The original audio books were only available on audio cassette and for the benefit of younger readers, the audio cassette was a magnetic tape sound recording format. Here is a picture of an audio cassette courtesy of wikimedia.org.

For more information on cassettes see the Wikipedia resource link at the end of this blog post.

Audio books on cassette tape required turning over midway as each side was typically 30 minutes. Not a format I was particularly fond of.

CD Audio Books

Audio Book CD format is a vast improvement lasting up to 74 minutes and at digital quality standard. However, you will find that some large CD audio books run across many CD’s, the biggest I produced was a total of 13 CD’s.

Also, it does require that you sit listening to it on your home stereo system or your car CD player. I suppose you could also listen to audio books on CD Walkman, although I am not sure many people use these in 2009.

MP3 Audio Books

MP3 players have revolutionised audio consumption and mp3 audio books are my favourite. Most inexpensive players can easily hold a high quality audio book that you can listen to anywhere. Additionally, the mp3 format is flexible and can be played on most computers and mp3 players, including iPods.

MP3 audio books are easily available to download and can also be sold as an MP3 CD. This is basically a CD ROM that contains the whole audio book in a folder. Unlike a CD audio book, you don’t have to keep changing CD’s to listen to the whole book. The MP3 CD saves me lots of time and is my second favourite format.

If I do have to buy audio books on audio CD, the first thing I do is convert the files to mp3 and add them to my MP3 player so that I can listen whilst on the move.

My favourite little MP3 player is the Sansa Clip from Amazon – click here to see a selection of Sansa Clip MP3 Players

iPod Audio Book format

This format provides one or two benefits over mp3 audio books, in the fact that chapters can be saved as a single audio book file, whereas mp3 chapters tend to arrive as many separate files. Despite the benefits, I don’t like this format as it restricts you to using an iPod and most MP3 players don’t play the .m4b format that is used by audio books downloaded from the Apple iTunes store.

Audible Audio Books Format

I am a subscriber to Audible UK as they seem to be the only serious downloadable audio book seller that I am aware of in the UK; however, I am not a fan of their proprietary format .aa.

This format was created by them to stop file sharing using strict DRM (Digital Rights Management). Without going off topic, DRM in my opinion hinders the honest buyers of audiobooks and music as it makes the file unplayable until you verify your account. I could share many stories about DRM validating errors and know numerous people who have bought files that they can no longer play… but that’s another topic altogether.

Needless to say, Audible’s audio book format is my least favourite, but until a better option comes around, I will stick with it, plus they do have one of the UK’s largest selections of audio books online.

Click here to view and browse downloadable audio books on Audible’s UK site

Click here to view and browse audio books on Amazon.co.uk

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References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette

Are you an author or publisher looking to transform your book into an audio book?… Click here to find out more about our audio book recording  and production services

I am always interested in hearing your views and opinions so please feel free to add your comments below.

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Halloween is just around the corner and for those of you looking for spooky background music to add chills to your Halloween production may have just found the right track in today’s royalty free music review. The track is simply called ‘Halloween’.

‘Halloween‘ is a creepy track with lots of haunting and scary sound effects; a menacing laugh, thunderous lightening, a werewolf howling and church bells striking, There’s a graveyard out there with ghosts and ghouls at play.

The big church organ and thumping percussion also add to its unsettling and disturbing feel. This spine-tingling and menacing royalty free music track has all the chilling sounds needed for your haunted Halloween production.

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In the computer game industry, these stems are custom written by a composer to give the game a unique soundtrack. The music is composed to work as a complete piece, but is also separated into many layers of audio files so that elements can be dropped in and out in reaction to the game play.

I know that many audio producers often find frustrating limitations using off-the-shelf royalty free music. These frustrations could easily be overcome if royalty free music was available in stems and layers.

Limitations that I often experience…. Sometimes I sync a piece of music to a video and end up realising that in order to make the scene work well, I need a few more seconds of introduction before the melody starts. In this case, a precise and time-consuming splice of a wave form is required.

Also, I sometimes find myself wanting to use a track of music without the instrument solo or random instrument that obscures the section I want. Although using quality royalty free music is a great way to minimise expense, there can be many compromises if you are trying to get a tightly synchronised video soundtrack. Sometimes the video frames have to be synced with the music to avoid this.

