What’s changed since then

In short, the big record labels have spent the past year signing agreements with AI music platforms, while some of them continue to pursue legal action against those platforms in court.

Universal Music Group settled with Udio and struck a licensing deal for a new AI platform. Warner Music Group did something similar with Suno. Sony hasn’t. Sony is still suing both Suno and Udio. One of those cases could decide what ‘fair use’ means for AI music, the argument AI companies have used to say training on copyrighted material without permission should be allowed.

Suno has also just announced download limits on its own platform, starting 3 September. Free accounts get up to seven trial downloads for life. Paid plans get a monthly cap. The company says it’s about stopping mass exports of music. Whatever the reason, it’s a sign that even the platforms leading this space are still working out what they’re doing, in public, as they go.

It also makes you think. Suno and Udio built huge platforms first and settled with rights holders afterwards, as the legal pressure mounted. If that route worked out for them, does it make the same approach worth the risk for whoever builds the next one? Nobody can answer that yet, but it’s hard not to wonder.

The bit that doesn’t get talked about much

Here’s what all those deals have in common: they’re about the major labels. Universal’s catalogue. Warner’s catalogue. Sony’s, eventually, probably.

No one negotiated on behalf of the independent artist who, let’s say, posted a track online in 2019 and has no idea whether it ended up training a model. Nobody sat at the table for the small production library whose catalogue might have been scraped before anyone thought to ask permission.

Some of them are trying to do something about it. Independent musicians have filed their own class actions against Suno and Udio, separate from the major label suits. At least one production music library has taken legal action of its own, over its catalogue turning up in an AI company’s training data without permission. Whether any of that goes anywhere is hard to say. But it tells you something: that the majors got a seat at the table and almost everyone else didn’t.

Not every AI training deal looks the same

Some platforms let composers opt in to having their music used for AI training, and pay them separately for it. If you don’t want your music used that way, you can say no.

That’s a different model from “we trained on it first and asked questions later”. Consent and compensation are what set it apart.

When it’s done with permission and fair pay, that’s the composer’s decision, and it’s a legitimate way for a platform to earn from its catalogue.

Two different calls

Licensing music for training pays the composers whose work it is. Some of those same platforms, though, won’t allow AI-generated tracks into their own marketplace. Keeping AI-generated tracks off the marketplace protects those same composers.

An AI can produce track after track in minutes, with none of the time or creative effort a composer puts into an original composition, and still compete for the same buyers.

There are two different calls here. One compensates composers for their work. The other protects them from being crowded out by copies of their own work.

An honest question

We’ve wondered about this ourselves. Music has to be heard somewhere to be found, whether that’s previews, streaming, or YouTube, which turned out to be one of the biggest sources these AI companies pulled from. Court filings and a source code leak this year both confirmed it, with millions of tracks scraped straight from YouTube to train some of these models.

Was a specific track, either yours or anyone’s, pulled into a set like that? There’s no way to know for certain. As far as we know, these companies haven’t published a full account of what went into their models, so there’s nothing for a small library or independent artist to actually check against. Unless the AI’s output ends up sounding enough like the original to give it away, which has already happened in some cases.

That’s not a claim that it happened to anyone’s music in particular. It’s just the honest, unresolved state of things right now, for anyone whose music has ever been public anywhere. And whose hasn’t?

Does it feed on itself?

Here’s something we keep wondering about. If AI-generated music starts appearing in libraries and gets used commercially, does any of it eventually get pulled into another company’s training data too?

This is a real, documented problem in AI research called model collapse. It happens when a model gets trained on data that includes earlier AI output rather than human-made work. Quality and variety drop with each generation, because the model keeps learning from a copy of a copy. It’s not specific to music. The mechanism doesn’t care what kind of content it’s applied to.

It doesn’t seem to be closely monitored for music yet, and maybe nobody can. It’s a fair thing to think about, though.

Little outfit, big outfit

If a huge company has trained its model on your music without asking, what can you do about it? Realistically, not much on your own. Litigation is expensive, and the companies with the deepest pockets are the ones with the least to fear from it.

The class actions exist because banding together is the only real leverage anyone without a major label behind them has. Whether that leverage adds up to anything is still an open question.

It’s also worth saying that independent music licensing looks different to how it did twenty years ago. There are far more players in this space now, some of them very large, and that makes it harder for smaller, independent outfits to compete on visibility alone.

