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thelicenselab
The License Lab
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thelicenselab · 6 years ago
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The Sound Of Your Next Story
The phrase “The Sound Of Your Next Story” first came about when Daniel Holter, our founder and creative director, was being interviewed for an upcoming project. He was describing the many things that we have done through the years and who we are as we look to the future. Among all of what he said, at one point he ad-libbed “we want to be the sound of your next story.” The phrase struck a chord with us and we quickly adopted it as a sort of mantra around the office. But what does it mean?
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Whether you’re a filmmaker, music supervisor, media professional or advertising creative, you’re in the business of telling stories. You’re creating a world filled with images, light, and language, but it needs something else to bring it all together. Great music is the glue that unifies all the elements of a production into one cohesive message and story. Because of its unique ability to channel emotions in such a deep, powerful way, music can move a story forward, highlight an emotion, help turn a set of images into an emotionally compelling work of art.
But it has to be the right music.
Have you ever seen a movie clip with the music swapped out? Or worse, removing the music entirely? That changes everything. It can turn a thriller into a comedy, an exciting 80s montage into a dull grind, the previously iconic into the mundane.
Lackluster music can have a similar effect. A scene can fall flat on its face. The audience will not feel the impact and miss the point. It’s not because the images are boring or actors aren’t delivering great performances. We humans have a subconscious aversion to the inauthentic. Our inner selves can smell it, locate it and push it out, like white blood cells battling a virus.
Your musical choices can make or break your story. We’re here to help you with that.
Our music is handcrafted for the expressed purpose of supporting your story. The catalogs we present are meticulously curated to amplify just the right emotions. You won’t hear an endless stream of uninspired blues jams. You’re going to find passionate music that is crafted with the same care and dedication that any artist-level project receives.
We don’t have an endless stream of albums flooding your inbox every month. That’s quite intentional. To put it plainly, we’re picky as hell. There’s no filler, no padding. Simply consistent music that matches the level of craft and dedication you’ve poured into your own project.
We know you don’t have the time to weed through hundreds of thousands of tired old tracks to find your needle in the haystack. Our site is full of needles.
We’re well aware we’re not as massive as some of the industry’s corporate giants, but there are all kinds of music here that has yet to be found and put to use. We’re content with the fact that some of our most interesting and inspiring music sits undiscovered, yet to be licensed. We know that sooner or later the right supervisor or filmmaker will hear it and make it the sound of their next project.
You can find the perfect soundtrack for your story at The License Lab. And there’s a good chance it won’t sound like anything else.
We want to be… the sound of your next story.
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thelicenselab · 6 years ago
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Let’s Talk About The Library Music Film
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What exactly is library music?
Library music is generally defined as non-commercial music made specifically for use in film, television, or radio broadcasting. For over a century, studio musicians and arrangers around the world have been working on the crafting music that is specifically designed to accompany specific moods, atmospheres, or vibes. In need of the perfect funk instrumental for your 70s cop tv show? Looking for a bombastic introduction for your weekly football broadcast? Searching for that dramatic spare piano piece to underscore your sitcom lead getting their heart broken? Library music has been there for all of these situations and more.
Before the advent of the internet, library music existed solely in a physical form and was unavailable for commercial consumption. If you worked in the industry, you had access to volumes and volumes of LPs from legacy music publishers like KPM, Music De Wolfe, Bruton, and Chappell. Each album focused on a particular style, with individual track titles, track runtimes, and simple descriptions to help the editor or producer find the composition that best suited the mood they were looking to accompany.
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For example, on the KPM album entitled Electronic Music, next to the track “Electrodream” is a simple description of “light-flowing-dreamlike.” Doesn’t tell us much, but it says enough to perhaps pique the interest of the user.
For those working with limited resources, using library music recordings (or production music, as it is often called) was more budget-friendly than creating a custom score. And using recognizable or popular commercial music was—and continues to be—almost always a considerable expense. Library music proved to be a less costly alternative that didn’t mean a decrease in perceived production quality… as long as you picked the right music. In fact, many of the players and arrangers working on these recordings were just as musically gifted as their more well-known contemporaries and, in fact, played on those recognizable and popular commercial records. While thousands of library tracks found their way into lower-budget, lesser-known films and tv shows, a handful of compositions would become ubiquitous fixtures in the landscape of popular culture—like the themes for Monday Night Football and People’s Court.
Musicians incorporated groundbreaking technology of the time, employing wild effects pedals, analog synthesizers, and tape delays to aid in the evocation of a specific mood. And much like popular music of the era, library music was also a product of the times in which it was created.
