing, and their response was the good kind.
• 54:23
  Dave: Basically, write them queues that are usable, that sound authentic.
• 54:30
  Dave: Good music can find homes.
• 54:34
  Dave: Now let me give you the less snarky version.
• 54:39
  Dave: I think it's more important to find a type of music that resonates with you as a composer than it is necessarily looking to chase trends.
• 54:48
  Dave: If you write hip hop beats, then find out how you can bend hip hop towards production music.
• 54:56
  Dave: If you are an EDM DJ, if you play ukulele, if you're a blues guitarist, if you're a drummer, if you're a mandolin player, focus on making music with the thing you already know how to do and finding homes and finding applications for the thing.
• 55:19
  Dave: Now, what we can't do is we can't just write what we always write and then just give it and hope it lands.
• 55:26
  Dave: No, we've got to write.
• 55:27
  Dave: This is artisan brain, right.
• 55:28
  Dave: We've got to write with the understanding of somebody needs to be able to use this and there are some parameters that we should adhere to phrasing, layering buttons, loudness, all of those things.
• 55:37
  Dave: But I think there's a middle ground and the reason this is important is if you're writing something that is already coming out of your creative self, then it's going to sound more authentic.
• 55:52
  Dave: One and two, it's going to be sustainable.
• 55:57
  Dave: So if I sit here and say you know what sells the best hip hop, contemporary hip hop cues and drill beats and you're like I've never heard of drill beats, so I'm just going to go study it and that might be great, but you might hate writing them, you might hate listening to the reference material, you might hate wrangling 808s, right, but because you're chasing that trend, because that's what is selling right now and that that handsle is so hot right now.
• 56:33
  Dave: Nice relevant current movie quote for you.
• 56:38
  Dave: For you you're welcome, but if you're just chasing that trend, then you're not feeling fulfilled and at the end of the day, I believe that no amount of royalties are going to overcome just not enjoying the work.
• 56:53
  Dave: I believe so if you start from what I enjoy doing musically, as this, and then it's a matter of finding an outlet for that thing that is production music focused.
• 57:11
  Dave: So that would be my encouragement to you.
• 57:14
  Dave: And I hope that wasn't, I hope that wasn't a.
• 57:22
  Dave: It didn't come off.
• 57:23
  Dave: I don't mean snarky or anything, but that's that's what they asked.
• 57:26
  Dave: You know what's the best type, what's the best type of music to write?
• 57:30
  Dave: They said the good kind, because authentic music will find a home.
• 57:35
  Dave: Excellent, appreciate that, thank you.
• 57:38
  Dave: Oh, let's see.
• 57:41
  Dave: Linda Dex says I had some cues signed six months later after assuming they had forgotten about it.
• 57:46
  Dave: Yep, just patience, patience, nigel.
• 57:49
  Dave: Real instruments guitars, ukuleles, percussion are commonly used, but synths are almost always software VSTs.
• 57:55
  Dave: Can you see an advantage in hardware sense for production music composers?
• 57:59
  Dave: I got to tell you I am way in the minority here, I think, but I don't.
• 58:04
  Dave: I think hardware sense are fussy.
• 58:07
  Dave: I think you are locked in and um, and maybe it's just my lack of experience I never had a Moog or anything like that.
• 58:17
  Dave: I never had a phantom.
• 58:18
  Dave: I never had a Juno.
• 58:20
  Dave: I know that there is something to be said about like tweaking knobs and faders and crafting soundscapes in real time.
• 58:27
  Dave: I get that.
• 58:27
  Dave: I am not bent that way.
• 58:29
  Dave: The reason that acoustic instruments work so well and we should focus on recording real instruments is because VSTs can't do that effectively, consistently.
• 58:42
  Dave: But VSTs can 100% recreate oscillators because it's just hardware versus software.
• 58:53
  Dave: But at the end of the day we are in the synthetic domain and so it's hard to have an uncanny valley when it's already artificial and synthetic.
• 59:11
  Dave: And I think there's a purist elitism that kind of goes along with that that I don't really buy into.
• 59:15
  Dave: But I just find hardware sense to be fussy and I have a Korg Triton sitting right here right next to me.
• 59:23
  Dave: It's got some really cool sounds but it's kind of a pain in the butt.
• 59:27
  Dave: It's a pain in the butt and then you're locked in and this, you have an arpeggiator.
• 59:32
  Dave: I mean there's something to be said about the organic quality if you're using analog circuits and the longer you use it and the sound physically changes because the voltage changes and all of that.
• 59:48
  Dave: I get that, but I don't have the bandwidth to do that and I think that's overkill.
• 1:00:00
  Dave: That having been said, the dudes that write the Stranger Things soundtrack, I think that's all hardware and it sounds great.
