Latest / 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast / What Are You Afraid Of?

Transcript

What Are You Afraid Of? · 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast

• 0:30
  Dave Kropf: Fear typically comes from, well, ignorance.
• 0:36
  Dave Kropf: And what I mean is is how a lack of knowledge and understanding, not really understanding, not having all of the facts makes your fears worse.
• 0:48
  Dave Kropf: It exacerbates the fears.
• 0:49
  Dave Kropf: I like to think of it this way In the absence of facts, we often substitute our worst fears as truth.
• 1:00
  Dave Kropf: What is happening, everybody?
• 1:11
  Dave Kropf: And welcome back to another episode of the 52Q's podcast, your weekly dose of all things production and library music.
• 1:19
  Dave Kropf: So whether you're simply curious about the sync industry, or wanting to write better cues, or ready to pitch to publishers, I promise you you're in the right place.
• 1:28
  Dave Kropf: My name is Dave Kroff and it is so good to be with you today.
• 1:31
  Dave Kropf: And if you find this video helpful, then why don't you give it a thumbs up here on YouTube or a five star review in your podcast app?
• 1:37
  Dave Kropf: And be sure to subscribe, because I talk about library music every single week.
• 1:42
  Dave Kropf: Today's episode wouldn't be possible without the incredible support of our member subscribers at 52Q's, who not only keep the community alive and thriving, but as members, they get access to extra features like workshops, live streams, office hours, cue breakdowns, zoom feedback sessions, hundreds of hours of video archives and opportunities to submit to real music library.
• 2:06
  Dave Kropf: So if you're ready to get started and make a serious push into your career in production music, then why don't you head over to 52Q'scom?
• 2:13
  Dave Kropf: It's free to join and membership start at around four bucks a month.
• 2:18
  Dave Kropf: So it is week five here in 52Q's and 2024.
• 2:24
  Dave Kropf: And how's my week going?
• 2:25
  Dave Kropf: It's going really, really well.
• 2:27
  Dave Kropf: I just put the finishing touches on my final cue for my cinematic world or modern world album and we're going to listen to that last cue.
• 2:38
  Dave Kropf: It's called Djinn and Tonic.
• 2:39
  Dave Kropf: It's a title that I have to give proppers to Les Fuller.
• 2:43
  Dave Kropf: During the live stream last Friday we were brainstorming titles and I love a good pun and so he came up with the title Djinn and Tonic.
• 2:54
  Dave Kropf: That is for my Expedition 52 submission and we're going to be listening to that here in just a second.
• 2:59
  Dave Kropf: But it's always really good to finish a project, especially one that's been, I don't know, kind of kicking around my to-do list for quite a while, and so it always feels really good.
• 3:13
  Dave Kropf: Of course I had to go do the deliverables, do the stems and cut downs alt mixes minus mixes and the metadata and all of that.
• 3:21
  Dave Kropf: So I mean that's not as fun, but it feels really good to have it out the door and now I can put attention to several of the other projects I've got going on over the the next little while and you will be hearing some of those cues I'm starting to work up music for a golf documentary for the Masters tournament.
• 3:43
  Dave Kropf: Every year, Augusta National puts out or puts out a documentary for the Masters tournament, and this will be my fifth year doing or helping out with the music.
• 3:53
  Dave Kropf: It's bespoke, it's production music, but it's not underscore, it's not scored, rather, and so you will see those cues start to show up.
• 4:03
  Dave Kropf: Now, as far as my Expedition 52 submission for week five, I wrote a cue called Djinn and Tonic, as in DJ INN, which is another word for genie, and I love that title.
• 4:16
  Dave Kropf: And again, Les, thank you so much for letting me have that title.
• 4:19
  Dave Kropf: I said, are you sure this is a fantastic title?
• 4:23
  Dave Kropf: And he's like yes, it's yours.
• 4:24
  Dave Kropf: So, and I promised him I'm going to give you your properties on the podcast.
• 4:28
  Dave Kropf: So, les, tip of my hat, thank you so much for letting me have a stellar, stellar title.
• 4:34
  Dave Kropf: So we're going to take a listen to Djinn and Tonic.
