Where should I send my music?

What are the best production music libraries for hip-hop/folk/electronic/[fill-in-the-blank]?

How can I find royalty-free libraries that are a good fit for my music?

This post is for you!

I’m going to answer ALL of these questions and tell you exactly WHERE to submit your music.

But let’s keep it simple…. There are THREE steps I want you to focus on…..

#1 – Submit music to Audiosparx

I recommend this to everyone who is starting out in the music licensing business. Why?

Because Audiosparx requires a LOT of boring information that musicians often overlook but MUST be able to provide before they can expect to make any decent amount of money through production music libraries.

Admin Stuff

They ask you for your PRO-assigned IPI (or CAE) number.

PROs are the ones that pay your royalties.

If you’re serious about making money making music, this is the number one admin formality you should take care of and Audiosparx make sure you don’t procrastinate!

Keywords

They ask you to select 30+ keywords for each track you upload in their catalogue.

This forces you to take the time to think about where your track would be a good fit.

That, in turn, ensures that your song is not just another song sitting in a large catalogue, ready to be fully ignored by all potential customers. Instead, you’ll be one of those musicians who gets to the top of the search results of the best production music libraries. 

Track description

They give you guidelines on how to write compelling track descriptions.

This forces you to put yourself in your customer’s shoes....

Once you understand how to write a great track description that will grab your customer’s attention, you’re golden!

So yes, the Audiosparx process requires you to invest quite a bit of time upfront BUT it will give you a BIG competitive advantage when you send music to other music licensing opportunities in the future.

1. It will set you apart from the crowd when you upload your music catalogue on other production music libraries. Most composers don’t take the time to set-up more than 10 fairly generic keywords.

2. You will be a more attractive proposition when you reach out to music supervisors accepting music submissions. By taking the time to define clearly where your track will fit, you’re demonstrating how professional you are and making their life easier.

AudioSparx are a little bit annoying and have a lot of restrictions….

For example,

  • You can’t take down the tracks they accept once they’re in their catalogue.
  • They don’t want anything to do with tracks that are part of the Youtube Content ID system.
  • They keep a list of stock music libraries that they don’t want to be associate with and refuse to take in tracks that are also in those catalogues.

That’s a LOT of restrictions so…… it’s important that you consider these elements and read carefully AudioSparx’ requirements before you go through and make a new track live in their catalogue. 

HOWEVER, the recommendation still applies: you can send a music submission and, once accepted, explore AudioSparx back-end without ever making any of your tracks live in their library….

You’ll then be able to benefit from their extensive experience in library music without compromising your catalogue if you feel AudioSparx is not the right fit for you.

#2 Submit to big music libraries with a broad catalogue

One question I often get goes along the likes of: I write hip-hop music, can you tell me where to submit my tunes?

Sometimes it’s hip-hop, sometimes it’s folk music, sometimes it’s ambient music. You get the idea ?

Whatever the genre of music, the short answer is:

STOP worrying about where’s the “best” place to send your music

START actually submitting music!

That’s the only way you’ll learn what’s the best place for YOU!

I can’t tell you exactly where you should submit your tunes.

With a bit of research and a LOT more information about you and your projects, I could find out which production music libraries might be a good fit for your music.

But, right off the top of my head and with only a music genre to go on, most of the time I won’t have an answer for you.

I have soooooo many questions!!!!

What's your niche?

Musicians are often incapable of defining what makes them unique

Take hip-hop for example....

That’s a pretty broad term, what kind of music are you actually making? Does it fit into a sub-genre? Is there a name for it? Is there an artist you obviously sound like?

What's your focus?

What are you trying to accomplish?

Are you a composer first and foremost?

Or do you also have aspirations as a performing artists? Your music licensing strategy should vary greatly depending on your ambitions.

Where are you now?

At what stage of your musical journey are you?

Does your music sound a bit cheap or like something you’d hear on the radio?

Do you already have a huge brand? Do you have a small or large catalogue of music to choose from?

The point is YOU need to figure out what you’re about, what you want to focus on and YOU need to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

No one else can do that for you.

The good news is that you can start getting your music licensed right away. You don’t have to wait until you’ve figured out everything and fined tuned your vision.

In fact, the more you put yourself out there and try to get your music licensed, the more you’ll learn about what works and what doesn’t work for you.

So again, I’ll repeat it one more time….

STOP worrying about where’s the “best” place to send your music and….

START actually submitting music!

Unless you want to hire me to get one-on-one coaching, that’s the best advice I can give you!

There are MANY, MANY stock music libraries that are generalists and would be happy to take on your music. Stop worrying and start learning!

