Happy Friday, everyone!
Here is this week's poll question:
Where do you get the music for your commercials? What music libraries or services do you use?
Are they on CDs or online?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
We acquire music for our commercials by procurement, borrowing or donations. When we need popular classics with instant recall we contact established libraries like Getty music in South Africa. When we do campaigns to mobilize listeners say on national issues, eg voting, road safety, tree planting etc we borrow relevant music from popular musicians. In addition we have great musicians , young and old who can create all types of music , rap ,hip-hop ,reggae and the arrival of better and more easily accessible instrumentation and recording facilities has enabled commercial music to grow, develop and evolve ,Some clients also provide their own music , even choirs especially government parastatals and Saccos
From time to time I include music I compose on my synthesizers. I enjoy doing that and sometimes it's exactly what a spot needs. Original music.
I have several libraries. An old Canary, an on-line BDP and TMC Audio Architect. I had an old TMC library on disc, but it went with one of our stations when it was sold. That was my favorite library.
I am fortunate that I have a local source for original music and jingles as well.
We use Essential Radio (thru Preimier) at essentialradio.com. This is barter. A nice library with a decent index so you can search by tempo, genre, et al. You can also search 'ish' , as in 'Katy Perry-ish'. This helps with clients who really want to use an existing piece of commercial music. The selections that pop up for that kind of search sound like existing music but are different enough to be... legal and licensed for use in our listening area.
When a client wants to use a specific song, perhaps with sung lyrics, we tell them not only is (1) this a copyright infringement but (2) there is no benefit in using music that sounds like or actually is music on the station playlist... it will hardly make their commercial effective when the commercial sounds like part of the station programming. The most common request for this has been local venues for live bands that play covers. We use music from the Essential library in the same genre for this.
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Mark Levy 972.522.8570
I use www.melodyloops.com. They have a lot of music types to choose from and their licensing is very reasonable.
Sam, when you say that you "borrow relevant music from popular musicians," are there not any copyright or licensing issues involved?
Mike, are you by any chance related to The Rhodes synthesizer folks?
Mark, are you one of the company principals or are you an affiliate?
I just went to the website and it's very well done. Ambitious idea to combine stock photo, stock video, stock audio, voice talents, jingles, etc. under one umbrella - especially useful to small ad agencies, one would think.
If the depth of content is there (as it should if your vendors are adding new stuff all the time), this has real promise. Good job!
Well, I've played a Rhodes piano but no relation. I DID win an ADDY Best of Show for my original music once tho. I'm not a frustrated musician. Just have the keyboards and some chops I get to use every once in a while in my job selling radio and digital.
Mark, It's been a while since you sent this. I'll look into it again. Might be helpful right now.
Mike
Excellent!
We use the Ad Impact library, which is a barter package, through Coast to Coast Radio. We have been using it for years. We get a CD, and the entire inventory is available online. We have been extremely happy with it.
We are aware of the copyright ,but we have an option of engaging the artiste directly instead of paying we give him free publicity as they also rely on heavily of radio stations for publicity. When we developed a Easter Road Safety commercial, we talked to a Musician Mr Muthee of dereva chunga maisha fame ( driver, protect lives)and he allowed us to use his music as part of his contribution. And when he has weekend performances we direct the traffic there, at no cost,
