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[xhunterko]

Hey guys!

I've got a few questions here. I've no real budget but I may be able to license some music. I also want to, and you heard nothing, okay? Try and maybe put the game up on Desura. So, that means I'd be possibly making sales, and would have to share those with the composer who did the music. I have no idea how to do that. Which is why I'm looking at a licensing option. So. Generally, how much would I expect to pay for original tracks in general? I have no idea.

Thanks for reading.

[MoritzPGKatz]

Hey,

How much you'll end up paying depends on an awful lot of factors.

As a remote contractor, I like to ask a lot of questions first to get a good idea of the scope of work.
One of the most important questions is if you need exclusive rights to the music. (i.e. it will not appear in other media)

Since you have no budget, this would be more of a partnership than a job for the composer.
So depending on the size of the team and the scope of work, a professional producer will either decline or ask for a rather high portion of revenue share.

It actually depends a lot on what you want to pay, too: How much the music is worth in your eyes.
And contrary to common belief, this does very often stand in direct relation to the quality of the music as well as the quality of communication and on-time delivery.

My advice would be to get some quotes from people who you think make good music that fits your game - and who are dependable.
Be warned: with no budget, you'll probably get a lot of declines.

Best of luck to you!

Cheers,
Moritz

[PythonBlue]

I'd generally agree with MoritzPGKatz. Emphasis on your not having a budget: as much as I myself would enjoy getting my music licensed, I won't know that I'll ever get paid if I'm not paid upfront.

[xhunterko]

Like I said, I don't have a real budget. I just might have enough to cover some licenses. But I don't know that if I don't have any idea of what I'd be expected to pay. I've seen $20 a song. I might be able to do that. But is that the usual rate? I dunno.

[MoritzPGKatz]

I've seen $20 a song. I might be able to do that. But is that the usual rate? I dunno.

Let's give this some thought.

You're talking about original music, so let's say someone writes 10 tracks for your game.
They're exclusively licensed to you and tailored to your needs. The composer gets 200 bucks.
Now how many jobs like this could anyone do in a month? And do you think anyone could make a living with this payment model? Not even considering the composer's education or running costs for studio rent, equipment, maybe hiring instrumentalists, buying licenses to sample instruments...

Wherever you saw this 20 USD offer, it'll be neither original nor exclusive music.
Or maybe it's a start-up 'professional' doing some serious price dumping, happily digging his own grave.

Bottom line:
Get a hobbyist to write music for you. Someone who's doing it just for kicks - if that's what you're doing too with your game dev.

If you're aiming for commercial success, you'd better have a budget or a really good idea and some progress to show or someone who's sharing your vision without any compromise. Preferably, all of that!

Cheers,
Moritz

[xhunterko]

Well. I saw that somewhere from a link here and I wasn't sure if that was realistic or not. I'm just trying to figure out what is. And what would I actually expect to pay from someone here on the forums or elsewhere.

[Calum Bowen]

JUST SAW MORITZ'S POST - pretty much a more succinct way of saying this but after re-reading my comment i thought there was some useful extra info so i might as well post it - forgive me for being a little repetitive:

as moritz stated exclusivity is the most important factor in how much it's going to cost.

There's no usual rate really... some people play it by what they can afford to do. It depends if they're relying on this for income. If you think about it in terms of an hourly pay rate - if you were to pay $20 for one song (lets say 2 minutes) it depends on how long someone takes to make a 2 minute song. I'd say just for me, very generally, it would take me about 8-10 hours... it really depends on the kind of track... but if its fairly complex - a full day of sequencing/writing and another small session of mixing would definitely clock in a time around 8-10 hours. So if we say 8 hours for 2 mins of music you're looking at $2.50 an hour which is a god awful rate of pay.

If you wanted to license non-exclusively then it'd take the pain away a little since they may have to do the work once and gain multiple times - even if it is only a small amount each time.

But really it's dependant on each person's situation but $20 per track is way way under what i'd call "usual".

If i were to follow the model i said before i'd probably scale it up to at least $150 per track, that way i'm earning about $15 an hour which is still not great pay at all but slightly more realistic considering one's working hours (btw, this is not me giving you a quote for my work - more a more realistic bottom-line price to shoot for, be prepared to increase it if you have to). I hear a lot of pros talk about thousands per minute so it's really a confusing matter. Generally though musicians get severely underpaid and i guess it's cos a lot of people will work for free and so devs expect others to work for free (OK DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO GET INTO THAT CONVO AS IT'S BEEN WAAAAY COVERED ON A LOT OF FORUMS). Anyway... the more you pay, the more you get and at $20 for track you're still shooting pretty low... not a huge difference from working for free in my opinion.

I've babbled for long enough now. Hope this is helpful in some way.

[xhunterko]

All righty. That's exactly what I was looking for but didn't know either how to ask or how to put it I guess. One other thing though. The last composer I worked with I gave him the full rights to his music. Does that help composers as well?

[Calum Bowen]

I think what that means is that he owns the music but is exclusively licensing it to you. this means he cannot use it commercially on any other project but he can sell the soundtrack (if you owned the rights, you could sell the soundtrack i believe). Also if you own the rights then you can use that music whenever and wherever you like... actually i

that may be right, that may be wrong. I think i'm a little confused on the matter so i'll let someone more knowledgable fill in. 

[MoritzPGKatz]

The last composer I worked with I gave him the full rights to his music. Does that help composers as well?

This confuses me a bit too.

Who gave whom rights? You can't give the composer rights to his own music - he can retain some when licensing the music to your game.

[xhunterko]

It was a I can use the music for my game and he can use the music for whatever thing.

[xhunterko]

I'm not exactly still sure what I want to do. But I may end up publishing without a soundtrack, and then see if I can budget one afterward from any sales. That's probably the best option in my case. Thanks a lot for the help guys! I appreciate it!