You’ll hit and miss and that’s absolutely fine! ?

Having said that, when you’re just starting out with music licensing, I recommend a couple of things so you can experiment freely and stay out of trouble:

Use a pseudonym.

This means even if you make a “mistake” and sign some of your music to a really crappy library, you don’t damage your current or future brand.

Sign non-exclusive deals

This means even if a library doesn’t sell your music to anyone, you’re not stuck. You can have the same tracks with other, more profitable, production music libraries. This is especially important if you have a small catalogue of music.

Ok, ok, enough about the theory!

I know you want some actual leads.

Leads

Ideally, I’d give you a list of the top music licensing companies out there and you’d submit to every single one of them and make money overnight.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing. The truth is that no two people would agree on what the best production music libraries are.

What I’ll do instead is mention 4 stock music libraries that I’ve enjoyed working with:

Audio Jungle

Production Trax

Luck Stock

Yooka Music

On top of these 4, I’d recommend opening a free account with Songtradr.

This will give you 35 credits every month to submit your music to specific licensing opportunities curated by Songtradr.

Stick with the free plan and practise pitching to music supervisors accepting submissions.

This will force you to think about which projects would be a good match for your music.

Little by little, you’ll get a better idea of who you should get in touch with and where you should pitch your music for better results.

Once you have that experience, it will be MUCH easier to successfully…

#3 Pitch music to niche licensing companies

Ok so you’ve submitted music to Audiosparx and got all your track descriptions and keywords up your sleeve.

You’ve submitted tracks to production music libraries and have a few tunes working for you in the background.

You’re starting to understand what these music licensing companies are looking for and how you can cater to their needs.

Now you can start focusing your attention on finding THE perfect music licensing company for YOUR catalogue.

As I’ve mentioned above, for me to make specific recommendations that will work for you, I’d need to know a lot more about your music than just a genre. I’d have to talk with you and find out what your goals are.

That’s one-on-one coaching stuff and I can’t address all of that in one post.

What I CAN do is give you a super simple step-by-step process to help you find that out for yourself ?

Are You Ready?

Royalty-Free + [Music Sub-Genre] + Instrumentals

You can even riff on it and give these arrangements try….

Royalty-Free + [Music Sub-Genre] +  Downloads

[Music Sub-Genre] +  Stock Music

Licensing Music + [Music Sub-Genre]

[Music Sub-Genre] +  Music Library

Production Music + [Music Sub-Genre]

[Music Sub-Genre] +  Backing Tracks

For Example….

Let’s say you write instrumental trap music and type in “royalty-free trap instrumentals”…. 

What would you find out?

Well…. It looks like PremiumBeat might be interested. It might also be worth getting in touch with Allrounda Beats. Their FAQ suggests they could be interested in adding tunes to their catalogue and they’ve done a great job getting to the top of Google search. Pond5 is another royalty-free library that ranks high in Google for that particular search.

Finding Gaps You Can Fill

A couple of alternative ways you could find out about where to find music licensing opportunities for your niche:

1.Get in touch with the record label of an artist you sound like and ask them if they handle licensing requests themselves or use a music placement agency.

2.Research generalist libraries and identify gaps in their catalogues.

Audiosparx are kind enough to give you all the info in one place (“MyAccount” → “Reports”).

But most libraries don’t openly tell you what they need.

That’s when it can help to go the extra mile and browse their catalogue by category.

List of Reports available in production music library AudioSparx

But most libraries don’t openly tell you what they need.

That’s when it can help to go the extra mile and browse their catalogue by category.

Let’s take Audio Jungle as an example…

What I see here is that they already have a lot of choice for ambient music BUT perhaps there is an opportunity for the new-age sub-genre.They have plenty of hip-hop but could probably use some soul, R&B type of tracks.Even funk seems a bit under-represented when you think of how often it’s used in advertising.

Note that it’s worth digging a bit deeper.

Without clicking on “Ambient”, we’d never see that Audio Jungle might be a little light on New Age music.

Screenshot of Ambient category in stock music library Audio Jungle

Same goes with “Electronica”… 22,531 tracks to compete with?! No way!!!!

And yet…

What if I pitched some techno music? Would it make sense to add “IDM” or “Glitch” to my keywords for a couple of tunes?

Screenshot of the Electronica category in stock music library Audio Jungle

So there you have it, three steps to stock music library success!

Next Steps?

Download your Checklist and get to work!

If you’d like a bit more support and day-to-day guidance, you can check out the 30 Music Licensing Challenge.