Can you imagine if every royalty free music library offered music in stems and layers. How great would that be?

If this concept could be borrowed from the computer / video games industry and adapted by composers, it could become a new era in royalty free music. Just a thought!

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I am interested in hearing your thoughts so please feel free to add your comments. Perhaps you are a composer experienced in writing music this way?

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For today’s royalty free music review, I have picked a happy and positive track, aptly named ‘Happy Moments‘.

This royalty free music track has an acoustic sound with a country-style feel and it just can’t help but make you feel good. I think it would work well in any film or TV production to highlight scenes of uplifting and happy moments.

With its country-style tones, I could see it being used in a Southern-set sweet romantic comedy, one for all the family, much like the film ‘Sweet Home Alabama’.

Also, this track would be ideal for any up-beat advertising and television projects such as commercials, sitcoms and programmes for all ages.

If you are looking to create a positive, uplifting and happy mood in your media production, then ‘Happy Moments‘ could just be the perfect fit.

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Well, the track in today’s royalty free music review certainly is.

The track is called ‘Up to the Challenge‘ from Media Music Now’s corporate motivational music category. This royalty free music track is great for inspiring synergy, building confidence and creating a positive attitude.

You may have a powerpoint presentation or corporate video that needs to be uplifting and inspirational; a corporate training event, trade show or seminar where you want to motivate and energise your audience or perhaps you are looking for a piece of background music to blend in perfectly with your on hold production.

The answer is simple, ‘Up to the Challenge‘ is the perfect choice of background music to liven up your project.

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Because of its huge presence and fast moving pace, this track is ideal for use in any number of high impact TV, Film and media productions.

As already mentioned, this is a dance anthem in itself so it would fit right into a travel show promoting a summer destination that will be appeal to young adults or an ‘Ibiza Uncovered’ style show.

Also, the sheer drive and energy that emanates from this track make it highly suitable for portraying the intensity and excitement felt in the world of extreme sports such as, sky diving, hang gliding, motor racing or any sport that induces a rush of adrenaline.

If you want to create an energising, exciting and gripping production with lots of attitude, then ‘Energy of the Night‘ can give your project all the attitude it needs.

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If you are hiring a voice over or company to record and produce your audiobook you should make a point of confirming the copyright status of the finished book. Who owns what and what can be done with it?

Whilst the author of the book owns the copyright of the content being narrated, there will be other aspects that need consideration.

Music and Sound Effects

If you are using music and sound effects you will need to clear the rights before distributing the audio book and if you are going to make a CD version of the book, all good CD pressing plants / duplicators will require licensing documentation before they create any copies.

Using royalty free music in your audio books is often a good and affordable option, but make sure you have confirmed that there are no limitations on how many copies you can make. Most royalty free music agreements will have limitations that require you to purchase an extended license option for mass duplication.

The Voice Over Recording

The voice-over may claim copyright ownership on the voice recording. This aspect of copyright is not often discussed or considered at the time, however, unless it is clarified you can not assume that you own the recording. A work for hire agreement can negate potential conflict in the future.

The recording and production will also carry a copyright that is automatically owned by the producer. Again, there can be a work for hire agreement, but more commonly there will be a license agreement where certain terms are defined. For example, how long the production can be used for, how many copies can be made, whether any royalty is due to the publisher etc.

Audio Book Publishers

Just as the music industry has publishers, the audio book industry has publishers that produce and sell audio books. This industry is still relatively new, however, audio book publishers continue to work on an historic business model. This model carefully controls all aspects of copyright based on the publisher taking a royalty on every sale they make, as well as there being an initial production fee to record the book. It is also worth mentioning that some publishers restrict the countries the audiobook can be sold in.

A Fresh Approach

Media Music Now is not a publisher, but is a producer of audio books. Our philosophy is to charge a fee based on the initial work involved in recording and producing the book. We provide the client with a license that allows them to sell copies in any country they choose and on any format. We also factor in a threshold of sales before we expect any royalties.

