Alejandro Segovia, audio producer and member of the Latin Grammy Academy, shares his opinion on this topic with us in an interview.
We basically talked about two main ideas:
- When to use -or not- generic audio library tracks
- Why is it better to make your own music
This is what he shared with us:
Generic Audio Libraries
"Recently, several clients - large and small - started buying or renting music on generic library services (such as audio jungle).
Which is not a bad thing per se, since they save money by not producing their own music and just:
- Rent the track while their membership is valid or
- Pay a few dollars for a track
However, here's the problem: These tracks that they've purchased will never really be of high quality, they will always have a standard-to-mediocre quality.
But there's yet a bigger problem with these tracks: The rights of distribution, public execution, exploitation, editing, modification, (any rights!) do not belong 100% to whoever pays for the track.
And it gets very tricky. How? Well...when you buy one of these tracks, the library's sales service warn you that if you are going to use it for television, movies, broadcast, its price will increase and obviously, they will charge you more than a few bucks. In the end, a track may cost between 200 or 500 dollars (if you are going to use it for television or for a movie). There the problem is that even though you paid more for it, your track won't be yours, the track still belongs to them, which means that although you pay more for it, it can still be played in someone else's movie, spot, commercial, even in an amateur video of a YouTuber ...
So this situation brings up two problems:
- First, it is very unfair because whoever paid $ 400-500 for a track won't want someone else (let's say an amateur YouTuber) to use the same track, having paid only $ 14 for it.
- Second, the track lacks identity related to your company, your brand and to the goals you've set for it.
It's like buying, I do not know, a suit that's been mass produced and feeling that you've bought the best suit because it was very cheap but then you realize that, in addition to being made with poor quality, there are other hundred, two hundred, or thousands of people who have the exact same suit as you.
Perhaps the analogy sounds useless, in the sense that clothing can be fashionable, but we here are talking about the identity of a company, we are talking about how dangerous it can be to not have original music and thus, launch a campaign with generic music since you may later listen to that same track but in another video, in an amateur's video... It's a terrible idea!
You'd be showing that you don't take your brand seriously, the message you are sending is:
My brand is not serious, we buy anything, even in bulk, just to get out of trouble and we are not interested in the image we give to the world.
Needless to say, this goes against your brand and its image
So, although I am not against musicians uploading their songs and productions in audio libraries, I am against well-respected companies buying these kind of products because in the end, the message that they're sending is that they don't care about giving the best to their audience.
Why call this music mediocre?
It must be understood that music libraries respond to the need of finding cheap material in order to produce cheap audiovisuals, therefore the perfect customer for these kind of libraries is the ordinary citizen, not the businessman, not the film producer, not the advertiser, not the filmmaker.
I insist, I'm not against musicians uploading and broadcasting their songs there, yes! I would do it! What's more, I would do it myself just so I have something there that would eventually give me a few dollars to buy myself a drink, you know? But, my point is that the quality of the productions there goes from standard (which is fine, standard is good, standard can be broadcasted on TV) to mediocre, it doesn't get any better.
Why do I say this? Because one usually finds there productions that were made with poor quality sound, with synthesizers that sound fairly good, almost as good as a cell phone, I mean ... They don't care much about production standards, they don't care much about looking for a high-quality virtual sound library, they record with the first thing they find at hand.
You won't going to be able to play them in a 20th Century Fox movie, you won't be able to play them so they compete with musicians such as Danny Elfman ... no! You will find standard music that will help you complete a project, but that doesn't have a good enough quality standard to support a wider production.
For instance, yo may find:
- Mixes with highly saturated or heavily compressed sound
- Poorly recorded, poorly processed instruments
- And above all, musically speaking, you don't always find striking things, you mostly find pieces that repeat styles a lot, especially when it comes to electronic music; you find things that may all sound pretty mush the same.
So we must be very careful, a well respected company shouldn't be renting tracks, it should be producing its own original, high quality music.
An Example
As an example, let me share this experience with you; Between the 80s and 2000, one of the most famous brands of music libraries was Network Music Ensemble and although at the time it was not cheap to rent their music collections, many radio and TV companies used these bookstores, so the same track was heard on multiple channels, on different commercials.
Even though the quality of his music was very good, the constant repetition of the tracks, ended up breaking the business model and now its productions can be found for free on Spotify.
That's why it's always a better option to create your own original music for any audiovisual project you may have.
So, if you want to produce original music, high quality music from which you have all the rights of, invest in a production that's made exclusively for your company, a production that's made according to your marketing goals and to the image of your company that you want to project, which is unique.
Contact us for more information about the services that Alejandro Segovia offers in collaboration with DataBranding. Print your audio logo on your clients!
