No More Excuses...Please Help A Wannabe Songwriter

[wagtunes]

I just applied to Music Vine and it's 12 weeks to find out if I'm approved or not.

Are all the sites like this? If so, that basically means I have to wait until 2020 to actually start submitting music.

Well, I'm a little frustrated out of the gate but I'm not going to let this get me down. However long it takes, that's how long it takes.

You lost me. 12 weeks is November so you can start making tracks now and just submit them then. Still a few months but still 2019. Or did I miss something?

The point is, any tracks I make between now and then, should I be rejected by the site, end up just sitting on my hard drive until I find a site that does approve me.

I thought the process was immediate acceptance to the site and then you write the tracks and hope the individual tracks get approved. At least that's how it worked with Audio Jungle. I don't understand this whole 3 month wait just to find out if the site will even give me a chance to submit material to them.

Anyway, I wrote to them with some questions and they say they'll respond to my inquiry in 24 hours, which I find kind of ironic that they can respond to my inquiry in a day but can't tell me if they'll accept me to the site until November.

Makes no sense to me,

Hopefully, not every site is like this so I'm going to apply to other sites as well. Not waiting for Music Vine to make up its mind as to whether or not they'll even give me a chance.

[perfumer]

Well, maybe that's for a reason - to filter out the spammers and Napoleons before having to listen to their 'music'.

Wags, you're not visible enough. You should get out more, get to meet people, talk to them, give them your work hand-to-hand.
Ever watched The King of Comedy? That's the type of self-promotion - and attitude - that gets things done.

[BertKoor]

it's 12 weeks to find out if I'm approved or not.

That's not what I read :

2. How To Apply
[...] you can usually expect to receive a full response from a member of the Music Vine team after eight weeks.

What I imagine the process could be is that the acceptance committee meets once a month to talk about new artists. It's probably not the full-time job of committee members, but something they do aside. They should be given some time to allow them to prepare, allow them a month as well. So total elapsed time from filing the form until approval (or rejection) tallies up to 8 weeks.

[wagtunes]

Well, maybe that's for a reason - to filter out the spammers and Napoleons before having to listen to their 'music'.

Wags, you're not visible enough. You should get out more, get to meet people, talk to them, give them your work hand-to-hand.
Ever watched The King of Comedy? That's the type of self-promotion - and attitude - that gets things done.

So then what do they base their determination as to whether or not they accept somebody to even give them a chance? How do they know I'm a spammer just from filling out an application? What are they psychic? I was completely honest in the application that I've never done library music before and this was a new venture for me. If they ultimately don't accept me because I have no experience, then we're back to the old catch 22. How can I get experience if nobody will give me the chance to GET experience?

Anyway, I'm not waiting 3 months for them to get back to me. I'm going to apply to other sites and if another site accepts me, well, it's Music Vine's loss.

I don't have time for this red tape bull shit.

[wagtunes]

it's 12 weeks to find out if I'm approved or not.

That's not what I read :

2. How To Apply
[...] you can usually expect to receive a full response from a member of the Music Vine team after eight weeks.

What I imagine the process could be is that the acceptance committee meets once a month to talk about new artists. It's probably not the full-time job of committee members, but something they do aside. They should be given some time to allow them to prepare, allow them a month as well. So total elapsed time from filing the form until approval (or rejection) tallies up to 8 weeks.

My page says 12 weeks so I don't know what to tell you.

[BertKoor]

Their page (not mine or yours) clearly says eight. Look again. Give me a link to a page that says twelve and I'll swallow my words, no problem.

Having read the form, it's mostly administrative details. I think the main acceptance criterium for them is the portfolio you provide: your best 5 tracks that would fit in their catalogue.

I saw you prepared a playlist for MusicVine on SoundCloud. You want us to give some feedback on that to improve your chances? It's never too late to brush things up a bit...

NB: what about your perceived sloppy production on their Cinematic tracks (bottom of prev page) or have you got no time for that as well?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

You're welcome to go to musicvine.com and listen to the first 4 or 5 cinematic tracks to hear what I'm hearing.

Did just that.... https://musicvine.com/browse/style/cinematic
No idea whether the order gets shuffled on revisits.

#1: Brothers - Clemens Ruh. Piano solo? Sounds more like harp with the pluck noises in the 10-14k region. Bit dark indeed, but suits the mood.
#2: Wild and Free - MonoBox. Acoustic guitar like it should sound. Well balanced, nothing wrong.
#3: Known - Sky Gienger. Bit dark mood, but lots of highs. Leaves enough room for a voice-over. Rather well-balanced I'd say.
#4: Firelight - Hemlock. Nothing wrong with that.
#5: Chiaroscuro - Simon Folwar. Also a bit dark (harp again) but enough compensation in the highs with violins and percussion (snare-like sound)

So my verdict is there's a tendency for somewhat dark moods, harp sounds have emphasys on the low-mids indeed, but production quality is rather good overall.