Most of our clients are authors, small book publishers and small businesses. To make this service accessible, we charge a reasonable one-time fee for the audio book recording and production with a generous royalty term that only kicks in after a high volume of sales. This prevents any ownership / revenue disputes from any party involved should the audio book become a huge success. We expect the client to profit from selling a few thousand units each month, however, should we produce an audiobook that becomes a massive hit, we would expect to receive a fair share from royalties.

Can you imagine landing the job of turning Harry Potter into audio books!? Well, it has already been done, and with the book version reported to sell over 4 million copies, the audio book deal must have been lucrative.

Conclusion

There are numerous payment models for this type of product so my advice is this. Understand the aspects covered here and expect to see them detailed in any quote you receive. If the information is not clear about any limitations, it is not good enough to assume there are none. When your audio book starts selling in the millions this is usually the time that copyright owners start to think about money. Sad, but true!

Make sure all terms of the audio book production are discussed and document it before the project starts. This will avoid any unexpected surprises in the future.

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If you have any questions or wish to enquire about recording and producing audio books, please fee free to contact us or leave a comment / question below. Also, more information can be found on our website under audio book production.

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With many things in life, you kind of know what price you need to pay for things, for example… a sandwich, a new TV, a new car etc. The competitive market and laws of supply and demand make this information easy to find for many types of products and services as there are usually many companies offering the same or similar product.

With voice talent, the price varies considerably as each voice over has their own unique characteristics and industry experience. As a rule of thumb, you would pay much more to hire a known TV celebrity voice over than you would to use the services of a lesser known voice talent working in their home studio.

As the entry to market is now much lower for voice overs to kit out a home studio, there are more voice-overs looking to win pitches than ever before. Many voice over jobs are on a quote by quote basis and there seems to be little in the way of price lists for having a voice over recording made. Information on where to go and who to trust for prices is increasingly difficult to discern from web searches.

Like everything in life, you get what you pay for. You can get a quote from numerous reverse auction style sites, where you get hundreds of voiceovers pitching for the job… but at the end of the day, reliability and quality should be more important than price in my opinion.

Voice over quotes are often defined by various factors including whether they use there own studio or hire one, whether they are delivering a raw, dry or fully produced audio with music and sound effects or their position and experience in the voice over industry… for more information on this topic please see this previous post >

Also, are you asking per page, per word count or by the finished duration of the audio? All very difficult to gauge and difficult to quantify.

OK, here is my really simple secret to pricing voice over jobs.

Personally, I like to be able to calculate the cost from the number of words in the script. Granted, I am not a voice-over, but I do work with a team of professional voice overs and I like to work on a win, win, win basis.

• The client needs to get a fair price – Win
  
• The voice over needs to be paid fairly – Win
• The audio producer needs to receive fair pay for the editing and production – Win

Saying it will last about 20 minutes, or it is 10 pages is not very useful. Pages can have anything from 300-700 words on them depending on font size and margin size. And the duration of the audio can vary depending on the editing and the speed of the narrator. Also, the narration of a page can take anything from 3 – 7 minutes depending on the content.

I find the best way is to quote based on seeing the script and word count. This way you should always get the job done to the quality you expect and for the price you expected to pay. Likewise, the voice over and audio producer will be happy with their share of the income. Win, Win, Win!

With the exception of 30 second adverts and very small jobs, I think it is always a good idea to send your script or at least provide a word count for an estimated price.

This is based my experience, but perhaps you have had experience with this too? I look forward to any comments you wish to share.

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If you need any help with a voice over job, please feel free to have a look at our voice over section or contact us directly.

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Nowadays, the thought of editing in this way is alien to most people, however, this was the way it had to be done at one time. Imagine the amount of time it must have taken to edit or remix a song.

The process involved the audio engineer physically locating the point where a cut was required, before precisely cutting out that section of audio with a razor blade and cutting block. It was then rearranged and stuck back together using splicing tape (posh sticky tape). There was no cut and paste and no undo function.

This video illustrates it very well. At the start, you can see the splices, however, you can only appreciate the true art of this when the tape is played at normal speed. Enjoy

Have you ever edited tape?