Italian library mastermind Piero Umiliani was known for his incredibly bleak and serious creations, shaped by the political turmoil and upheaval that was inescapable in the early 70s. Whether if it was the specific tone of a tremolo guitar, the desolate decaying reverb of a snare drum hit or that perfectly dialed in setting on an ARP 2500, these records went above and beyond in their goal of providing their users with the perfect music for most any mood.
But of course, their intended use is only part of the story of library music. The advent of crate digging and sample culture gave new life to these recordings, many of which were going unused by the early 90s. For people who were already having their minds blown by the works of luminaries like David Axelrod and Galt MacDermot, the rediscovery of these records in dusty crates was nothing short of revelatory. Just when they thought they’d heard it all, here came a grip of records created by folks like Alan Parker, Keith Mansfield, and Barbara Moore, filled with funky drum breaks, quirky retro synth hooks, and impeccable string arrangements.
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The Library Music Film looks at these recordings and the people behind them, uncovering the stories behind some of the genres most beloved tracks and albums. One of Mansfield’s most beloved tracks, “Funky Fanfare,” was scribbled on the back of a pack of cigarettes en route to that day’s session. That perfectly blown out guitar tone on Dave Richmond’s “Confunktion” was simply the sound of a dying battery inside a Foxx Tone Machine. Regardless of how happenstance or improvisational these tracks might have begun, the results were often magical and have proven to be timeless.
The scarcity of these recordings coupled with their truly unique sounds has established a rabid cult following for these works. Creative sample flips by producers like Cut Chemist, Da Beatminerz and Prince Paul turned a whole new generation on to the genius of library music, and what began as simply wanting to hear the source material eventually grew into a simple realization—these records were just good. Really good. Like the best production music, this reinterpreted work was intended for storytelling in the context of an album but can also stand on its own.
In 2019, production library music continues to exist as it was originally intended, with modern day composers like Adrian Younge using it prominently as he scores films. It’s become the focus of many a DJ night, with crate diggers pooling together their collections of these rare gems to share with anyone who’s willing to listen, such as our friends at Rendezvous in LA. It also continues to be created, with musicians like library music expert Shawn Lee (below, co-producer and host of The Library Music Film) continuing to keep the style and sound of classic library music alive. And then, of course, there’s all of us here in The License Lab extended family.
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Much like the pioneers of library music featured in this documentary, we aim to take artistic risks with our catalogs, and we’re focused on partnering with composers and musicians who emphasize passion in their playing over mere technique.
Analog Champion for example… with albums like Yacht Rock, Gypsy Folk, and Soul Organ, each was created using vintage recording gear and throwback studio techniques utilizing live musicians playing together to fully capture the spirit of these diverse genres from yesteryear.
Just as library music fans dig through crates filled with aged vinyl searching for that diamond in the rough, we intend to keep making all manner of handcrafted sonic inspiration for the next generation of independent filmmakers, storytellers, advertising professionals, and visual creatives. We look to honor the legacy of those who came before us as we help to create the sound of your next story.
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thelicenselab · 7 years ago
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“I think the world is better served if you create music that you’re passionate about. I think clients will be able to tell if what you’re creating is something that’s genuine.”
Our Director of Music & Ideas (and company founder), Daniel Holter, was invited to be a guest on Matt Boudreau’s fantastic Working Class Audio podcast. We’re big fans of the show here at the Lab—it’s required listening for all our interns and studio assistants—so it’s fun to hear our worlds colliding and combining like this. Enjoy the episode, and be sure to check out Matt’s archive of great interviews!
(via WCA #179 with Daniel Holter » Working Class Audio)
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Happy Valentines Day! (Via Skunk Bear : NPR)
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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The arrangement and sax work here by Michael Brinzer is just amazing. Shout out to Ryan Necci of Buffalo Gospel for putting us on to this.
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Working Class Audio #156 with Justin Perkins
This week our Mastering Engineer, Justin Perkins of Mystery Room Mastering, was featured on the Working Class Audio podcast.
Working Class Audio is a great resource for people looking to gain insight into the real working life of an audio pro. This episode is filled with some tips and wisdom from Justin’s experience as well as a part of his story and how he got where he is. Check it out!
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Bose Made Some Lovely, Moving Ads About the Emotional Power of Music By Angela Natividad via ADWEEK
“It’s commonly understood that music in an ad, show or film can transform the way that content will ultimately be received... But that is only the case because there’s something about music itself that changes us — that not only brings something to the ambiance but alters the way we experience it.”
Go read the whole article and watch the ads here.
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Dave Godowsky (of iZotope, whose world class software is integral to the creation of all our music here at the lab) interviewed Paul Hackner and Kris Fenske on creating the sound design for the movie “It.” Some interesting thoughts on sounds and the emotional connections they can have in particular to tension and fear. Here is a short segment of the interview, but we definitely suggest reading the whole thing.