• 4:38
  Dave Kropf: It is a moody, ominous, middle Eastern flavored tension cue, and so we're going to take a listen to that and thank you 프�יו.
• 5:12
  Dave Kropf: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
• 7:07
  Dave Kropf: So that was Gin and Tonic, my week 5 Expedition 52 submission, and friends and family can see a complete breakdown of this queue later in the week.
• 7:21
  Dave Kropf: So today's topic is what are you afraid of?
• 7:26
  Dave Kropf: What are the fears that you have regarding a career in production, music, or really I mean really any creative outlet, whether it's film, scoring, writing, game, music, being a painter or whatever?
• 7:40
  Dave Kropf: What keeps you up at night?
• 7:42
  Dave Kropf: What are the things that keep you from success, maybe, and so I want to unpack five or six different fears that you might be struggling with, or that I know that I've struggled with, and maybe give you some tips on how to overcome those fears.
• 7:59
  Dave Kropf: But before we talk about the fears, I want to say that, in general, in my experience, fear typically comes from, well, ignorance, and what I mean is is how a lack of knowledge and understanding, not really understanding, not having all of the facts makes your fears worse.
• 8:25
  Dave Kropf: It exacerbates the fears that.
• 8:27
  Dave Kropf: I like to think of it this way In the absence of facts, we often substitute our worst fears as truth, and if you've ever had a beef with somebody, or if you may be gone to a meeting or something and you come away thinking, oh, that person didn't say this.
• 8:48
  Dave Kropf: Or you text somebody and they don't text back and you're like, oh man, they must be really, really mad at me because you don't know all the facts.
• 8:57
  Dave Kropf: Your own fears start to create the truth in your mind, and so I just want to say on the on the topic, whether it's learning how to mix, whether it's networking, whether it's overcoming your fear of putting yourself out there, right, submit, forget, repeat, financial stuff, sustainability we're going to talk about all of that today, but I just want to say that most fears come from lack of understanding, and we overcome that by educating ourselves, staying informed, seeking advice, mentorship, filling the knowledge gaps okay, finding out the facts before you let yourself go to that fear based place.
• 9:44
  Dave Kropf: So I want to talk.
• 9:47
  Dave Kropf: I want to talk five or six fears that I think are kind of the most important fears that I've run into and give you some suggestions on how to overcome those.
• 9:58
  Dave Kropf: First, the fear of financial instability.
• 10:03
  Dave Kropf: How are we going to make money doing this?
• 10:06
  Dave Kropf: How are you going to have sufficient income to support yourself?
• 10:11
  Dave Kropf: Just yesterday, I was in one of the PMA virtual networking groups that they put on and shout out to Morgan and everybody over there at the PMA.
• 10:22
  Dave Kropf: They do amazing work and it was a virtual networking event.
• 10:25
  Dave Kropf: And so we get into a breakout room and I'm in there with like five or six other people and one person jumps in and the first question before introductions or anything, they're like okay, who here has made, you know, a full time living?
• 10:41
  Dave Kropf: Or what kind of money do you make doing this?
• 10:45
  Dave Kropf: And that was, in my opinion, that was a reaction of some of this the fear like how much money can you really make?
• 10:55
  Dave Kropf: How can you really support yourself or support your family?
• 10:59
  Dave Kropf: And if you don't know, with the lack of facts, then you substitute oh my gosh, I'm not going to make it.
• 11:06
  Dave Kropf: And I have had some sleepless nights not really knowing if we're going to be able to cover mortgage.
• 11:13
  Dave Kropf: I've had some moments where I feel like I'm pumping cues out and not seeing a return investment, and that's that's a really tough place to be in, especially early in your career, where you're in the first three, four years and you've pumped out a lot of cues but you're not seeing a lot of royalties.
• 11:32
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, that just feeds into the fear.
• 11:37
  Dave Kropf: So how do you overcome that fear?
• 11:39
  Dave Kropf: Well, some of it is is having patience.
• 11:42
  Dave Kropf: Some of it is also diversifying your income streams, not putting all of your eggs into one basket, and I don't mean just production music.
• 11:50
  Dave Kropf: I mean I teach and I do production music and I run the community and all of those kinds of things.
