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Cost of Original Music for non-broadcast project
Hi folks. I was recently asked to produce 6 10 minute soundtracks for a virtual reality wellness space, but I have no idea what the going rate for original music is these days. The project is non-broadcast and they would have in perpetuity rights to the music, although I am not selling off ownership of the music. Music needs to be created to accommodate different physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs, so I don’t necessarily want to have to curate through an existing library. Can anyone tell me what the current value of 60 minutes of original music would be in this project?
Thanks much for your help!
Terri Fevang
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2 Replies
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Take a look at a few such projects on sounddogs, see what those artists charge. You’re probably not going to like what you find out, regarding price. There’s a whole lot of competition, driving the pricing down in this field. And many people (me included) tend to just buy loop-based program like SonicFire pro and let it custom-build my tracks automatically, one price, one time, no rights issues, built to fit any length, ready in seconds, clients usually love them. There is still a place for more elegant and creative, bespoke, hands-on music creation, but it tends to be for bigger-budget work than I get to work on.
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Are you talking about composing original music from scratch or building a soundtrack from existing loops and elements? If the former, then there is no current rate. It’s whatever the composer can negotiate. 60 minutes is a lot and on par with an indie film score. In that scenario, with the composer retaining the rights, the cost can range from $2K – $50K. Meanwhile needledrop for non-broadcast might be as low as $50 per track (2-4 min).
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