• 1:00:10
  Dave: It sounds really really good and there's probably an authenticity that would be difficult but not impossible to recreate, whereas I think it's virtually impossible to recreate virtually, using virtual instruments, a consistent, believable, like solo ukulele track.
• 1:00:36
  Dave: That would be really, really, really tough and you can't.
• 1:00:42
  Dave: You can't use a loop because that's just a loop of a recording.
• 1:00:45
  Dave: And as good as Native Instruments strummed guitar is, and their electric, all of those, they're really really good Native Instruments.
• 1:00:53
  Dave: I see, I see you, you're doing a good job.
• 1:00:55
  Dave: Keep up the good work and the uncanny valley is real with those but me grabbing a cheap Amazon ukulele and playing it media mediocre.
• 1:01:08
  Dave: Lee, is that a word Is going to sound better than a programmed sample library?
• 1:01:14
  Dave: I think it's my opinion, but I have tons of respect for the synth tweakers that can do that.
• 1:01:22
  Dave: I don't have the patience or bandwidth or bank account to pull that off.
• 1:01:26
  Dave: Let's see.
• 1:01:28
  Dave: Shane asks during all live sports, do they drop in cues on the fly.
• 1:01:31
  Dave: Does that apply to golf, tennis, football, et cetera?
• 1:01:34
  Dave: Anything that is being dropped live for highlights, whether it's flyovers, whether it's throw to commercials, those are all almost always dropped in live.
• 1:01:43
  Dave: What's not dropped in live are featured stories.
• 1:01:46
  Dave: So if they said, like here's a featured story of Rob Gronkowski, you know, making poutine at his house, I don't know, I have no idea why I said poutine, maybe I just need a snack, but and then they throw to a pre-tape, then that's using production music and that is using music.
• 1:02:08
  Dave: And often I have found in my experience it's very rare for my live cues to show up in featured stories because they're different pipelines.
• 1:02:19
  Dave: They're different pipelines.
• 1:02:21
  Dave: I mean it does happen, but it's rare and I think it's different producers.
• 1:02:27
  Dave: It's a different production schedule.
• 1:02:30
  Dave: You know the pre-tapes get shot, there's a budget.
• 1:02:34
  Dave: You know they're flying to somebody, they're setting up lights.
• 1:02:37
  Dave: You know there's mics and all that.
• 1:02:38
  Dave: Usually one camera, all that stuff, right, maybe two cameras with an interview.
• 1:02:42
  Dave: But when it's live it's just like nope, we're live doing the truck sitting outside of the stadium or producers in a booth in the studio in New York, yeah, that's all being done live and so.
• 1:02:57
  Dave: But golf, tennis, football.
• 1:02:59
  Dave: Anything that has a live broadcast, they will be dropping in live.
• 1:03:04
  Dave: That's my experience.
• 1:03:07
  Dave: Yep Dex says saxophone is a nightmare for VST.
• 1:03:12
  Dave: Yeah, and unless you can find a saxophone that does like one thing, a unitasker like inbertones sexy sax, I think it's intended to sound like the careless whisper.
• 1:03:24
  Dave: It's intended to sound just like that, unless you can find a library that does the one thing.
• 1:03:32
  Dave: It's generally pretty tough Tough to find good libraries.
• 1:03:36
  Dave: All right, I'm going to refresh the page here.
• 1:03:39
  Dave: That might do it.
• 1:03:40
  Dave: We've been going for a little over an hour, but I do want to make room if anybody else has any questions, any other questions in the chat.
• 1:03:50
  Dave: It's been really good hanging out with you guys.
• 1:03:52
  Dave: Really appreciate you.
• 1:03:53
  Dave: Matthew asks I was wondering at this moment what would be some effective ways to research and expose my music to the libraries or trailer houses that may be aligned with the Q-styles I currently excel in.
• 1:04:18
  Dave: Well, first thing is to just get to Googling.
• 1:04:21
  Dave: You could also chat GPT, but if you want the nuclear option, head over to PMAmusicorg.
• 1:04:33
  Dave: Nope, not PMA Music, pmamusiccom.
• 1:04:35
  Dave: Let's try that.
• 1:04:37
  Dave: If you click on PMAMusiccom and I'm going to zoom in nice and tight here and then click on Resources, and if you will go down, you will see the PMA member prefix database or the catalog.
• 1:04:55
  Dave: What this gives you is a database of every production music association member.
• 1:05:03
  Dave: There are a lot.
• 1:05:07
  Dave: I mean look how small that scroll bar is.
• 1:05:09
  Dave: Each one of these represents a catalog, library, sub, publisher label or whatever.
• 1:05:18
  Dave: Still scrolling, I have been falling for 13 minutes.
• 1:05:25
  Dave: Yep, now they have the big.
• 1:05:30
  Dave: You know they have the overall umbrella.
