how many tracks before your first placement?

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GCampbell
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how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by GCampbell » Wed Jul 27, 2022 4:42 pm

Hi folks,

Just a general question from a newbie (sort of)- how many tracks did you sign before you got your first placement? I'm referring to instrumental cues.

I say that I'm "sort of" a newbie, because I've actually been a Taxi member for almost 2 years, but have been pretty lazy and slow about submitting. In 2 years, I've only produced 31 tracks for Taxi briefs. Of those, most were forwarded (sometimes to my surprise) and 13 are signed (with 3 different libraries). I think I'm ready to kick things into a higher gear, but I just want to get an idea for what my general expectations should be in terms of landing actual placements. The first tracks I signed were released in March of 2021. So far I haven't seen any placements, and none of my mighty 13 tracks have showed up in my PRO. I realize 13 is a tiny number and I need to do a lot more, but I'm just curious what other people experienced when they were starting out.

I'm also open to any other comments or advice you might have for someone at my stage of things! I'll be renewing my Taxi membership for another 2 years soon, and am promising myself that I will write more, submit more, and also spend more time here on the forum.

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by Telefunkin » Thu Jul 28, 2022 12:53 am

Hi, and congratulations at getting the forwards and converting some into signings. Clearly you're dong the right things.

It takes a while for libraries to release new tracks so its unlikely for things to happen immediately, but if all your libraries are highly active at placing the type of tracks you've signed then its possible that placements could start any time soon. Conversely, if none of those libraries are generally active, or they're not active at placing the kind of tracks you have with them then it could be a very long wait. Also, the combined track count across those 3 libraries could be as high as many hundreds of thousands, so 13 tracks is not statistically significant. I'm sure many here will tell you that this is a numbers game, so the more tracks you put out the 'luckier' you're likely to get. They'll also tell you that some tracks keeping getting used whilst others sit there for many years without a sniff. Therefore, when random chance is coupled with statistical insignificance and a huge number of variables, there can be no reliable answer to your question about how long it takes for a placement.

General tips to increase your 'luck' might include:
- creating music that is in high demand (or specialist music where you have a niche)
- making it as good and as usable as you possibly can
- finding and feeding libraries that are successful at placing the styles you're making (not just libraries that will accept it)
- spreading your work around several good libraries
- targeting active briefings from libraries who are working directly with shows, which can have more short-term potential than catalog back-fill
- working with other like-minded creators to enhance your skill-set and possibly open new doors to new styles or even new libraries

The fact that you have only 13 tracks across 3 libraries suggests there is more opportunity that you might not be taking advantage of. Assuming at least one or more of the 3 libraries you currently work with resonates with you, then find out what they want, and if that works for you then keep sending them new material to match what they're seeking. Also remember that besides feeding your existing libraries and Taxi listings, many other libraries have an open submission policy, so with a bit or research you can submit to other libraries directly. If you have faith in the tracks you've made that have not yet resulted in deals, then use them for further submissions (or tweak them based on feedback).

Basically, put your music out there, because the only certainty is that tracks that stay on your hard drive will never get placed! :)
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by boinkeee2000 » Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:13 am

bout 30-40 total spread out, imo knowing "how many tracks signed" has no analytic use. you can have just 1 track, made to brief, and get consistent placements off the bat, or dump 100 to a new lib that's still building a catalog and not see any for years and years (maybe never)

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:30 am

Depends massively on the library.

You can get placements from a handful of tracks in a busy library or you can pile loads of tracks into a black hole of a library and never get a single placement.

I've had both scenarios and everything in between. The quickest way to measure libraries against each other is to get a Tunesat Account, sign a decent number of tracks into every library ( I doubt you can draw much conclusion until there are 20-30 in there ) and check it religiously to see who does the biz for you and then focus on them whilst finding more.

Mark

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by GCampbell » Thu Jul 28, 2022 8:59 am

Thanks everyone, this is some great advice I hadn't thought of. I figured there's no way of predicting when my first placement will come, but I'm just curious what others experiences are. It sounds like there's a huge range of possibilities. I suppose I just want to know that I can hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst of the situations.

Most of my tracks are in what I assume are niche genres in the production music world (jazz, klezmer, etc), which are my strong point, but I'm trying to branch out and do some more common genres, like the recent dramedy listing. It's tough to know which libraries are successful in the styles I'm doing, so I guess in the beginning there's a lot of blind guessing until I have a big enough sample size to get an idea of what's working?

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:19 pm

GCampbell wrote:
Thu Jul 28, 2022 8:59 am
so I guess in the beginning there's a lot of blind guessing until I have a big enough sample size to get an idea of what's working?
Yep.

And it's not even a case of one size fits all. I recently did a count of how many placements my libraries had delivered ( according to Tunesat) per cue I'd signed with them.

The best ratio was 2.88 placements per cue, the rest were all way lower. However the same may not necessarily hold true for yourself as you major in different genres to me and a library that does less well for my music may place tons of yours.

So yeah, it's a complete crap shoot until you have enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions. Best advice is keep plugging away and track everything.

Mark

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by Telefunkin » Thu Jul 28, 2022 5:08 pm

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:19 pm
So yeah, it's a complete crap shoot until you have enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions.
.... and by that time its all changed! :lol:
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by Casey H » Thu Jul 28, 2022 7:18 pm

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:19 pm
So yeah, it's a complete crap shoot until you have enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions.
And even with a lot of data, it still could be a crap shoot as far as numbers. Who are your libraries' clients? What styles are most in demand by those clients relative to what you have signed there? How good are those libraries' current relationships with music sups? And then, there is an element of luck whereby when a client is looking for a track, they hear yours and settle on it before someone else's.

All you can do is keep feeding the pipeline. The more out there, the more chances. And don't put all your eggs in one basket, spread tracks out to a number of libraries.

Best of luck!
:D Casey

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by boinkeee2000 » Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:44 pm

If i may elaborate for better context gcampbell, my first placement was from a brief, it took about 2 months from brief opp to placement, and been working with the lib for 14 months prior. mind you i've done multiple briefs already for them before getting that placement for the current brief, so just because they accepted & signed your track, even for a brief, still a big chance it may not get used. although sometimes things work out later on, as one of the first briefs i ever did for them (that went nowhere) suddenly shows up 3 years later in the olympics. didnt see that coming as the brief was for a dystopian walking dead type show.

thus if there's ever a barometer on your best chances of getting a quick placement (and i mean this loosely, without factoring in lib rep & saturation), it woukd be . . .

1) Time sensitive and very specific briefs (1 day to 2 weeks, will detail specific show, genre, reference etc)
2) Genre specific briefs ("we dont have enough of this genre and its hot right now")
3) Random full album subs (if they like it enough to promote the crap out of it)
4) Random track subs ("someone might need this one day")

not a cut and dry heirarchy and im sure i missed a few, just my exp (which means moot), and could easily be flipped upside down for others (so put down the pitchforks). Its just makes more sense (on paper) that the more specific with the time and details they are, the better the chances of a quick placement . . (well, until you factor everything else in LOL). hope this rudimentary analytics give you an idea per your original question albeit fairly crude....

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Re: how many tracks before your first placement?

Post by GCampbell » Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:12 pm

Interesting insights, thanks folks. My takeaway- I need to write a lot more!

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