There are several uses of repetition in sound to create tension (e.g., the pages turning in the library, the dripping faucet, the measuring tape being pushed down the bathroom drain, the projector slides turning, etc.). Why do repeated, rhythmic sounds create tension in horror movies? How do you emphasize that with sound design/editing? KF: "It’s not necessarily rhythm itself, but how the pitch, tempo, or volume might be subtly increasing. It’s subliminal tension that the audience might not even realize. It’s a standard sound trick, but really effective." PH: "The real horror of Derry is the complacency of the adults during the horrific events the children endure. Bullying, abuse, and family trauma go unnoticed. The horror genre throws away the rules about what is music and what is sound design.” “Horror is basically expressed using the soundscape pioneered by Musique Concrete in the early 20th Century. Composers created noise and performed with magnetic tape to manipulate sound recordings—reversing and pitch shifting. In the horror genre, sounds do not have to be anchored in the documented reality. The filmmaker can use a composition of fragmented noises to pierce the character’s sense of memory, fear and pain. It’s fun because it always becomes a magical interplay between the sound effects and score."
How the Sound Designers of “It” Created Fear with Sound via iZotope
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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AN ARTIST USES AN IPHONE TO VISUALIZE SOUNDS IN A.R.
Zach Lieberman is making sounds. "Click.” “Psh.” “Ah.” “Oorh.” “Eee.” With every noise, an amorphous white blob bursts onto a screen, leaving a trail of shapes lingering in the air. As Lieberman moves his phone backward through the cloud of blobs, the noises replay in reverse as if he were rewinding a vinyl record.
via Wired
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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The science of songs: how does music affect your body chemistry?
“The effect of music on our body chemistry is particularly fascinating to me. Our bodies effectively contain an internal pharmacy that dispenses various chemicals to help us deal with life’s challenges. For example, if you’re in a dangerous situation, you’ll receive a shot of adrenaline to give you energy, and if you do something which is good for you, you get a dose of serotonin (which encourages you to do the same thing again). Research has revealed that music holds the keys to your body’s pharmacy, and can promote or suppress the release of these chemicals. For example, loud and rhythmic music can increase your adrenaline levels, which will help to keep you awake during a long, boring drive. But in the case of insomnia, relaxing music can help you drop off to sleep by reducing the amount of the ‘vigilance chemical’ Noradrenaline in your system.“
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Jon Friedman replaced the narrator in The Wonder Years with 80's horror synth  (via Jon Friedman youtube channel)
And it is pretty great.
Also, a good reminder for how much music can dramatically change the feel of a scene or situation. Truly remarkable.
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Sounds of the Nightmare Machine (via Great Big Story)
“What happens when a horror movie composer and a guitar maker join forces? They create the world’s most disturbing musical instrument. Affectionately known as "The Apprehension Engine," this one-of-a-kind instrument was commissioned by movie composer Mark Korven. Korven wanted to create spooky noises in a more acoustic and original way—but the right instrument didn't exist. So his friend, guitar maker Tony Duggan-Smith, went deep into his workshop and assembled what has to be the spookiest instrument on Earth.”
We love to see creativity and ingenuity at work in the realm of making music. Shout out to our friend Thomas Wolfe at VSA for tipping us onto this one.
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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What Does Sound Look Like? (Via Skunk Bear : NPR)
“You can actually see sound waves as they travel through the air thanks to a clever photographic trick.”
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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'Awaken' trailer released, features never-before-possible time-lapse shots
“Filmmaker Tom Lowe is breaking new ground with his upcoming film Awaken. Not only does it look to be a visual treat on par with the likes of BBC's Planet Earth, the film also features never-before-possible time-lapse sequences made possible by new types of camera equipment Lowe helped to invent.“ (via dpreview.com)
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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“What happens when two world champions enter the DMC Online DJ Championship?
Vekked (6x World DJ Champ) and myself DJ Brace (2x World DJ Champ and The JUNO Awards Winner) together form "The Fresherthans" and this is our 2017 DMC final set!
For those that love Run the Jewels, DJ Shadow, Sublime or Dead Prez, this video is for you!” (via DJ Brace’s Facebook page)
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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11 Summerfest bands that you haven't heard of but you've definitely heard
By:  Matt Mueller (via onMilwaukee.com)
“Those "Wait, that's THEIR song?!" realizations and random discoveries are some of the most enjoyable parts of the Big Gig. So we're here to help find some of them early – or maybe help you find your favorite band that you've heard but maybe haven't actually heard of yet. Here are some names to put to the mystery songs (no late night headliners allowed).”
Source: OnMilwaukee
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thelicenselab · 8 years ago
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Variety Introduces ‘Synch This!’ — New Music Column Spotlighting Songs Ripe for Licensing (via Variety)
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