Can you give a specific example of a track which you think is not well-produced in your opinion?

I listened and enjoyed some of that stuff. Definitely gave me a feeling that material like that might be in my wheelhouse. `Maybe one day

Anyway, I concur with your thoughts. It does tend to sound on the darker side, but overall I like the sound. Moreover, the tracks are well-balanced against each other. I'm guessing that there is some effort being made to master all of these within certain guidelines.

Might be a good idea for the op to get use a track-referencing plugin. No point re-inventing the wheel. Both Melda and Plugin Alliance have these in their catalogues

[wagtunes]

Their page (not mine or yours) clearly says eight. Look again. Give me a link to a page that says twelve and I'll swallow my words, no problem.

Having read the form, it's mostly administrative details. I think the main acceptance criterium for them is the portfolio you provide: your best 5 tracks that would fit in their catalogue.

I saw you prepared a playlist for MusicVine on SoundCloud. You want us to give some feedback on that to improve your chances? It's never too late to brush things up a bit...

NB: what about your perceived sloppy production on their Cinematic tracks (bottom of prev page) or have you got no time for that as well?

First of all, I told them in my application that I have no experience doing production music and have no production music tracks. So when they asked for my 5 best tracks, I gave them my 5 best tracks. I can't do better than that. If they come back and tell me these are production music tracks, that they're pop tracks, I can't do anything about that. This is what I currently have in my catalog. Again, the catch 22 thing. There is nothing I can do about that. I am hoping that they will judge my tracks on the quality of the music and production and not on whether it fits production music criteria. If not, oh well. Like I said, nothing I can do about that.

As for the "muddy" track, it does appear that they shuffle things around so I have no idea where that track is. But believe me, I'd love nothing more at this point than to have you eat your words because I'm sick and tired of people basically calling me a liar. It was a solo piano track that had tons of low mid. Any deaf person could hear it, it was so bad. So maybe their production criteria, at least as far as EQ goes, isn't the same as for making a pop record where everything has to fit in the mix. It's the only explanation I can come up with. In fact, the majority of the tracks there aren't as good, production wise, as most of the stuff posted here in Music Cafe. Seriously, half the people here could have careers doing production music based on what I heard there.

Anyway, let me go find the page where it says 12 weeks so you can at least eat THOSE words.

[wagtunes]

Okay, I figured it out. Go and fill out an application. After you submit it, you'll get a message saying it will take 12 weeks for them to get back to you. Had I seen that BEFORE submitting, I wouldn't have bothered.

If you don't believe me, go and fill out the application and do a screen print of the acknowledgement page. You'll see it says 12 weeks to respond.

[wagtunes]

You're welcome to go to musicvine.com and listen to the first 4 or 5 cinematic tracks to hear what I'm hearing.

Did just that.... https://musicvine.com/browse/style/cinematic
No idea whether the order gets shuffled on revisits.

#1: Brothers - Clemens Ruh. Piano solo? Sounds more like harp with the pluck noises in the 10-14k region. Bit dark indeed, but suits the mood.
#2: Wild and Free - MonoBox. Acoustic guitar like it should sound. Well balanced, nothing wrong.
#3: Known - Sky Gienger. Bit dark mood, but lots of highs. Leaves enough room for a voice-over. Rather well-balanced I'd say.
#4: Firelight - Hemlock. Nothing wrong with that.
#5: Chiaroscuro - Simon Folwar. Also a bit dark (harp again) but enough compensation in the highs with violins and percussion (snare-like sound)

So my verdict is there's a tendency for somewhat dark moods, harp sounds have emphasys on the low-mids indeed, but production quality is rather good overall.

Can you give a specific example of a track which you think is not well-produced in your opinion?

I listened and enjoyed some of that stuff. Definitely gave me a feeling that material like that might be in my wheelhouse. `Maybe one day

Anyway, I concur with your thoughts. It does tend to sound on the darker side, but overall I like the sound. Moreover, the tracks are well-balanced against each other. I'm guessing that there is some effort being made to master all of these within certain guidelines.

Might be a good idea for the op to get use a track-referencing plugin. No point re-inventing the wheel. Both Melda and Plugin Alliance have these in their catalogues

Thank you for confirming what I said.

Now, what is a track referencing plugin and what does it do?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

You're welcome to go to musicvine.com and listen to the first 4 or 5 cinematic tracks to hear what I'm hearing.

Did just that.... https://musicvine.com/browse/style/cinematic
No idea whether the order gets shuffled on revisits.

