Trying to get more sync placements for your songs in TV shows, games, and social media content?

At a Los Angeles Songwriters Collective event, a sync panel of indie musicians and sync agencies shared insights about music licensing and offered advice to upcoming producers and musicians seeking more placements in commercials, television shows, games, and movies.

Panelists included:

• Exxy: A pop singer, songwriter, producer who has been part of the Los Angeles Songwriters Collective for almost 10 years.
• MUNNYCAT: An indie-pop duo who have secured over 500 sync placements with brands such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and FIFA.
• What Up Pitches: A boutique independent sync agency with placements on Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, and with dozens of brands.
• Attique Iqbal: Music coordinator at NFL Network, football fanatic, and independent artist with sync placements and dozens of releases.

Getting Your First Sync Placements

First and foremost, be kind, patient, and supportive of your music community, says Attique Iqbal, the NFL’s music coordinator.

You never know who you’ll meet or how you'll be able to help each other in the future.

Here are some tips to help you get started with sync placements:

• Attend artist networking events and sync panels, such as ones hosted by LASC. Talk to the hosts, panelists, and other musicians in the audience who are working on sync.
• Participate in conferences, such as the Durango Songwriters Conference, to receive dedicated publishing and sync feedback sessions. MUNNYCAT received some of their first sync placements after attending this conference.
• Use Shazam to identify songs that sound like yours as you hear them in shows, commercials, and content you interact with. Then, look up the sync agents and agencies representing those artists and brands.
• Develop a contact list that you reach out to monthly or quarterly with new material, even if it’s not yet a good fit for the project.

Seeking Inspiration

Before pitching a song to a network, music supervisor, or agency, make sure it fits.

Listen to the music used on their:

• social media profiles,
• in their TV ads, before and after commercial breaks,
• and anywhere else a brand uses music to reinforce its message like in-store playlists or pop-up locations.

Do your songs sound similar to each other? Are the lyrical themes similar?

Originality

Your originality is your superpower. Embrace your unique style and add flavor to the verses and bridges of your tracks.

Would you listen to this song if it wasn’t in the background of a TV show?

Some artists make music solely for sync, only to find out that the song has no depth or emotional substance. Write from your heart and find opportunities for the songs later.

Authenticity always reigns supreme.

Social Media Importance

Except for a few occasions, your social media following numbers don’t affect getting sync placements.

Authentic music and a song that fits the scene is all that’s needed to break in.

However, having an artist project baked into your sync work can make it easier to get placed in shows where they care about associating with a cool artist or brand (think Target or Apple).

At the minimum, keep your personal socials up to date.

Stay independent and DIY. Signing to a record label, hiring producers, engineers, publicists, and more might be yesterday’s news.

Taking a DIY Approach

If you taught yourself to play guitar, you can teach yourself to produce, according to MUNNYCAT’s K808.

There’s a lot of gatekeeping in the music business, so separating yourself from a “can’t do” or “not yet” attitude into one where you feel empowered to do things yourself is important.

• You can produce, write, and record your songs in your living room to a good enough quality to be placed on TV.
• You don’t have to hire producers and engineers for thousands of dollars every time you release a new track.
• A valuable team can help accelerate your career, but don’t let a lack of a team stop you from getting off the ground and landing your first placements.

Getting Better Song Feedback

You’ve got to learn which feedback to listen to and which to ignore.

For sync, not all feedback is good feedback.

A friend may tell you that you should mute the guitars in the chorus, but you know that the brand loves guitar-driven choruses.

Is the feedback you’re getting helping the song succeed in the pitch? Or is it a personal musical preference?

Trust your voice and artistic vision to understand when feedback is valuable and when it's misguided.

Working with Multiple Sync Agents

Not all sync agencies or music supervisors operate the same or have access to the same opportunities.

Some agencies specialize in advertising and commercials while others oversee social media brand campaigns.

Every song you make may be better suited for one agent over another.

As your catalog and network grows, you’ll start to learn which of your contacts prefer to get upbeat pop music for their social media branding pitches and which ones can help you land a movie trailer for the upcoming Marvel movie.

Unreleased Music

As a general rule of thumb, it doesn’t matter if your music is released yet to be syncable.

Unreleased music can be a valuable asset when pitching, as it indicates that no other brands have access to it yet.

Alternatively, if your songs are already out in the world then you can try to keep it within a one or two-year window of the release date to be relevant.

“New” music is prioritized over old music simply because if fans hear a song they like in a commercial and go look it up, there’s nothing worse than it being from an artist or band that broke up 7 years ago.

Sync agencies try to pitch and place new or newish music.

Ageism

The music business has changed significantly. The old rules no longer apply even with new tools like TikTok and social media platforms to increase the reach of a song.

Your age, social media following, fashion style, genre, and taste are all secondary to the quality of the music you produce.

If your music is a good fit for a sync project or for another artist, it doesn’t matter how old you are.

MUNNYCAT emphasizes that their career is better than ever in their mid-30s and it’s only going up from here.

Pacing Yourself

Strike a balance between urgency and pragmatism in your journey as a sync music producer.

Instead of trying to master every aspect of music production overnight, focus on specific areas of improvement. This week you might focus on getting better at vocal production, while the next may be focusing on percussion.

Take the time to practice, experiment, and refine your skills in those areas so that your growth is steady and sustainable.

Production Music for Library Tips

Sync Licensing FAQs

What types of sync licenses are there?

There are two types of copyrights that every song has. And both can be exploited for sync licensing.

Master Rights

The first type is the master rights, which refer to the recordings of the music itself.

These rights allow the owner to reproduce and exploit the master recordings. It is important to note that each recording of a song has its own master rights, and these rights can be sold or licensed for sync.

This means that if you have recorded a song, you own the master rights to that particular recording.

However, if someone else records the same song, they own the master rights to their recording.

Publishing Rights

The second type of copyright is publishing rights, which refer to the actual music, lyrics, melodies, and harmonies of the song.

If you are the sole songwriter and have recorded your own song, you own both the master and publishing rights.

However, if you cover a song written by someone else, the original songwriter retains the publishing rights while you own the master rights to your recording.

Sync Licenses

In sync licensing, both types of copyrights, master and publishing, must be cleared before a song can be used in a TV show, movie, or other media.

The master rights owner must give permission for the use of the recording, while the publishing rights owner must give permission for the use of the song itself.

If you’re an independent artist, you probably control both copyrights.