The Splicing Process

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Terminology and explanations vary on the web, however, we have produced many audio productions with voice overs and this article includes the terminology we use.

Prices

I am not going to cover prices in too much detail, but what I will tell you is that there is a bewildering array of different rates charged by voice overs. These can depend on: -

• Industry experience
• Whether they have to hire a studio
• The scope and usage of the final audio
• The amount of editing involved
• Whether any audio production is involved
• Whether they have a full diary

The best way to think about this is to come up with a budget and then approach the voice over with the budget you have. They will soon let you know if it is too low. The other option is to get a completed script to them and request a quote.

Dry File

Typically most voice-overs will deliver a dry file. This is an audio file that has been recorded and had a small amount of editing done to it. For example, it may have been cut up into several smaller files.

It is also usual for voice overs to remove any prominent pops, clicks, breaths and saliva noises. These are sounds made in normal speech, but become much more noticeable when recorded using a sensitive professional microphone. This is known as de-breathed.

The dry voice file is ready for processing with your favourite effects or can be normalised and used as it is for most productions. Normalising is an automated process in audio editing software that makes the audio file as loud as it possibly can be without distorting it.

Raw File

A raw file is completely unedited; the voice over leaves in all of the breaths, pops, clicks etc. This type of file would need cleaning up in an editing program, usually by an audio producer. It can be carried out with free audio software and a little patience, although, it is a professional skill and best results are achieved with purchased audio editing software.

Fully Produced File

A fully produced file is one that has been de-breathed and has had various equalisation and audio effects / processes applied to make it clear and loud. This is basically the finished item and sounds polished and professional. At this stage, you can also include music and sound effects to make it sound really polished.

Again, you could potentially do this yourself, but it is a professional skill that takes time to perfect and develop. Editing out all of the breaths is more of a mechanical process and easier to learn, whereas audio production is a skill of judgement, being sonically aware of the overall sound of a piece, how it sits in the mix, how it sounds psychoacoustically, whether the applied effect is fatiguing the listeners ears etc. There is an art to getting a  quality production… many years of learning and experience.

If you are hiring a voice-over for a professional project, I would strongly suggest getting a quote for a fully produced job rather than a raw or dry file. Always make sure you ask the voice over or voiceover company whether the quoted price is for a raw file, de-breathed dry file or fully edited and produced audio file as it can make a lot of difference to the price.

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Who’s Dr. Goodvibe?… Well, it is not a person, but the name of the track for today’s royalty free music review. It has a cool jazz vibe with a smooth lounge feel and laid back attitude. There is also an air of mystery and intrigue about it, but with a sense of humour.

Personally, it reminds me of the Pink Panther theme. I get a strong image of it being used as a soundtrack to a 1950’s or 60’s detective theme, possibly with a comic character in it, similar to Inspector Clouseau in ‘The Pink Panther’.

A scene set in a smoky jazz club during an investigation into the club owner’s criminal activities or tailing a suspect undetected in the shadows of the big city streets.

These are just the images that this track conjures for me, but if your audio-visual production requires a hip, laidback and cool jazz background, then this distinctive jazz sound could be the perfect choice for your project.

Dr. Goodvibe is a playful yet smooth jazz soundtrack available to license from our royalty free jazz music section.

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An inspiring, gentle and magical track is the subject of today’s royalty free music review. The track is called Nature, a classical contemporary orchestral piece with its symphonic sound and cinematic feel.

Perfect for a film score soundtrack, depicting a sense of adventure, wide open spaces, the start of a new day and a new beginning.

Perhaps a wholesome Disney adventure set in the scenic outdoors, fields and mountain ranges.

Another image that comes to mind is wildlife and the natural world, for example, I could picture this piece in a film or TV nature documentary observing plants and animals in their natural habitat, such as the BBC’s ‘Life’ series.

Whatever the production, cinematic film score, outdoor adventure or television nature series, this track is suitable for themes of wonderment, excitement and exploration.

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Well, with the help of one of our voice-overs, Anthony Richardson (www.overvoice.co.uk) who will narrate and I can’t leave out Lee Pritchard, who will be putting his expert audio editing and production skills to good use – it’s a team effort

I must thank another voice over artist Lynsey Frost for doing the podcast idents in the style of radio imaging, which you will hear at the start of each podcast. Also, big thanks to composer Craig Brown for creating our custom ident heard at the end of every review.