• 11:56
  Dave Kropf: There's that kind of diversity, but there's also diversifying your library portfolio.
• 12:01
  Dave Kropf: This is why I encourage students, or anybody I mentor or coach, not to depend solely on one library or one service like Taxi.
• 12:16
  Dave Kropf: If your entire portfolio strategy consists of pumping cues into the taxi ecosystem, then that is the only metric you have afforded yourself for success or failure, and that failure absolutely feeds into that fear.
• 12:36
  Dave Kropf: So have Taxi as a strategy.
• 12:40
  Dave Kropf: Wholeheartedly, I believe in Taxi.
• 12:42
  Dave Kropf: I've gotten library deals through Taxi.
• 12:43
  Dave Kropf: I've talked plenty about Taxi on this channel.
• 12:46
  Dave Kropf: But where we get into trouble, in my opinion, is where it is the only way that we are pursuing our career.
• 12:53
  Dave Kropf: So diversify and yes, that means sometimes you might need to pitch your music to a library unsolicited, and we'll talk about that.
• 13:06
  Dave Kropf: And overcoming the fears of networking and putting yourself out there We'll talk about that here in just a little bit.
• 13:12
  Dave Kropf: But diversifying where you are pitching and diversifying your income streams.
• 13:20
  Dave Kropf: That might mean, while you're ramping up this career, that you have a day job.
• 13:28
  Dave Kropf: That may or may not be music related.
• 13:31
  Dave Kropf: I feel super fortunate that I have a day job.
• 13:35
  Dave Kropf: I teach full time at full sale and I just took on another role as one of the department chairs in the music program at full sale and I am the department chair of the industry and portfolio department for the music production degree at Full Sail University.
• 13:52
  Dave Kropf: I do.
• 13:54
  Dave Kropf: I took on that role because I believe in helping connect students with careers.
• 14:00
  Dave Kropf: It's it's all the same thing.
• 14:02
  Dave Kropf: It's what I'm doing here on this YouTube channel, not necessarily related to full sales, what I do in the 52 Qs community.
• 14:08
  Dave Kropf: It's all cut from the same cloth but it's not necessarily making music.
• 14:13
  Dave Kropf: I'm not making music full time.
• 14:19
  Dave Kropf: I'm diversifying my portfolio.
• 14:22
  Dave Kropf: It might mean that you gig.
• 14:24
  Dave Kropf: Just this morning during one of our masterminds.
• 14:27
  Dave Kropf: We have one of the participants who lives in Australia and he's a gigging musician.
• 14:33
  Dave Kropf: That's what he does.
• 14:37
  Dave Kropf: He gigs songwriter but also pushing into production music.
• 14:43
  Dave Kropf: So diversification really helps offset that fear, because if one one stream of income dries up or atrophies or maybe has some down, like some downturns, then you're not completely stuck, or if you have a library and all of your cues are with one library and it might be going really well for you for quite a while.
• 15:04
  Dave Kropf: But what happens if that library has a down month?
• 15:08
  Dave Kropf: Or what happens if that library's biggest client decides to go a different direction Because you've hitched your wagon to that one library Now you're in trouble and that creates instability.
• 15:22
  Dave Kropf: So, diversifying your income stream, also financial planning, budgeting, seeking out the help of others and this is something that here it's tax season and I am learning.
• 15:36
  Dave Kropf: Oh my gosh, dave, you should have LLC'd like three or four years ago instead of just last year.
• 15:44
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, I was running as a sole proprietor and I'm getting crushed, crushed, crushed, or I did get crushed on taxes and that led to insecurity, financial instability and it fed into those fears, and a lot of it was ignorance, not knowing all of the facts, and there was just just kind of low grade rumbling fear like in the base of my consciousness that, oh man, this is going to be really, really bad.
• 16:14
  Dave Kropf: Then I procrastinate and put off doing my taxes to the last minute and then suddenly the sort of damocles swings and man getting hosed on taxes, and so I'm learning that the hard way.
• 16:30
  Dave Kropf: But getting financial planning, budgeting for every dollar that comes in, whether through royalties, through the community or whatever that I'm having to 1099 for, then I've got to set aside money for taxes.