• 1:05:34
  Dave: But, yeah, like, okay, interpulse, if Google Interpulse, and first make sure they take unsolicited submissions.
• 1:05:41
  Dave: Hear me, I'm going to go full screen and look dead in your eyes.
• 1:05:44
  Dave: Not you, matthew, but anybody.
• 1:05:47
  Dave: Do not send a message to any library, any unsolicited message, unless they specifically put on their website send us material.
• 1:06:00
  Dave: If libraries do not have composer submission form, their email available where they say hey, are you a composer?
• 1:06:10
  Dave: We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:06:11
  Dave: If they don't explicitly put that on their website, do not excavate an email address and blast them, because you know what you're doing.
• 1:06:24
  Dave: You are telling them right out of the gate I can't follow directions.
• 1:06:32
  Dave: Is that too real, everybody?
• 1:06:34
  Dave: I hope not, but that's what you're saying.
• 1:06:36
  Dave: You're saying that I went around and found an email address and emailed you.
• 1:06:43
  Dave: They are not happy to hear from you Again, matthew.
• 1:06:49
  Dave: I'm not putting you on blast or anything, I'm just saying but any library who does take unsolicited submissions will put their contact information and indicate please send us material.
• 1:07:09
  Dave: So at this moment, what would be the effective way to research?
• 1:07:12
  Dave: Get to this list it's really fantastic and it's just, it's all right there, right, and get to Googling, find a library that resonates with the types of cues you write and then send them a message.
• 1:07:24
  Dave: Don't, don't you know, if you have an album or something that's cool.
• 1:07:28
  Dave: You don't have to send them absolutely everything you've ever written.
• 1:07:31
  Dave: If you have an album, send them a couple and say I have more if you want them.
• 1:07:34
  Dave: But don't blast them and then give them time to respond.
• 1:07:38
  Dave: Give them time to respond, and that link is a PMAmusiccom and I highly encourage you all to join the Production Music Association.
• 1:07:48
  Dave: We don't have a guild, we don't have a union.
• 1:07:51
  Dave: The closest thing we have, especially here in the US, is the PMA.
• 1:07:55
  Dave: These are folks who represent us and, to the best of their abilities, go out and represent us to Congress, to the PROs, right?
• 1:08:05
  Dave: Yep, it's the closest thing we're going to get to having a union or a guild, and so I encourage you to to join.
• 1:08:13
  Dave: As a matter of fact, they have a live stream or Zoom session coming up this Tuesday.
• 1:08:19
  Dave: I'll be there, yep, yep.
• 1:08:22
  Dave: Let's see some other questions.
• 1:08:24
  Dave: Dex asks no, I'm sorry, dex asks silly question favorite Star Trek character?
• 1:08:30
  Dave: I'm going with Q.
• 1:08:31
  Dave: Wow, you are really close.
• 1:08:33
  Dave: You're really close.
• 1:08:34
  Dave: I got to tell you before I started watching the original series.
• 1:08:40
  Dave: Now Shannon and I Shannon misses 52 Q's we are huge Star Trek fans, huge, full on trekkies, trekkers, whatever is the appropriate way.
• 1:08:50
  Dave: Absolute Star Trek fans.
• 1:08:52
  Dave: Strange New World's Chef's Kiss Lower Dex Chef's Kiss Janeway.
• 1:08:59
  Dave: Janeway's my captain.
• 1:09:01
  Dave: I mean, I see you, patrick Stewart, but I'm a TNG baby.
• 1:09:06
  Dave: My dad loved the original series and I tried several times to start the original series and I just couldn't get past it.
• 1:09:13
  Dave: I was like, oh, the sets are terrible and it's so bad, it's so slow.
• 1:09:19
  Dave: I literally fell asleep three or four times.
• 1:09:21
  Dave: I muscled through Shannon and I muscled through and the original series might be in my top three.
• 1:09:35
  Dave: It's really good, especially season two.
• 1:09:40
  Dave: I think it only ran for three seasons, right, season two is really good.
• 1:09:48
  Dave: My favorite character, I think, is Spock.
• 1:09:51
  Dave: I think so.
• 1:09:52
  Dave: He is so good I can't think of any other character in the Star Trek universe that became so irrevocably intertwined and connected to the character than Leonard Nimoy as Spock, yep.
• 1:10:13
  Dave: Oh, dex says that was supposed to be a pun.
• 1:10:17
  Dave: Q, q, oh, I see what you did.
• 1:10:19
  Dave: Yeah, leonard Nimoy, spock, even though Ethan Peck with Strange New Worlds does a really good job.
• 1:10:24
  Dave: Ms Jujubeet says Jim Kirk's had a.
• 1:10:29
  Dave: Yeah, but oh my, I have such a low tolerance for four Williams Shatner.