One thing that hasn’t changed is what actually sits behind a smaller library. Twenty years ago, if you licensed a track, you were dealing with an actual person, whether that was the composer or someone who worked directly with them. That’s still true of several independent libraries today. It’s easy to lose sight of when so much of the conversation has moved on to what the technology can do.

Where does that leave you?

None of this is settled, and it probably won’t be for a while yet. But it’s a good reason to think about where the music you use actually comes from, and who agreed to be part of it.

That’s the real difference between AI-generated tracks built on scraped catalogues and a library where every composer agreed to include their music. In a library like that, you can trace it back to a person. With scraped AI output, right now, you mostly can’t.

The post So, where did all that AI music come from? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

Her break came almost by accident. A performer dropped out of a touring production with the Shakespearean Young People’s Theatre Company, and Val got a call asking if she could be in London that same day. She had an hour to think it over. The answer was yes.

She had nowhere to live and no time to sort it. By her first rehearsal, she was still working it out, Tube map open, only half-listening as the director spoke. Val’s the first to admit she tends to daydream, and this time it caught her out. He’d moved from addressing one actor to addressing the whole room, and she hadn’t noticed. He was not happy about it. “I can’t be daydreaming,” she remembers thinking. “This is full on.”

Years of touring theatre followed, including a run with Black Hat Theatre and a lot of work for CragRats.

Having children changed things. She stepped back from touring because she didn’t want to lose that time with her kids. She started making work she could build around family life instead. That included a short film called ‘Henry’, which she wrote, shot and edited entirely on her own. It got into the St Albans Film Festival.

Around the same time, she entered a writing competition in Grazia magazine, run in association with BAFTA, and won it. The prize was a one-off mentorship with a mentor of her choosing. She picked Miranda Hart. When Val admitted she was nervous meeting her, Miranda simply replied, “Why are you nervous? It’s only me.”

That confidence carried into her next project. On the train home from a directing course, after being told not to bother with comedy, she felt deflated at first. Then defiant. By the time she reached Manchester, she’d written the initial script for a comedy short called ‘What Would Julie Do?’.

She cast the lead by pitching in person, after spotting actress Julie Hesmondhalgh in the audience at a small theatre night featuring her own short play. Val introduced herself afterwards, and asked outright if she’d be in it. The next day, Julie said yes.

The film needed one more well-known face for a short cameo. Val had exhausted every contact she had, so she wrote a letter on the strength of nothing more than a shared name with her film’s title. She posted it not knowing if it would ever be read. Weeks passed. Then, on the day of the deadline her producer had given her, an email arrived.

“Julie Walters had done a little self-tape for our film. No contract, no money.”

It sounds like a lucky break. But even with two well-known names in the cast, festival after festival turned it down. “The film’s dead good and we were so proud of it,” she says, “but there were so many rejections.”

It eventually found an audience, won awards, and got into four BIFA-accredited festivals.

The conversation covers a lot more than the two short films. Val and Lee talk about imposter syndrome, which turns out to affect people at every level of the industry, the etiquette around actor and actress, and where AI does and doesn’t have a place in creative work.

There’s a feature film underway too. Val’s first attempt, in her own words, was genuinely terrible. The plot and structure just didn’t hold up, so she’s gone back to the drawing board and is rebuilding it properly this time.

Her thriller short, Facade, co-written with director Darren Westwood and crowdfunded with a crew of twenty-five, heads into the festival circuit this autumn. There’s also a sitcom pilot she’s tentatively planning with Westwood too. Though, as she puts it, they might end up writing something else entirely.

“I will make this feature film by hook or by crook.”

Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page

More of Val’s work is at https://www.valeriebundy.com

The post From Touring Theatre Actor to Writing and Producing Short Films appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

How It’s Worked Until Now

Our roster was never huge, around a hundred voice-over artists. We wanted their demos on the pages so clients could browse when they visited our site. There’s no automated system behind that. It’s all done by hand. Voices also update demos regularly, so multiply that by a hundred artists, and it’s a job in itself.

On top of that, when a client booked a voiceover through us, we managed the whole project. Getting quotes, handling audio production, sourcing music or sound effects, running the process start to finish. We dealt with the clients and paid voice-overs once the job was done. We still do these jobs, and we do them well.

Being on our roster has always been free. Sounds like a good thing, and in many ways it is. But free also means we get a lot more enquiries to join, and each one takes time to deal with. When jobs do come in, we’ve already spent a fair bit of time keeping the roster up to date and dealing with voice-over emails, time we can’t add onto the fee for that particular job.

For this reason, we capped it at around 100 voice-overs.