• 16:44
  Dave Kropf: It's really easy when you get a royalty check and you're like, hey, this is great, I can buy that plug-in now or I can buy a new banjo for the wall or something like that.
• 16:55
  Dave Kropf: So that's how I am getting over the fear of financial instability.
• 17:03
  Dave Kropf: So that's the first fear financial instability.
• 17:10
  Dave Kropf: The second fear that I've experienced is sustainability.
• 17:16
  Dave Kropf: Can I sustain a level of output, a level of creativity?
• 17:24
  Dave Kropf: Can I keep up with the demands of all of the diverse income streams that I've got coming in?
• 17:32
  Dave Kropf: That's a real fear.
• 17:33
  Dave Kropf: And that sustainability comes in different flavors.
• 17:36
  Dave Kropf: It comes in being able to just physically have the hours in the day to do the work.
• 17:41
  Dave Kropf: It comes in can I sustainably create something?
• 17:45
  Dave Kropf: What about writer's block?
• 17:48
  Dave Kropf: What about mixing consistently?
• 17:51
  Dave Kropf: And I have found that overcoming the fear of sustainability comes through repetition.
• 17:59
  Dave Kropf: Doing the reps yes.
• 18:03
  Dave Kropf: Adapting to industry changes yes, always learning and diversifying your skill set.
• 18:11
  Dave Kropf: But you create sustainability by doing the reps, doing the repetition.
• 18:19
  Dave Kropf: I talk to my students often about my mixing method, which is basically mixing the track three different times, and it creates doing the repetition, having a skill set, having a skill set that you can lean on should something dry up over here, like in your creative output Learning how to reference, learning how to listen to something, immediately get a little spark of inspiration and then run with it.
• 18:52
  Dave Kropf: That can help your sustainability as well.
• 18:58
  Dave Kropf: As if we're looking at having a sustainable career of career planning, setting goals for yourself, setting obtainable goals for yourself, and for many of us it's one cue a week.
• 19:10
  Dave Kropf: I mean that's why it's 52.
• 19:11
  Dave Kropf: The number 52, 52 weeks in a year, one cue a week, that's what Expedition 52 is about creating one cue a week and that's very doable for most folks.
• 19:22
  Dave Kropf: And even if one cue isn't, maybe one cue every two weeks, set a goal and hit it and do everything within your power without sacrificing health, whether physical health, mental health or your relationships or whatever.
• 19:38
  Dave Kropf: Don't sacrifice those things.
• 19:40
  Dave Kropf: It's my opinion.
• 19:41
  Dave Kropf: I don't think it's worth it.
• 19:42
  Dave Kropf: But having goals, planning your career, it kind of goes along with financial stability, having people in place that can help you achieve what you're looking to achieve.
• 19:58
  Dave Kropf: So that is the fear of non-sustainability.
• 20:02
  Dave Kropf: Overcome that by doing the repetitions, doing the work, even if it's bad, even if it's not great.
• 20:10
  Dave Kropf: It's better to have written something bad than not to have written Absolutely Okay.
• 20:18
  Dave Kropf: So another fear, fear number three relevance and originality.
• 20:26
  Dave Kropf: How can we stay relevant in such a competitive industry?
• 20:30
  Dave Kropf: How can we stay original?
• 20:32
  Dave Kropf: How can we make sure that what we're doing is saying new things, especially with oncoming AI and all of that?
• 20:38
  Dave Kropf: And that's a fear that is quickly becoming more and more real and we'll talk about that.
• 20:45
  Dave Kropf: But how can you stay relevant?
• 20:47
  Dave Kropf: How can you make sure that the cues you're writing are wanted and they're on demand and somebody wants to put them on TV?
• 20:55
  Dave Kropf: Well, we overcome that fear by learning, by continuously listening, continuously referencing, continuously trying to put our ear to the ground, listen to what's new, being open, surrounding yourself by people who are pushing you.
• 21:15
  Dave Kropf: This is why communities are such a good thing, whether it's 52 cues or whether it's the PMA or whatever, but surrounds yourself with people who are doing the thing you want to do and are doing it now.
• 21:26
  Dave Kropf: So continual learning, development, mentoring, input, feedback, all of that that helps keep you relevant and helps overcome the fear of unoriginality.