This does mean though that it may be the middle of next week before a new review is available, just while we rework the old ones and publish those and then I’ll be ready for more.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now, but, I’ll be back soon.

Adam

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For example, I have often heard in the street and on public transport, kids with their crazy mobile ringtones or playing music mp3’s on speaker (guess I am sounding old here) and have often thought, I wonder what copyright law would say about this? Is that not defined as a performance? Is a royalty due? Will PRO’s start happy slapping teenagers with annual PRO licenses? Surely not. That would be madness! Or would it?

It seems that ASCAP want to start charging mobile phone service providers for this usage. Of course, charging mobile phone users would be unacceptable, so they will charge them indirectly through the providers. Hmm… Do you get a discount if you use the silent mode? Also, what about the people that just want their phones to ring and not play mp3’s? Can they buy a cheaper alternative version?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for composers being paid fairly for their music usage, but even if ASCAP did charge the mobile phone service providers, how many independent composers would benefit? Call me cynical, but I suspect that the mainstream artists and industry would be the benefactors.

I mean, when is copyright law going to be re-worked with some common sense? Is this a music tax aimed at supplementing the mainstream industries income at a time when music sales are falling or is it a genuine attempt at collecting income for composers?

It is interesting that we have all become conditioned to expect confusing rules around music use and have come to expect it, but the fact is music use in physical and digital media application is about to explode in the next 10 years. Can we seriously keep implementing performance royalties on everything?

To me, some of these ideas are as crazy as if somebody introduced a compulsory royalty payment for looking at images or art in public… imagine the complications and frustrations… I think it is already happening with music.

What next? Royalties for whistling in the street? Oh, and if playing a CD in your car, please keep your windows closed to avoid copyright infringement.

Read the article that set me off
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/07/02

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Although many people have heard the term podcast, it is still not widely understood how it can be beneficial to businesses. The points in this article should help explain why you may want to consider creating a podcast and how you can make it worthwhile for your listeners and your company.

1. What is a podcast and what can it be used for?

Quite simply a podcast is an audio file that can be downloaded and listened to on a PC, on the web, mp3 player or burnt to CD. They are typically produced as a series, but could also be produced as a one-off for promotions, staff training, newsletters, information articles and more. There is no fixed rule here and a little imagination and originality can help you stand out from the crowd. Podcasts usually last from 5-15 minutes but can be longer.

2. How do you create one?

Creating a professional sounding podcast requires recording equipment, a suitable venue, podcast recording experience and audio editing skills. As this is going to represent your business, it is a good idea to invest in professional services. Location podcast recording can be employed at your offices, clients offices, company trade shows and events. Adding sound effects, music and even background nature sounds can create variety and added interest for the listener.

3. What should your podcast be about?

Your podcast content is dependent on your target market and the information you wish to deliver. Delivering training to staff is completely different to a podcast aimed at clients or potential customers. What is it that your clients need to know? Are there regular changes to your industry? What news would be relevant to them? If you already have a regular newsletter, delivering the information in audio format can provide added value to your audience. This is a large topic on its own and the content of each company’s podcast will vary. However, the key is to provide value that is free to your target market and the content should not be too sales orientated. Another idea is to turn your company articles into audio podcasts using the services of a professional voice over.

4. Who should perform in your podcast?

From experience, I think that the best podcasts are conversational between the interviewer and interviewee. It is best to make a bullet point list of information you want to cover and not to rehearse it too much as this can make the delivery seem a little staged and forced; a literal turn off for listeners. If you really can not face being the voice of your podcast, a good alternative is to hire a professional voice-over, but you will need to provide a good script. A well recorded and edited podcast combined with music and even sound effects can sound very polished and reinforce your company’s brand and reputation.

5. ROI (Return On Investment)

As your podcast grows in popularity, there are a number of ways to monetise them, however, your initial aim should be to include a call to action and monitor the ROI. A quick example would be to include a phone number and discount code, or a special web page where your listener can get a free report. Whatever the call to action is, there should be an effective monitoring system in place.

