Seriously though...
I'm trying to get a handle on how to handle the material in my back catalog. I've been writing and recording since the 80s and have 100s of instrumental songs ranging from fully produced and released to just a few tracks on a demo or a live recording. Obviously, they would need to match the call and be of sufficient quality to be useful... for the sake of these questions, let's just say that's a given (and I admit, unlikely to happen very often due to the specific nature of calls).
First, for many of these songs, all I have is a .wav file. I'm hesitant to submit because if a library would ask for literally anything - even just basic stems -, I would not be able to do it without completely re-recording the entire work which would cost time and credibility if it was even possible. But, I've also seen many episodes of Taxi TV say (paraphrased) - "if all you have is a grungy demo - that might be what is needed for the scene" (the bar band in a movie example). I'd hate for the first time this comes up, to be on the phone with a library that wants to use something with a short deadline. Should I somehow denote this fact in the file description or something? (A small 'other info' field on each submission seems like it might be useful...?)
Second, many of these were released in prior years via (cdbaby (non"pro"), createspace, etc.) and I am registered as both writer and publisher (BMI) for many of them. I've seen many threads and TaxiTV's saying libraries would prefer to register themselves. Completely get it, but since that ship has sailed on these... There are, of course, publisher/publisher agreements to assign or otherwise transfer single song rights for a time period? Is that still done? or... should I simply re-title the track as something new for that submission. (Would this create potential problems later...? None of the originals are assigned to anyone, but I imagine things that were released/on radio might still raise a potential legal flag re exclusivity. [e.g. Even if it's never been assigned to anyone, is it still 'exclusive' if it's been on the radio previously? Technically... sure. But does it play out that way in practice?] Should this type of thing also be denoted in some way in the submission description...]
So, big question just combines the two above. Should I just ignore all of my prior work (and just mine it for themes and melodies) and re-record /re-mix as new compositions as needed thus avoiding both problems? As I typed this, it now feels like that is the correct answer.... but .... ugh - literally thousands of hours of work...
Perhaps writing this post is my therapy and an attempt at acceptance.
Thoughts? Am I overthinking this?Thanks in advance!