Not Enough Choice

The real issue is choice. A roster of a hundred, however good, is small compared to what’s out there. In practice, this plays out one of two ways.

Sometimes clients just go elsewhere, somewhere with more choice, and we never hear from them.

Other times, clients come to us wanting us to project manage the job, but nothing on our roster fits the brief. When that happens, we end up going to the big listing sites ourselves, submitting the brief and budget, then downloading and sifting through hundreds of demos (not all at a professional standard), before shortlisting a handful for the client to pick from. It works, but it’s a slow, manual way to do it.

Our focus

We’re a small business, run by two people. Our main passion and focus is music. That’s not changing.

But that doesn’t mean we want to stop helping clients with voiceover requests either. What we want to change is how much of the day-to-day admin and project management falls on us, so we can put more time into music, while still being on hand whenever a client needs a voice-over.

What we’re building

Going forward, we’re building our own directory of voice-over artists. One where we don’t have to spend so much time managing it by hand. It’s called Connect, and it’s still in development; nothing is live yet.

But here’s our vision for it. Connect is a direct-access directory. Clients contact voice-overs directly, however the voice artist prefers. No messaging system, no middle man. We won’t take a commission either. Whatever the voice artist negotiates with a client, they keep in full.

It’s not going to be a huge listing site with hundreds of thousands of profiles. We’re keeping it curated. Every profile gets checked before it goes live, so clients browsing know what they’re listening to is good, whether that’s an established professional or someone earlier in their career.

We’re not trying to build something huge just to chase profit. There are two of us running this. We’d rather build something smaller and genuinely good than something massive and average.

Connect isn’t just for voice-overs either. It’s a wider directory for audio talent: composers, musicians, sound designers, and more. But voice-over artists are where we’re starting.

Pricing

Connect will cost £7.99 per month, or £79 per year.

We’re also opening it up early to a limited number of founding members, the first 500 to join. Founding members get 35% off for as long as they’re listed. That’s not a one-off intro price; it’s 35% off whatever the standard rate is, even if that rate goes up down the line. Once those 500 spaces are filled, the founding-member rate closes and everyone after pays the standard price.

The post Why We’re Closing Our Voice-Over Roster (And What’s Replacing It) appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

“Copyright-free” sounds like a legal term, but it isn’t. There’s no copyright status by that name, and no license defined by it. It’s a label attached to music that’s available to use, without saying what you’re allowed to do with it.

To understand what you can do with a track, you need to look past the label and check the license that comes with it.

Copyright-free isn’t the same as royalty-free

The confusion often comes from the way “copyright-free” and “royalty-free” are used together. They sound similar, but they describe different things.

Royalty-free describes a license. You pay for the right to use the music, and you don’t pay royalties every time the track is used. The exact terms depend on the license. Some allow commercial use, while others include restrictions on where or how the music can be used.

“Copyright-free” is different. It’s a marketing term that suggests the music is free from copyright restrictions, whether or not that’s actually the case.

Music that is free from copyright is far rarer than the label suggests.

Why most music is still protected

To understand why, it helps to look at the different types of copyright in music.

A piece of music can involve two copyrights: one in the composition itself and one in a specific recording of that composition. These rights are separate, and they can expire at different times.

In the UK, a composition stays in copyright for 70 years after the composer’s death. A recording stays in copyright for 70 years from the date it’s released.

This means an old composition can enter the public domain while a recording of it stays protected. For example, a piece of classical music written hundreds of years ago might no longer be protected as a composition, but a new recording of it is protected from the moment it’s made.

Can music ever be free from copyright?

Music can be free from copyright restrictions, but it’s uncommon.

When copyright expires due to age, the work enters the public domain. Older recordings may have reached the end of their copyright protection, but they’re unlikely to sound like modern productions. The recording technology of the time often means dealing with hiss, crackle or other limitations in the audio itself.

A creator can also choose to release a work under CC0, a Creative Commons license that gives up copyright restrictions as much as legally possible, so the work can be used freely.

However, releases like this are rare. Copyright exists automatically when a work is created, and giving up control over how it can be used isn’t straightforward in every country. Some countries don’t allow creators to waive copyright entirely, and even where it’s possible, once a work has been released under CC0, the rights holder can’t take back permissions already granted.

Most websites using the term “copyright-free” aren’t referring to this type of release.

Why websites still use the label

“Copyright-free” is appealing because it suggests simplicity. It implies that music can be used without worrying about copyright claims or complicated licensing terms.