• 21:41
  Dave Kropf: Also, experimentation, giving yourself enough time to play around in the DAW, play around with some ideas, can you come up with innovation?
• 21:49
  Dave Kropf: Can you listen to something and think, oh man, I've never heard that today.
• 21:53
  Dave Kropf: And how can I incorporate something like that in my own cue?
• 22:00
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, knowing where the industry is going, knowing what the trends are, knowing what's changing in the production music space just like in the 10 years that I've really been pushing it Some of the rules are changing, whether they're rules about using loops and samples, whether it's the rules about copyrights and PROs and splits and sync licenses, or whether it's just this is what sells and this is what doesn't sell.
• 22:34
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, for you trailer folks out there, man, trailer trends seem to change on the dime and then something new will happen, then everyone will glob onto it and it'll be super popular.
• 22:45
  Dave Kropf: And then something else will change and before you know it, you have a catalog of irrelevant music that isn't getting placed anymore.
• 22:55
  Dave Kropf: So that can be a real fear.
• 23:01
  Dave Kropf: Next, another fear the fear of failure, the fear of just not making it.
• 23:09
  Dave Kropf: The fear of putting yourself out there and getting rejected.
• 23:13
  Dave Kropf: The fear of making mistakes, of failing, of somebody saying your music is not valuable enough to put on television, not good enough, not relevant.
• 23:28
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, that's a big one.
• 23:31
  Dave Kropf: And so often the fear of failure will keep us from even trying.
• 23:37
  Dave Kropf: We don't want to put ourselves you can't fail if you don't try right.
• 23:44
  Dave Kropf: So the fear of failure, how do you overcome that?
• 23:47
  Dave Kropf: Well, by putting yourself out there and embracing the fact that often failure is the best teacher.
• 23:56
  Dave Kropf: Have you ever heard the phrase?
• 24:01
  Dave Kropf: I think it's called like failing upwards right and basically that means, as far as I'm concerned, somebody succeeds but doesn't really know how they succeeded.
• 24:11
  Dave Kropf: They don't know how they got there.
• 24:15
  Dave Kropf: They just fumbled their way into success.
• 24:18
  Dave Kropf: That's not sustainable.
• 24:19
  Dave Kropf: See also fear of non-sustainability.
• 24:24
  Dave Kropf: But we can often learn so much more from trying something and failing than by succeeding and not knowing why we succeeded but knowing why we failed.
• 24:39
  Dave Kropf: So just embracing that that's going to happen, especially early in your career, but even later in your career.
• 24:46
  Dave Kropf: This is where an ecosystem like taxi, I think it, really helps with that the returns, the not hearing back, the forwards and even placements in libraries but maybe things aren't getting on television.
• 25:03
  Dave Kropf: Those are all little moments of failure which is really harsh.
• 25:09
  Dave Kropf: I don't mean that super harsh, you kind of get where I'm coming from but embracing that as a learning opportunity, which takes resilience and having a positive mindset, because risk taking, if you put yourself out there, you are making yourself vulnerable.
• 25:31
  Dave Kropf: But you balance that with strategic planning and making sure that you're relevant and original.
• 25:39
  Dave Kropf: And you've done all of those things but even still it might not get it.
• 25:47
  Dave Kropf: I mean, jim Carrey didn't make it on SNL.
• 25:53
  Dave Kropf: He auditioned and they turned him down.
• 25:55
  Dave Kropf: Jim Carrey got turned down for Saturday Night Live, which boggles my mind.
• 26:04
  Dave Kropf: If arguably one of the most successful comedians over the last 30 years fails at arguably one of the most high profile properties in sketch comedy, then I think me failing at a plucky dramedy cue for an episode of House Hunters.
• 26:28
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, suddenly my failure doesn't seem quite as bad.
• 26:32
  Dave Kropf: You balance that risk taking with planning.
• 26:37
  Dave Kropf: Let the planning and the referencing, sustainability, stability in your find, let your planning do as much as it can.
• 26:47
  Dave Kropf: But when you put yourself out there, out there, that's when you release it, you let it go and well, you submit and you forget and you repeat the fear of networking.