6. Maximising your podcasts reach

Once you have a great sounding podcast, the next step is marketing it. Implementing a good marketing plan for your podcast is imperative to its success. Just putting it on your website is not going to do the trick. In brief, using mailing lists, RSS, social networking / media tools are vital elements of the mix. Creating an audio-visual version of your podcast (a vodcast) using video software can expose your content to a whole new audience via video sharing sites like YouTube, Viddler, Blip, Vimeo.

There is much more to podcasting for business than covered here, but hopefully, this has given you some ideas and thoughts about creating a company podcast to enhance your brand, retain customers and attract new ones via the web.

About the Author

Lee Pritchard is a professional podcast producer and sound engineer and runs Media Music Now, a web based business that provides royalty free music, on hold messages, voice-overs, audio editing and location podcast recording services. For further information Lee can be contacted through www.mediamusicnow.co.uk

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Time for an upbeat, energetic and funky soundtrack for today’s royalty free music review. The track is ‘Born To Be Big‘, an electronic, rhythmic and lively theme suitable for television, commercials, comedy or even an informal corporate video or presentation with an element of fun to it.

Personally, I think it has a somewhat retro sound to it, very 70’s funk, groovy, young, hip and carefree, but with a contemporary feel. Retro is back after all. Makes me think of the iTunes / iPod adverts, the psychedelic colours, energetic dancing, just having a good time. It could even be used for a theme tune to a teen sitcom with it’s cool, bright and youthful vibrancy.

In actual fact, this groovy tune with its funky beats and playful sounds could be used for any number of media productions that needs the fun factor adding to it.

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A lot of people may not be aware that there is no standard royalty free music licensing agreement in the music industry. Although similar, they all vary. Yes, I know it is hard to believe… and, it is a fact that can often lead to confusion and misinterpretation. Early license agreements excluded the performance royalty, which has continued to be the case to this day.

Why exclude the Performance Royalty?

For a long time, Performance Royalty Organisations (PRO’s) were doing a good job of collecting royalties for broadcasts on TV and Radio (PRO’s do also collect for performance in public venues and major cinematic release, but just for the purpose of this post, I have kept it to TV and Radio for simplicity). As such, it was beneficial to just include the synchronisation royalty in the license agreement and let the performance royalties be collected by external PRO’s.

This was because Radio and TV broadcasters (only 4 TV channels in the UK during the 80’s) were required to pay an annual license to the local PRO. They were also required to document music usage using cue sheets, which would be used to divide the performance royalties between all registered composers.

The composer / music library received an upfront payment through the royalty free music license and the composer would potentially receive an additional performance royalty from music used on TV and Radio.

This was and still is PRS in the UK. USA has three PRO’s: BMI, ASCAP and SESAC and all other countries have at least one.

A Sign of the Times

Direct licensing the synchronisation royalty and allowing PRO’s to collect the performance royalty was working rather well, however, things would not remain the same. Along came VHS, companies started using royalty free music for training and sales orientated corporate videos. This opened up an opportunity for royalty free music sellers to include a mechanical royalty in their license agreement. With both synchronisation and a defined number of mechanical duplications, the royalty free music model gained a whole new market. But, who pays the performance royalty? I hear you ask. Well, officially the company playing the corporate video in the work place.

Look out for the nineties!

So, the royalty free music model evolved in the 80’s to incorporate new markets. Initially, it catered to TV / radio producers, then corporate video production, and then came the 90’s, which saw a huge increase in Internet use. By the 00’s, there were more potential uses of royalty free music than ever before in history.

In the last 20 years or so, thousands of digital and web TV / radio stations have emerged and with the popularity of the web, many potential royalty free music uses now exist, which include: -

• Websites that are media rich with video and music
• Background music in software applications
• Computer games
• On hold systems with mp3 capabilities
• Corporate video
• DVD, CD Roms
• Low budget films
• Student films
• YouTube videos
• Podcasting
• Videocasts
• mp3 ringtones
• Web TV
• Online Radio
• Online advertising

With all these new media uses, the Internet created more opportunities for composers and royalty free music libraries, but at the same time, it helped to start the decline of mainstream music album sales through growing piracy and file sharing.