However, it doesn’t explain what permissions have been granted or what restrictions apply.

In most cases, music described as “copyright-free” is still protected. Its owner has made it available under certain terms, whether through a subscription, a one-off payment, attribution requirements or another type of license.

The label sounds simpler than the reality, which is why it continues to be used.

The license matters more than the label

“Copyright-free” isn’t a guarantee that a track can be used without restrictions. A track can still be protected by copyright, and the license determines how you can use it.

Before using music in a project, check the license terms. That’s where you’ll find the permissions, restrictions and conditions that apply.

The post What Does “Copyright-free Music” Mean? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

It turned out to be exactly the training ground he needed.

It didn’t take long to pay off. Lyndon soon began producing high-profile documentaries for Radio 1. His first project involved a tour across America with Badly Drawn Boy. And later, a tenth-anniversary documentary about Kurt Cobain that got commissioned because it didn’t chase the same big interview everyone else was after; it found a different way in entirely.

When Everything Goes Wrong, Live

None of it came with much of a safety net.

Lyndon was one of the first people sent to New York on the first charter flight after 9/11, tasked with turning around a documentary special by the weekend. The technology of the time was barely up to it. Editing software crashed under the weight of just a handful of audio tracks, and with an hour to broadcast, the finished mix still wouldn’t bounce out. The only option left was to play it live. Straight off a laptop headphone jack, with no backup if it failed.

Years later, a live radio studio lost its connection to the network minutes before going on air, forcing the whole show onto paper notes and mobile phones with no talkback at all.

“Great save, well held, great save,” was how the network manager put it afterwards. Which, Lyndon says, is about as good as that kind of day is ever going to feel.

Dragon’s Den, Strictly, and Knowing When to Stop

From there, Lyndon moved into television development at BBC Entertainment, including producing five series of Dragon’s Den, followed by what he still calls the best job of his career, Strictly Come Dancing.

But eventually, the pace of the industry, with its back-to-back location shoots, kept pulling him away from his wife and two young children for days at a time. Coming back from paternity leave to be told to pack a case for another location shoot was the moment it became clear something had to change.

Not because anyone had done anything wrong, he says. That’s simply what the job asks of you.

Teaching the Next Generation

So he moved into teaching. Not away from the industry, but into a different relationship with it. One where seventeen years of hands-on production experience becomes something you pass on rather than something you leave behind.

He’s now a senior lecturer and subject head for broadcast media at the University of Salford, where his students work on real briefs set by programmes like Coronation Street and ITV’s Tonight, brought in through his own former industry contacts.

The conversation also discusses AI, from the perspective of someone who has spent a career in production and now teaches those about to enter the field.

His view is measured rather than alarmist. Factual and drama production currently has, in his words, a flat no on generative AI, largely due to copyright and audience trust. He doesn’t see that changing quickly.

But he’s equally clear that avoiding AI altogether isn’t a viable option for graduates entering the industry.

“AI is not necessarily coming for your job… because people who are skilled users of AI are going to get your job.”

It’s not really about whether AI belongs in creative work. It’s about who controls it, and who’s equipped to use it well.

Lyndon’s career has covered radio, television, live broadcast, and now teaching the next generation coming up behind him. It’s all in this conversation.

Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page.

The post From Radio and TV Producer to Senior Lecturer in Broadcast Media appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

Festival use isn’t something every royalty-free library treats the same way. Depending on the provider, you might need a custom quote, only get it covered once you’ve bought a higher tier, or find it’s included for a local screening as standard. It depends on who you’ve licensed from, so it’s worth checking rather than assuming.

What if your film gets picked up?

Here’s the part worth thinking about, though. What if your film’s festival run doesn’t end there? What happens if it gets picked up?

It’s not a hypothetical. Festivals aren’t just screenings; they’re marketplaces too. Distributors and streaming platforms show up specifically to find titles to acquire. At Sundance’s 2024 festival, industry reporting put the number of screened films that went on to land some kind of distribution deal at around 60%. Cannes is even more visible about it: Netflix alone picked up several titles straight out of the 2026 festival, including films that had no distributor attached going in. A film can go from a small festival premiere to a major streaming platform faster than you might expect.

If that happens to yours, the license that covered the festival screening probably won’t stretch to cover what comes next. Not because anyone’s done anything wrong. It’s just because a festival screening and a global streaming deal are different things.

Why does distribution change the licensing picture?

A few things shift when a film moves into wider distribution, and any one of them can affect what your music license needs to cover.