• 27:02
  Dave Kropf: Yep, for you introverts out there, this can be a real thing Putting yourself out there, not your music, but putting yourself physically out there in front of other people, building and maintaining those industry connections, which means sometimes you do have to engage with other people you don't know.
• 27:32
  Dave Kropf: Relationship is still one of the highest forms of currency in this business.
• 27:37
  Dave Kropf: Because you're working with other people, you might have to go to a conference and if you do, it's okay to have your container space.
• 27:46
  Dave Kropf: You know, I talked last year I guess it was 2022 when I went to the taxi road valley.
• 27:52
  Dave Kropf: It was just there were so many people that I had to go up to the hotel room and just create separation.
• 28:00
  Dave Kropf: It was just too much.
• 28:01
  Dave Kropf: Shannon and I call that container space to recharge, and I'm a pretty extroverted guy.
• 28:07
  Dave Kropf: But it's going to take a little bit of that Networking, community engagement, putting yourself out there, trying to collaborate and have relationships with people, often outside of exchanging emails.
• 28:33
  Dave Kropf: Now, in order to get better at this, doing it in safe environments, whether it's through a mentoring program, a professional community or professional development opportunities, whatever.
• 28:45
  Dave Kropf: This is where I think the PMA does a great job.
• 28:49
  Dave Kropf: I said just yesterday we had a PMA virtual networking event and it was fantastic.
• 28:54
  Dave Kropf: I love those things, one of my favorite things that we do just hanging out in the Zoom room with a couple of strangers swapping LinkedIn profiles, just getting to know them.
• 29:05
  Dave Kropf: And then next time, during the next event oh yeah, I remember you.
• 29:10
  Dave Kropf: We were in a Zoom room together.
• 29:11
  Dave Kropf: And then when I go to the PMC in LA in September, hey, yeah, I know you, let's go grab a coffee, and that's how our relationship gets done.
• 29:23
  Dave Kropf: It's not necessarily walking up to a stranger.
• 29:26
  Dave Kropf: Hi, I'm Dave, I write music.
• 29:28
  Dave Kropf: Here's my card.
• 29:29
  Dave Kropf: No, it's much more fluid and natural than that.
• 29:32
  Dave Kropf: And doing it in I hate to use this term because it gets used pejoratively but in safe places, right, like the PMA or like 52Qs.
• 29:43
  Dave Kropf: The 52Qs community is all about supportive, encouraging environment, putting yourself out there, creating connections maybe you find somebody that you can write with or whatever, but seeking those opportunities in an environment that you feel comfortable and safe in and taking a chance, taking a little bit of a risk.
• 30:09
  Dave Kropf: When you need your container time, go, take your container time, but don't use container time as an excuse not to network, not to connect, and I think you'll get there.
• 30:22
  Dave Kropf: I think you'll get there.
• 30:26
  Dave Kropf: And finally, the last fear that I have seen over and over.
• 30:30
  Dave Kropf: I see it almost every single week on like the Facebook groups, you know whether it's the prospective Facebook group or the trailer writing or whatever.
• 30:37
  Dave Kropf: Everybody is talking about AI and I got to say the fear of AI or obsolete obsolescence through technology is nothing new.
• 30:48
  Dave Kropf: It's nothing new at all.
• 30:50
  Dave Kropf: It's one of the reasons John Philip Suza hated the player piano.
• 30:54
  Dave Kropf: It's going to take jobs.
• 30:55
  Dave Kropf: It's one of the reasons there was resistance against jukeboxes, because it's going to replace live musicians, and navigating the landscape of AI with new technologies is just part of the gig.
• 31:09
  Dave Kropf: Ai is just the latest avatar for all those things which are going to come and take our jobs.
• 31:14
  Dave Kropf: And I'm going to tell you I am confident that AI isn't going to replace humans.
• 31:22
  Dave Kropf: The reason I'm confident is I stay informed about these types of advancements.
• 31:29
  Dave Kropf: I am a member of the open AI subreddit, the chat GPT subreddit.
• 31:34
  Dave Kropf: I use chat GPT all the time.
• 31:37
  Dave Kropf: My show notes for this very podcast was helped and organized with the help of chat GPT.
• 31:44
  Dave Kropf: Pump some ideas in it, categorizes it for me, puts it all in a little bullet list.
