Ringworm128 Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I've heard that people who compose music for big budget movie's and video games get a pretty good pay check for scoring said movies and games. But what about someone who is just starting out and is scoring a commercial that's going to air at 3AM or some indie game that's being sold online for $1 each? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Negotiate with the person in question. For most gigs you can either charge a fixed rate based on how many minutes you're writing (100+$ a minute of music would be fair as a amateur rate) or you can take a percentage of the profit (~10% isn't unreasonable). Personally, I would negotiate more, if possible, but those are somewhere for you to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BardicKnowledge Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Also, be sure to negotiate based on who gets the rights to the music. If they maintain ownership of it afterwards, then you should be asking for a lot more. For a good guide to this and other things, I highly recommend this book, which includes sample contracts for big and small gigs provided by Tommy Tallarico -- it's a great starting point at the very least, and worth your $25 if you are serious about game audio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 "How much do amateur composers make?" For 99% of them - next to NOTHING. If you get paid anything for your music venture, consider yourself quite successful. With the computer music thing firm in place as an industry, every yahoo with FL Studio and some soundfonts thinks he's Nobuo f'n Uematsu and the whole channel is flooded, flooded, flooded. That's not the academic answer, obviously, but its the one that plays out in real life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Depends on the project. If you have some specific examples/scenarios I can help give you some example figures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumJ8 Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Depends on the project. If you have some specific examples/scenarios I can help give you some example figures. Hypothetical situation .. let's say, a fashion company wants a composer to make music for their "how to" videos for their website (like putting on make up or something) .. 5 videos, one minute each = 5 minutes of music. They want to maintain the ownership of the music. Thoughts on how much the composer would/should make? I'm curious about numbers so you can ballpark it if need be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omni-Psyence Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 For a complete buyout of rights like that I wouldn't ask for less than 300 per minute (try to get more, even), but that's just me. It depends on how big this company is and how likely you think you are to get away with a decent contract. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelCityOutlaw Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 "How much do amateur composers make?"For 99% of them - next to NOTHING. If you get paid anything for your music venture, consider yourself quite successful. With the computer music thing firm in place as an industry, every yahoo with FL Studio and some soundfonts thinks he's Nobuo f'n Uematsu and the whole channel is flooded, flooded, flooded. That's not the academic answer, obviously, but its the one that plays out in real life. I'm still an amateur and when I really think about it, most of my gigs composing music for people have been paid. Not huge money, but paid regardless. I've really come to learn that if you want to get the best gigs with composing, you have to meet people face to face who will hire you to make music. If you do what 99% of people are doing now thanks to the internet and just sending unsolicited material or advertising it on forums, the only gigs one will likely get are by n00b "game designers" living in a basement who don't know what they're doing and know they can get away without paying anyone. If things turn sour, they'll just slip back into the shadows, never to be heard from again.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 There is a lot of truth to that, but it doesn't make going cross-country to meet them face-to-face any more feasible to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Hypothetical situation .. let's say, a fashion company wants a composer to make music for their "how to" videos for their website (like putting on make up or something) .. 5 videos, one minute each = 5 minutes of music. They want to maintain the ownership of the music. Thoughts on how much the composer would/should make? I'm curious about numbers so you can ballpark it if need be. It really depends. I mean if they only have $200, that's all you're going to get. What genre of music is it? The average rate of licensing a piece of library music is about $500-600 if you were to SELL to the library (buyout), but that's kinda bargain-basement. You're writing custom for a client here. My own bargain-basement rate is $250/min for custom projects but keep in mind that might be way more than they have. I would ask WHY they want to keep the rights. Can you give any more information about the company? Are they famous? Do they have revenue already? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelCityOutlaw Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 There is a lot of truth to that, but it doesn't make going cross-country to meet them face-to-face any more feasible to do. True............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumJ8 Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 It really depends. I mean if they only have $200, that's all you're going to get. What genre of music is it? The average rate of licensing a piece of library music is about $500-600 if you were to SELL to the library (buyout), but that's kinda bargain-basement. You're writing custom for a client here. My own bargain-basement rate is $250/min for custom projects but keep in mind that might be way more than they have. I would ask WHY they want to keep the rights. Can you give any more information about the company? Are they famous? Do they have revenue already? Hey thanks for the responses guys. Okay, the situation isn't all that hypothetical; nothing is concrete but here is what I know. It would most likely be electronic music. From what I understand, they want to own the music because they want it to be unique--they don't want to use existing music that can be heard elsewhere, and they don't want others to use their music. Not sure how famous they are .. 2,420 "seller reviews" according to google and my friend who works there says "around 10-11 million annual revenue" .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 I personally think a huge problem a lot of aspiring composers face is knowing when to decline a project. Or rather, when it's more beneficial to give a fair quote and have it turned down rather than selling yourself short. If a company asked me to write 5 tracks @ 1 minute for a flat $200, the bottom line is that if they want to own that music, my answer is a polite yet firm "Thanks, but no, that's not even close to a reasonable compromise for standard industry rates." And then I would ask questions and make a counter-offer. For example, find out why they would be opposed to licensing new or existing music. I totally understand that when somebody has maybe only a few $$ in their bank account, that writing 5 songs for even a low amount of money seems to make more sense than saying "No, sorry, I'm worth more than that," and risking losing the gig. But honestly, the road to better success is not always paved with screwing yourself over despite what you might think. More often than not, the road to success is paved with hard work, competence, skill, professionalism, and confidence. And networking AKA communication. Like Andy said. When a company offers you peanuts for unreasonable working terms, ask them questions and work for a suitable compromise. Find out why they feel the need to own the music as opposed to license it. They feel their time is valuable, it's only fair for them to acknowledge that yours is too. If a company cannot realize that their payment is not even covering your expenses or the time it takes you to write the music for a reasonable wage, then the bottom line is they're not worth working for. They're not just going to accept your work for next to nothing and then next time offer you 10x more money like they should have paid you to begin with. Anyway, I realize this is a bit of a tangent from the OP, but it's worth bringing up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Well, it's not unreasonable for people just starting out to charge less. Web video isn't exactly like AAA gaming. $200-250/min is a lot better than what you would get paid from a middle-end buyout music library and that's how I started getting real $$$. If it were me I'd say $5-6k for the project. But I think they might balk at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Well, it's not unreasonable for people just starting out to charge less. Sure, that's understandable, but only to a degree. As long as the composer is competently producing quality music, the pay should still be reasonably competitive. And to clarify for those reading this, I don't mean that all aspiring composers should ask for $1500/minute for their music. I'm just saying learn when to say no when the wage just isn't respectable whether you're brand new, or a 30-year industry veteran. That's my beef with this and so many other industries lately. People pay for names over quality/output. If someone can write top-notch music, they deserve decent pay at the very least. And it's sad to me that so many young composers accept such awful rates because they're either afraid to ask for more, or else they don't know better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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