• 1:10:36
  Dave: If I'm being honest, I can't handle a lot of Shatner, but Leonard Nimoy is fascinating.
• 1:10:41
  Dave: He steals absolutely every scene he's in Yep, so, but Q is awesome.
• 1:10:48
  Dave: Janeway is my captain, all right, let's see.
• 1:10:55
  Dave: Paul asks any market for high energy percussion.
• 1:10:57
  Dave: Only tracks in sports.
• 1:10:58
  Dave: Do sports placements give good royalties?
• 1:11:00
  Dave: They can give good royalties, especially if you get a nice network placement and a nice long placement.
• 1:11:07
  Dave: One of the things that can be challenging is that the placements can be pretty short and especially with the NFL, how the markets are divided.
• 1:11:14
  Dave: So if you're not landing a prime time placement where the whole country is watching, then you might get a placement on Buffalo at Tennessee and there's a very small sliver of the country actually watching slash, caring about that game, and so if you can get the big placements, if you can get the larger markets, then those can be really good.
• 1:11:43
  Dave: I have found out that golf works really really well and that's one of the reasons I switched over to CSAC from ASCAP, because CSAC was more lucrative for me, because I wasn't getting like a ton of prime time air but I was getting like three and four minutes of air every single week on, like the waste management open, you know, or you know the AT&T Pebble Beach golf, you know, and so these shows or these broadcasts which had long placements but they weren't in prime time, and so that was.
• 1:12:23
  Dave: That was one of the reasons that I went.
• 1:12:26
  Dave: But as far as percussion, only tracks, not from my publishers.
• 1:12:31
  Dave: They're not necessarily.
• 1:12:31
  Dave: I think they would take them, but those tend to be used more for sports advertisement than necessarily like just kind of backgroundy stuff.
• 1:12:43
  Dave: Excellent, excellent.
• 1:12:45
  Dave: And then he says thank you, professor Croft, looking forward to the mastermind.
• 1:12:49
  Dave: Yep, next mastermind will be in January, so be on the look, look out for that.
• 1:12:53
  Dave: Yuka says every time I watch your video, always curious what's the studio look like?
• 1:12:56
  Dave: Maybe in the future show your studio a little bit, believe it or not, I have on the schedule to do a studio video.
• 1:13:04
  Dave: See, I want to do it right, I don't want to just like walk, I want to shoot, b-roll and all of that stuff and take you through.
• 1:13:10
  Dave: Take you through the studio for sure.
• 1:13:12
  Dave: But that that's coming.
• 1:13:13
  Dave: That's coming.
• 1:13:15
  Dave: And Shane says what a singing voice those two had.
• 1:13:18
  Dave: Do you mean Linder Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols also had a really good singing voice, really good singing voice.
• 1:13:24
  Dave: All right, all right.
• 1:13:26
  Dave: Well, I think I think that's going to need to do it for us today.
• 1:13:31
  Dave: Guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me.
• 1:13:35
  Dave: Shane says Shatner and Nimoy, it was really great hanging out with you today.
• 1:13:41
  Dave: Really appreciate you.
• 1:13:42
  Dave: Actually, I should probably.
• 1:13:43
  Dave: I should probably.
• 1:13:44
  Dave: You know, I'm going to leave this cue on because if I'm editing this with the podcast and the podcast theme, but whatever, whatever Dex says, thank you for your time.
• 1:13:53
  Dave: A Picard was the right answer.
• 1:13:55
  Dave: Nope, everybody says Picard.
• 1:13:58
  Dave: But no, picard is good, don't get me wrong.
• 1:14:03
  Dave: But here's what will blow your mind Will Wheaton now is older than Patrick Stewart was, is older now than Patrick Stewart was when he started.
• 1:14:12
  Dave: But yes, oh, you're very, very welcome.
• 1:14:15
  Dave: Really appreciate you, but that's going to do it for us.
• 1:14:18
  Dave: Thank you so much.
• 1:14:20
  Dave: Once again, a huge shout out to the family, friends and patrons of 52 Cues, who really make all of this, all of this, possible.
• 1:14:28
  Dave: Appreciate you, love you, and why don't you join us?
• 1:14:31
  Dave: Head over to 52Cuescom and join us.
• 1:14:35
  Dave: You can post your cues up for weekly feedback and also you can check out my coaching services at 52Cuescom slash coaching and I would love to help you out, whether it's giving you feedback videos, doing one-on-one Zoom sessions or our mastermind which is coming to a close.
• 1:14:53
  Dave: We only have one more month left in the summer mastermind, but be on the lookout for the next Q&A, probably in December.
• 1:15:01
  Dave: But that's going to do it for us everybody.
• 1:15:03
  Dave: Thank you so much and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week and remember everybody that I know and believe that the universe has amazing plans just for you Until next time, peace.