• 31:50
  Dave Kropf: We use chat GPT as not a tool.
• 31:56
  Dave Kropf: Or let me say it another way, we use chat GPT not to replace our work, but to enhance our work.
• 32:02
  Dave Kropf: I can't just wholesale copy and paste it and call it a day.
• 32:05
  Dave Kropf: Nope, that's like composing using a bunch of splice loops and calling that like hey, all I did was I took this melody and I took this drum beat and call it original.
• 32:16
  Dave Kropf: Is it something?
• 32:18
  Dave Kropf: Yes, but you're not going to make a career out of it.
• 32:22
  Dave Kropf: You're not going to make a career out of just wholesale copying and pasting.
• 32:25
  Dave Kropf: Chat GPT.
• 32:26
  Dave Kropf: Likewise, I don't think any.
• 32:30
  Dave Kropf: I feel I feel I'm feeling frothy and ranty, but I don't think any production who uses AI generated music.
• 32:38
  Dave Kropf: A was going to pay anybody really anyway, and B, if he did get paid, it's going to be pennies in royalties.
• 32:47
  Dave Kropf: Now, ai, like with all technology, usually replaces the most replaceable, and what I mean in the production music space is that lowest hanging fruit, the lowest effort.
• 33:04
  Dave Kropf: If you can bang out a complete queue in half an hour or an hour, then chances are AI is going to be able to do that.
• 33:16
  Dave Kropf: I'm sorry to say no, I'm not.
• 33:23
  Dave Kropf: I'm not here to say that.
• 33:24
  Dave Kropf: It you have to take a long time to write cues, or if you're really fast, I'm not denigrating that, but there is a process to creativity that, I think, just takes the human spirit a little bit of time, and as fast as I am, my fastest cues probably take about three to four hours, probably whittle that down to two and a half hours as I was really really pushing, just slapping some things together.
• 33:57
  Dave Kropf: I don't know, I may have made some people angry saying that, but I don't know.
• 34:05
  Dave Kropf: That for me feels like the lowest hanging fruit and AI is probably going to eat you up.
• 34:12
  Dave Kropf: But the reality is is that low hanging fruit probably wasn't making you a lot of money anyway, and probably wasn't making anybody a lot of money, and so companies who aren't putting a big value on music yeah, they're going to go to an AI generator, even beyond that.
• 34:34
  Dave Kropf: I believe the people who are going to survive the AI apocalypse are the ones, not the ones who avoid AI, but the ones who leverage AI to make what they already do better and they are able to make it faster.
• 34:49
  Dave Kropf: That's how we're using AI here at 52 cues.
• 34:54
  Dave Kropf: So instead of spending two hours prepping show notes for a podcast episode, I could spend a half an hour.
• 35:03
  Dave Kropf: That's an additional hour and a half that I get back in my day that I could pump into editing.
• 35:08
  Dave Kropf: You might notice there's more editing going on here.
• 35:12
  Dave Kropf: Yep, we even have an editor.
• 35:16
  Dave Kropf: Shout out to Leo.
• 35:17
  Dave Kropf: Leo is helping out with the interviews.
• 35:19
  Dave Kropf: We're doing camera switches, right.
• 35:21
  Dave Kropf: We're doing edits, clean up all of those kind of things.
• 35:24
  Dave Kropf: Yeah, hopefully it's pretty transparent, but we're able to.
• 35:29
  Dave Kropf: We using the tools has given us more time that we can then apply to make what we already do better.
• 35:40
  Dave Kropf: And the other aspect of surviving the AI apocalypse comes from emphasizing the things that humans can do and that the robots can't replicate, and that is originality and uniqueness, ingenuity, outside the box, thinking, mashing up of styles.
• 36:07
  Dave Kropf: I'm not sure AI, even the most sophisticated AI, isn't really intelligent, right, it's just, it's programming, it's algorithm, it's predictive text, which is fascinating and amazing, but what it's not is creating something from nothing, and that's something that humans have in absolute abundance, which is why AI doesn't scare me.
• 36:36
  Dave Kropf: We have to up our game, folks.
• 36:40
  Dave Kropf: You know, earlier I said the rules are changing.
