Track Titles
Choose a name for your music track that describes the feel, mood, style, genre, of the track. Reference downloadable tracks to match track to title. You want to make it easy for the music supervisor to see what the music will sound like by the title of the piece.
Example below:
a. Hard Truth – for a dark investigative cue – Not Happy Love Song 27 (FULL) for a dark investigative cue
1. Make sure tracks are professionally labeled – do not use numbers, NO all caps, No symbols, No odd titles. Examples below:
a. A Professionally labeled music track: A Happy Memory
b. A non-professionally labelled music track: a HAPPY!!!! meMory @27
2. Do not label your track with (full) to indicate the main mix. Instead leave a blank space at the end of the title if you are including alt mixes. Label alt mixes with parenthesis Examples below:
a. Full track: Lost Hope
b. Minimal alt mix: Lost Hope (Minimal)
c. No Percussion alt mix: Lost Hope (No Percussion)
d. Drone alt mix: Lost Hope (Drone)
Alt Mixes and Variations
Send in variations/alt mixes of your cue (Full, Minimal, No Drums, Drone, etc.) This will help you get more placements and gives a music supervisors of a TV show more layers of your track to play with when syncing a track up to a show.
Track Length
Submit tracks that are 90-120 seconds in length. They are known to have higher placement rates. It doesn’t have to be exactly 90-120 seconds but has to be very close to those lengths.
Track Endings
1. Please create short endings also known as button or stinger endings with your submissions. Our publishers are requesting tracks with button endings or endings with build up stinger sound effect also with short endings.
Button Ending – quick ending
https://soundcloud.com/musicfortv/beat-107?in=musicfortv/sets/tv-music-reference-catalog
Stinger Ending – build up to a short ending – usually using a whoosh or rising sound effect
https://soundcloud.com/musicfortv/so-lovely-bruh?in=musicfortv/sets/tv-music-reference-catalog
2. No long or un-natural fade outs. Make sure you leave 1-3 seconds of silence at the end. A good ending is going to be the ultimate decider on whether a cue is placed.
Format
1. Please bounce or export out music cues in high quality .mp3 320kbps files. Any other formats submitted will be rejected. Check out the “Pro Audio Converter” app for a fast way to convert your audio files.
Adding Meta Data
- When ready to submit, have tracks converted to .mp3
- Then Add tracks in iTunes
- Right Click Track
- Click Get Info – to add meta data.
- Please put brief descriptions/keywords in the “comments” space in iTunes. Put commas between each descriptions or keyword. Add 10-20 keywords minimum. The better you keyword your submissions the easier it will be for a supervisor to find your material in the catalog(s). If you are not currently using iTunes for conversion or meta tagging, start now! It’s very simple.
- Select and Add Category/Genre in the Category field drop down menu. Only one genre please.
Please do not tag the composer, album, artist, label, and do NOT use track numbers either. Only add what we ask, which is track title, genre, description/keywords in comments field. thanks!
Essentially all you need to add in terms of meta data in your track is: song title – genre – keywords
Having trouble adding meta data? Learn more about why meta data is important here.
Folder Prep
- By now you have all your tracks formatted correctly. Now its time to put your music files in a folder to send in.
- Title your folder in this order: Name in this order (First and Last Name) – Show or Network Title – Genre and/orStyle – Date
- Only submit one submission at a time until cleared by James and Collin.
Example: Collin Scudder – Catfish – Tension and Suspense – 10-30-18
Again: Your Full Name (name used with PRO) Show and/or Network Title (what show are these cues being pitched to) Style/Genre (what type of cues are in this folder) Date (when are you sending this in)
If you have multiple genres in one folder please write them into the folder title. Thanks.
If you do not do this properly, we will send an email back asking you to fix it. It’s important to be consistent and professional in all our submissions and labelling.
Sending and Delivery
Submission Protocol: NOTE: for your first few submissions, please only send in 2 cues.
(You may send alt mixes along with those 2 cues – Optional*)
Once we see you are getting our prep and delivery protocol down, we will release the 2 cue submission limit to 20 files per submission. Please allow 1 submission to process at a time. Never send multiple submission. Wait until James and Collin give you the green light to send more. Once you submit, please allow 2-4 business days for us to get back to you.
- Please Send links that stream using box.com – It’s free and it’s easy to get started! Here’s a link to the FREE accounts Sign Up! https://www.box.com/pricing/individual
- When sending a folder DO NOT use the “invite” option on Box.com. Simply click “share” copy the link that’s provided, paste it into the submission form.
- Send material using the “Submission Page on the Site
Submission reminders:
- Remember, it is up to you to re-title your tracks before submitting them to us. The titles must be free to register for use on shows. They can not already be registered to your own personal PRO number under the same title(s). If they are already registered, change the titles.
- Make sure you hit reply all to any emails.