At one time, PRO’s just had to collect and monitor from a relatively few TV and Radio stations, but with the growth and development of the Internet and the amount of new media uses, they now face an ever growing user base and music use on a global scale. Add to this, copyright infringement of mainstream music is also a big issue that increases the workload of PRO’s.

So, now I have told you all that… this is where the confusion kicks in…

Why So Misunderstood?

Most of the articles and free information on the Internet about royalty free music is brief and tries to explain the subject as simply as possible, missing out many of the potentially confusing aspects. This is usually marketing copy or as I have seen, keyword article fodder that kick out over simplified explanations. Often these are blatantly incorrect.

The fact is, all royalty free music agreements differ when you examine the small print and there is no industry standard agreement. The term itself stuck because it is good for marketing.

It is fair to say all of the agreements include the right to synchronise the music with video, images or voice over. Nowadays, nearly all licenses offer you the option of creating duplications of your product including the music, but there is usually a pre-defined upper limit in the agreement small print. I have seen numbers of 10 to 5000 in recent months. Whatever the number is, you have to pay more if you exceed this limit.

The majority of royalty free music agreements exclude the performance royalty for TV and radio use and are vague about performance aspects for other uses. So, are performance royalties included in royalty free music or not? Unfortunately, this is a massive grey area and is not a simple yes or no answer.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this is not a marketing document, it is an in-depth study of royalty free music licensing and understanding it. By the end, you will have a good understanding of how royalty free music works helping you make informed decisions when licensing music.

Next time, I will explain about why the performance element is such a grey area.

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For today’s royalty free music review, I have decided to make it more hard hitting and action packed.

The genre I immediately thought of was our royalty free hard rock music; a great collection of powerful, energising and adrenaline driven rock tracks.

With a choice of so many great music productions, I eventually decided on a new royalty free music track added just this week. It’s called ‘Beat The Heat‘ and it packs one heck of a punch.

This edgy, heavy metal hard rock theme is perfect for high-octane extreme sports or fast and furious action sequences. The intense rush of adrenaline a person experiences from an extreme sport such as BASE Jumping, skydiving, white water rafting; you can feel the tension in the air. Or an action film or stunt sequence that requires a high impact soundtrack that will have the audience on the edge of their seat.

Whatever your production, TV, Film, YouTube video, presentation, website background music, showreel etc. ‘Beat The Heat’ and other high energy hard rock themes can be licensed online from our high quality royalty free music library.

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Should anyone like to review one of our royalty free music tracks, please contact us for more information.

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Recently it was superseded by a new model that looks a little different and apparently has a number of extra features, more recording capacity and has a slightly higher quality recording with its built in microphones.

Now as much as I rave about my Zoom H4, I am very tempted by the new Zoom H4n.

At the time I bought my H4, a few people I knew commented on how impressed they were with the recordings it captured and were tempted to buy one. Well, if you are up for a solid state digital recorder that won’t break the bank, I imagine that it will be discounted in some places to make room for the new model. This could be the time to snap up a bargain… or even splash out on the new one… I am very tempted

My 2007 Review of the Zoom H4 Handy 4 Track Digital Audio Recorder

The Zoom H4n and other digital recorders can be purchased from Amazon

If you buy one, please let us know what you think by leaving a comment

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The subject of my royalty free music review this time is a bright, happy and inspiring track called ‘Rearview‘.  A popular track in our royalty free acoustic music library, ‘Rearview’ is perfect for TV, commercials, travel show etc.

Perhaps a travel programme showing idyllic beaches, crystal blue waters, relaxing with a cocktail by the pool or even one of these homes abroad television shows depicting a fresh start in a new home with new and exciting opportunities on the horizon. Or possibly, an American teen drama TV series, much in the same vain as ‘the OC’ or ‘Dawson’s Creek’.

Whatever the production, Rearview is light, contemporary and an inspirational acoustic guitar track with a sense of hope and longing.

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If you would like to comment, bookmark or retweet this, please feel free to do so. And if you would like to review a track yourself from our royalty free music library,  please contact us for more information.

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