Territory is one. A standard license is often scoped to certain uses or regions. A distribution deal — especially with a streaming platform — can mean worldwide release, not just the territory your original license assumed.

Channel is another. Festival screening, broadcast TV, cinema release, and streaming platforms aren’t interchangeable from a licensing perspective. Each one can carry different requirements, and a license written for one doesn’t automatically extend to the others.

Scale and reach matter too. A festival audience of a few hundred people is a different proposition from a title sitting on a platform with a global subscriber base. Licensing terms are often built around scale, and a jump in audience size can mean a jump in license tier.

And then there’s budget. A large-scale distribution deal usually means a bigger project overall, and music licensing tends to scale with that. A film with significant commercial backing is usually priced differently from a standard festival-use license.

None of this is unusual. A music license is for a specific use, and when that use changes substantially, it needs to be looked at again.

Why it’s easy to miss

The tricky bit isn’t that licenses scale with use. It’s that distribution interest can move fast, and music is rarely the first thing on anyone’s mind when an offer comes in. You’re thinking about deal terms, fees, and territories, not necessarily whether the music’s covered for what’s being signed.

By the time the question of music licensing comes up, the deal might already be done, and upgrading to the right license becomes a far more stressful conversation than it needed to be.

What to check early on

If you’re submitting to a festival that regularly sees films picked up by distributors, it’s worth thinking about your music license before you submit, not after

That doesn’t mean buying the most expensive license ‘just in case’. It means knowing what your current license covers, what it doesn’t, and who to talk to if things change. A standard license that’s right for a small local festival will need an upgrade if there’s real potential for large-scale distribution. That’s a quick check now, instead of sorting it out once a deal’s already in motion.

The post Royalty-free music for film festivals: What’s covered? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

There was a day job at the NHS running alongside the music for years. There were platforms and job boards that promised work and delivered very little. And there was the networking — meeting people, leaving an impression, and then getting a call two months later out of nowhere. That, more than anything, is how the work actually came in.

“I still firmly believe in networking… meeting someone and then two months later they call you up out of the blue.”

There was also the job that got away. Ben was down to the final two for a major games role in Canada. Demos, calls, the whole process. He felt good about it. The only way it could go wrong, he told himself, was if the other candidate had shipped a major studio title. The other candidate had shipped a major studio title. It crushed him. Not because he’d done anything wrong, but because there was nothing he could have done differently.

Losing out like that is something a lot of people in creative industries will recognise. You do everything right and still lose out to a credit you haven’t had the chance to earn yet. Ben talks about it honestly, without bitterness, and moves on. Which is probably part of why he’s still here.

The conversation covers a lot of ground. AI takes up a significant chunk of it. Ben isn’t scared of it. He has concerns, particularly around data scraping and what it means for the musicians whose work has been absorbed into these models without consent. The EU AI Act, content ID, transparency, music theft from personal experience, it’s a wide-ranging and at times funny conversation about an industry that keeps shifting the ground beneath the people working in it.

But the moment that stays with you comes right at the end. After everything — the technology, the freelance grind, the near-misses, the years of doing whatever it took — Ben talks about getting back to playing live. Three bands covering everything from heavy metal to dance to acoustic.

He’s coming full circle, back to being in a room with people, back to the thing that started all of it.

“I need that human interaction,” he says. “And that’s why, I think, AI will still lose out in the end.”

Hard to argue with that.

Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page

The post From Touring Musician to Composer for Film, TV and Games appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

The composer still owns the copyright

When a composer writes and records a piece of music, copyright is automatically theirs from the moment of creation. That’s true whether they sell it to a stock music library, upload it to a licensing platform, or give it away for free. The label “royalty-free” doesn’t transfer, waive, or reduce that ownership. The composer, or whoever they’ve assigned the copyright to, such as a publisher or their own company, remains the copyright holder.

What you’re buying when you license a royalty-free track isn’t the music itself. It’s permission to use it. Specifically, you’re buying the right to use that music in your video, podcast, advert, or other content, under whatever terms the license sets out. The music is still theirs. The license is yours.

Think of it like renting a film location. The building belongs to someone else. You have permission to use it for a shoot. When the shoot is done, it’s still their building.

So what does “royalty-free” mean?

The term refers to the payment model, not the copyright status. Traditionally, when music was licensed for commercial use, the rights holder would receive a royalty every time the content containing that music was broadcast, played, or distributed. Royalty-free licensing changed that model: you pay once, either per track or through a subscription, and you don’t owe ongoing royalties each time your content is viewed or aired.