#1: Brothers - Clemens Ruh. Piano solo? Sounds more like harp with the pluck noises in the 10-14k region. Bit dark indeed, but suits the mood.
#2: Wild and Free - MonoBox. Acoustic guitar like it should sound. Well balanced, nothing wrong.
#3: Known - Sky Gienger. Bit dark mood, but lots of highs. Leaves enough room for a voice-over. Rather well-balanced I'd say.
#4: Firelight - Hemlock. Nothing wrong with that.
#5: Chiaroscuro - Simon Folwar. Also a bit dark (harp again) but enough compensation in the highs with violins and percussion (snare-like sound)

So my verdict is there's a tendency for somewhat dark moods, harp sounds have emphasys on the low-mids indeed, but production quality is rather good overall.

Can you give a specific example of a track which you think is not well-produced in your opinion?

I listened and enjoyed some of that stuff. Definitely gave me a feeling that material like that might be in my wheelhouse. `Maybe one day

Anyway, I concur with your thoughts. It does tend to sound on the darker side, but overall I like the sound. Moreover, the tracks are well-balanced against each other. I'm guessing that there is some effort being made to master all of these within certain guidelines.

Might be a good idea for the op to get use a track-referencing plugin. No point re-inventing the wheel. Both Melda and Plugin Alliance have these in their catalogues

Thank you for confirming what I said.

Now, what is a track referencing plugin and what does it do?

Not sure either of us confirmed what you said. You see "muddy", but I (We) see "dark". Piano is definitely one element where "cinematic" equates to slightly dulled e.g Like looking through a cloudy window. Other elements, orchestration etc can be used to hint at other frequencies.

I'd definitely mix some of these a bit brighter, unless I was being asked not to.

Either way, If you've managed to get everything else right, then they're likely not going to dismiss it when all they need to do is have you master it with slightly less treble

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... ricab.html

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MCompare

[BertKoor]

OK, relax a bit. Seems there's no conflicting info if you combine all the facts.

• "How it works" page says after eight weeks
• Confirmation email says before twelve weeks

Combined: it's between 8 and 12 weeks. None of us were lying!

I gave them my 5 best tracks. [...] I can't do anything about that. This is what I currently have in my catalog.

There's one song in which the vocals are a bit too far in the back. There's one song that benefits from some reverb on the snare. There's one song that sounds like ripped from a cassette tape you found as spaghetti at the freeway (maybe state in description it's an effect on purpose.) The (imho) best sounding track is in the last halve of the list instead of the first halve.

Lots of things you actually can do. Ask us what we think are your best tracks. You can revive an old project and polish it up a bit, since you have learned a lot lately. Why the hurry? It's not like they will listen to the playlist today only. More likely that will happen only in 4 to 6 weeks.

If they come back and tell me [...]

If this, if that... That sounds like excuses, you're already sort-of assuming you will be rejected. Fact is: you don't know for the coming 8 to 12 weeks

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Guy Michelmore (ThinkSpace Education) is currently running a ‘Working Composers’ course. On discount at the moment.

[wagtunes]

This is the email response I received from them.

Hey Steven,
Thanks a lot for getting in touch about this and for your interest in becoming an artist with Music Vine!

I really do appreciate your feedback on this - I've passed your comments onto our senior management team for them to consider. As I'm sure you'll appreciate, while we would certainly like to be able to respond to artist applications sooner, we do receive a very high number of applications every day and our Review Team always ensures to listen to each and every application we receive. Although the process can take up to 12 weeks, it can sometimes be sooner.

Thanks again and I do hope you enjoy the rest of your day,
Nathan

Okay, now, as far as what my "best" tracks are, that's all going to come down to a matter of taste. If I were to come here to get opinions, nothing would have ever been submitted to Music Vine because everybody would have different opinions. So I went with my own judgment.

Aside from that, I think it's too late now anyway as I've already submitted my application so what's done is done.

If for future site submissions people want to tell me what my "best" tracks are, I'll certainly be open to listening. I'm too close to this stuff to be able to be objective about it. That much I admit.

Of course I don't expect anybody to listen to hundreds of my tracks so I'm not sure a "fair" determination of what my best stuff is will be possible anyway.

Hey, you know what? I'm doing the best I can. This is all new for me. If I had a road map and knew exactly what to do and how to do it, I'd use it. I don't. So I'm doing my best.

At least they wrote back to me. It's a start.

[wagtunes]

Oh, and just for the record. I'm not making excuses. It's called hedging my bets. If it can be 12 weeks to find out from one site if I'm accepted, I'm not waiting around for them. I'll submit to other sites in the meantime. If I'm accepted somewhere else, well, Music Vine loses out. The reason is because I'm going exclusive. It pays more. So I'm looking out for myself, that's all.

If Music Vine wants me, they better decide fast.