Here is the list of my known TV placements from January 2022. This was potentially my best month yet with at least 17 placements! - 1/5, 1/12, 1/19 Various tracks used on "Temptation Island Suomi" Channel: Nelonen (Finland) - 1/7 Various tracks used on "Maison à vendre" Channel: M6 (France) Episode: Aurélia, jessica et katia / michel et armande - 1/9 Music used on "SWR Sport" Channel: SWR FS (Germany) - 1/14 Music used on "ARTE Regards" Channels: Arte (FR) (France), Arte (DE)

Learn how to price your music for sale on Royalty-Free music libraries and for personal placements.

Today we're talking about collaborating with co-writers for production music. Collaborating with others is a great way to get professional sounding recordings and top-notch performances. Some people have asked me: "Is it better to share the rights to the track through a PRO or for co-writers to be paid up front (work for hire)?" The answer to this may vary for some people, so let's break it down with a Pros and Cons list for each. Sharing the Songwriting Credit Through PROs U

We all know that so many musicians out there are venturing into the music licensing world. Why shouldn't they? It is a fun field with lots of opportunities to earn cash. Although there is a lot of competition, I believe there are ways to break through the noise and beat the competition. Here are some tips on how to be successful in this competitive field. Write and record niche styles that other people aren't doing. Everyone out there is doing corporate music, modern pop, aco

How to record and release a full music licensing album

Breaking Down TV Placements and Music Licensing income from 2021

Composer Randy McGravey's TV Placements from 2021.

Music licensing goals for 2022 for composer Randy McGravey.

Learn what to do with spare tracks for music licensing. Get TV placements, music on radio, commercials, etc.

Randy McGravey - Composer for TV

Know what to look for in music library contracts.

Here is the list of known TV placements from composer Randy McGravey for November 2021. - 11/8 Music used on "Aprendemos En Clan" Channel: Clan TVE (Spain) Episode: #116 - 11/11 - 11/16 Music used on "Lokalzeit aus Aachen" and other "Lokalzeit" programs Channel: WDR FS [Koln] (Germany) - 11/12 Music used on The Season: Ole Miss Football Channel: ESPN U (USA) - 11/15 Music used on "Die Nordreportage" Channel: NDR Fernsehen [NDS] (Germany) Episode: Spionieren fur den Artenschut

TV commercials have the potential to be some of the highest paying placements you can get. Not only do TV commercials usually receive a nice upfront sync fee (rather than blanket payments), but they typically air many times and therefore can get you a lot of backend royalties. There is a service called Numerator (formerly Competitrack) that is responsible for dealing with commercials and advertising codes. The American PROs use Numerator to determine the necessary information

One aspect of this business that not many seem to know about, is direct licensing. Have you ever wondered why music libraries and supervisors work with TV channels that don't pay backend royalties? In most cases, they are direct licensing the music to these stations. Direct licensing is the act of receiving upfront fees for the usage of music in lieu of backend payments (from PROs). Basically these channels are somehow avoiding paying fees to performing rights organizations.

Today I'm going to address the different kinds of music libraries. The differences are mostly in the types of deals that they have with their composers. Non-Exclusive Libraries Non-exclusive libraries always seem to be the best option for newcomers since some are weary of being exclusive. NE libraries allow you to put the same music tracks on other non-exclusive libraries. In most cases you will maintain the publishing rights when working with these libraries, and they will m

The other day I sent one of my newest albums to an exclusive library and they requested the full tracks, stems, and cutdowns (15 second edit, 30 second edit, 60 second edit). These kinds of edits are quite common and it is useful to have a method for creating them. Although it can take a bit of time, the process is fairly simple. Here is the process I use to create cutdowns. Bounce your full tracks with a small amount of silence at the beginning of the track (attach to the gr

Here is a list of known TV placements for composer Randy McGravey from October 2021. This was one of the best months so far! - 10/1 Music used on "Today with Hoda & Jenna" Channel: NBC (USA) - 10/2 Music used on "Wooninspiraties" Channel: RTL 4 (Netherlands) - 10/4 Music used on "Kærlighed på hjernen" Channel: TV2 [Lorry] (DK) (Denmark) - 10/4 Music used on TV3 (Sweden) Program Unknown - 10/7 Music used on "KiKa LIVE" Channel: KI.KA (Germany) - 10/11 Music used on "Beestenbri

The other day I created a template for an upcoming country music album and I figured I'd share it with you guys! This will give you an idea of my process, and how much time is saved by making templates for tracks. The goal with templates is to give the most routing, organization, and rudimentary mixing possible so that you can focus on the music. Here you can see what it looks like when I open the program with the country template. I have almost all of the potential instrumen

I've seen people ask this question a lot and wanted to address it. "Can you license your music if you publish it through CD Baby or a similar service?" CD Baby has a few different options for ways to publish your music through their platform. I personally have been using CD Baby for my "artist" releases for the past 7 years. Below are some of their options and add-ons, and what they mean for sync licensing abilities. I've included my opinions and experiences with these consid

Something about this time of year gives me inspiration to get "back to work" after a busy summer. I did record over the summer, but a lot of my time was spent playing gigs, going on a few vacations, getting married(!) and working on some other personal projects (not related to licensing). I probably recorded 35ish licensing tracks over the summer, which is decent, but I usually do more during every other season. This fall is off to a great start, I'm working on 2 full albums