• 36:44
  Dave Kropf: Well, some of the rules are.
• 36:45
  Dave Kropf: We have to up our game.
• 36:48
  Dave Kropf: Our productions have to be better, we have to improve the quality of our sounds.
• 36:54
  Dave Kropf: We have to record more instruments, something, record something.
• 37:04
  Dave Kropf: I don't think it's any great coincidence that we're seeing a rise of vocal music and vocal searches with libraries, because that's what the robots can't do Robots.
• 37:17
  Dave Kropf: You know what I mean.
• 37:18
  Dave Kropf: Ai can't replicate a convincing human voice.
• 37:21
  Dave Kropf: It's getting darn close, but not there yet.
• 37:27
  Dave Kropf: There's still an uncanny valley and as soon as a library or a client catches wind of oh there's AI going on in here, this vocal is AI Humans, will shut it down.
• 37:43
  Dave Kropf: Just the market will say nope, because I got to tell you if I'm listening to an audio book and I catch wind that it is an AI narrator, I will return it.
• 37:54
  Dave Kropf: I mean, I'm not going to listen to an AI.
• 37:57
  Dave Kropf: Read a book at me.
• 37:58
  Dave Kropf: No.
• 38:00
  Dave Kropf: So that fear of obsolescence, of technology replacing you, technological advancements Nope, Educate yourself, be mindful of it.
• 38:11
  Dave Kropf: You cannot bury your head in the sand, but I don't think it's quite the sky is falling situation that maybe some folks who are maybe fishing for clicks on a YouTube video or on a blog article, maybe.
• 38:30
  Dave Kropf: Anyway, that's all I'll say about that.
• 38:33
  Dave Kropf: So the fear of financial instability, the fear of sustainability, the fear of relevance and becoming unoriginal, the fear of failure, the fear of networking and creating those relationships and, finally, the fear of obsolescence, becoming obsolete due to technology or AI these are six of the biggest fears that I have experienced or I'm seeing in the community, but I'd love to hear from you.
• 39:03
  Dave Kropf: What do you think, what are some of the fears that you are experiencing or have experienced, and have you overcome those fears?
• 39:10
  Dave Kropf: If you have, please let me know in the comments below.
• 39:12
  Dave Kropf: I do absolutely read all of those and I would absolutely love to hear from you.
• 39:19
  Dave Kropf: But that's gonna do it for us this week.
• 39:23
  Dave Kropf: Once again, a huge word of thanks to the family, friends and neighbor of 52Qs who helped keep the community going.
• 39:29
  Dave Kropf: Please know that without you, none of this would be possible.
• 39:32
  Dave Kropf: These are folks who pay their actual real life money to keep the community going.
• 39:37
  Dave Kropf: If that sounds like something that you would like to do help the community, help the network and the channel and all of that, but also get all of those extra perks then head over to 52Qscom.
• 39:48
  Dave Kropf: Like I said, subscription packages start at just $4 a month.
• 39:53
  Dave Kropf: You definitely want to tune in next week because we are joined by John Audio, who has an amazing YouTube channel, and he is the Synth Guru who's joining us to talk all about synthesis, creating your own synth patches.
• 40:09
  Dave Kropf: There's different synthesizers that he loves to use and a ton more, and at the end of February he's gonna be joining us in 52Qs community for the family and friends subscribers and holding a workshop and writing tension patches from scratch.
• 40:25
  Dave Kropf: So you definitely want to tune in.
• 40:26
  Dave Kropf: John Audio joins us this week, but I hope that you've had a stellar week five and I know that you're gonna have an amazing week six.
• 40:34
  Dave Kropf: How do I know that, friends?
• 40:35
  Dave Kropf: Because I know, trust and believe that the universe has amazing plans just for you.
• 40:40
  Dave Kropf: Until next time, peace.
• 40:42
  Dave Kropf: The 52Qs podcast is copyright 2024, 818 Studios.
• 40:48
  Dave Kropf: All Rights Reserve.
• 40:49
  Dave Kropf: The music played on the podcast is copyrighted of their respective owners and is used with permission and for educational purposes only.
• 40:55
  Dave Kropf: For more information, including joining the community or becoming a member subscriber of 52Qs, head over to 52Qscom.