It’s a pricing structure, not a declaration that the music is free of ownership. The “free” part refers to freedom from recurring royalty payments, not freedom to use however you like without any license at all.

What about the platforms — don’t they own the music?

This is where it gets slightly more involved. Different platforms handle ownership in different ways. On most stock music sites and subscription libraries, composers retain their copyright and authorise the platform to sell licenses on their behalf. When you buy a license, you’re licensing directly through that arrangement. The platform is essentially the marketplace, not the owner.

Some platforms may acquire the copyright outright from composers or require an exclusive arrangement. In those cases, the platform owns the copyright rather than the original creator. Either way, someone owns it. It’s just a question of who.

When you download a track and pay for a licence, what you receive is a legal right to use that specific piece of music within defined limits. Those limits vary: some licences cover YouTube only, others are broader. Some permit commercial use, others don’t. Reading the license terms before use is always worth doing. “Royalty-free” on its own doesn’t tell you anything about what use is permitted.

What if the music is free to download?

Free to download doesn’t mean unowned or copyright-free. A composer can choose to offer their music at no cost and still retain full copyright. They’re simply granting certain permissions in advance, perhaps for personal use, or with a condition like crediting them in your project. The music remains theirs.

A newer complication: AI-generated music

If this question felt reasonably clear-cut so far, AI-generated music complicates things even more. When a platform generates music using an AI model, the ownership question becomes much less settled. Copyright law requires human authorship, which means purely AI-generated music isn’t eligible for copyright protection.

But there’s a further question that these platforms rarely address clearly: what music was the AI trained on? If the training data included copyrighted recordings without the rights holders’ permission, the legal picture around any output becomes murky. It’s an area courts and legislators are only beginning to work through, and it’s worth being aware of when choosing where to license your music from.

That particular question deserves its own dedicated post, and one is coming. For now, it’s worth knowing the issue exists.

The simple answer

So, to bring it back to the question: who actually owns the copyright in royalty-free music? It’s owned by its composer, a publisher, or the platform they work with. When you buy a license, you’re buying the right to use it, not the music itself. Understanding that distinction keeps you on the right side of copyright law and helps you get the most out of whatever license you hold.

The post Who Actually Owns the Copyright in Royalty-Free Music? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

Right now, 57.4% of daily web traffic is just automated bots and AI agents scraping data, loading pages, and doing tasks. Only 42.6% is actual human beings.

If you look at the map, it gets a bit ridiculous. In Gibraltar, 92% of the traffic is bots. Singapore is sitting at 76%.

It makes you think, doesn’t it?

If bots are the ones crawling the web, and bots are also the ones being built to generate content, where does that leave the rest of us? We’re heading toward a bizarre situation where you’ve got data centres spending billions of pounds to power bots that create content, only for other bots to consume it

We’ve seen this ourselves. Over the last couple of years, the volume of bot activity hitting the Media Music Now library has skyrocketed. They aren’t there to listen to the nuance of a cello movement or look for the perfect emotional arc for a film scene. They are there to scrape, index, and mimic.

It makes you wonder where it all goes from here.

If this version of the internet is slowly being handed over to data centres scraping data centres, what do we do? People don’t tend to stick around when a neighbourhood gets ruined. So, will we just move?

Maybe we’re looking at a split of the web. The ‘Dead Internet’ ticking away on a loop in the background, bots generating content for other bots to consume, no humans involved, while we end up building a completely separate space just for actual people.

Who knows if that’s even possible, or how you’d even police it. But if bots and AI keep making the current internet more useless by the day, it feels like something has to give.

For those of us making music, words, and ideas for a human audience, the question isn’t really about bots. It’s about whether there’ll still be a human on the other end worth making it for. I think there will be. But protecting that space will take some work.

The post The internet is mostly bots now. Where does that leave us? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

So let me be straight about what this actually is.

What I’ve decided is this. If you’re a voiceover artist making demos or pitching for work, you can use any track on Beanstalk Audio for free. As many as you need, as often as you need them.

I’m Lee Pritchard, co-founder of Media Music Now, and a composer and producer. I also run Beanstalk Audio, my personal music library. Every track on Beanstalk Audio is either written by me or commissioned by me, which means I own it outright and control the licensing. Media Music Now is different; it’s a broader platform featuring music from lots of other composers, so the licensing is less flexible.

There is something in it for me, and I’m not going to pretend there isn’t. If your demo ends up in front of a producer or a brand and they like the music, there’s a chance they’ll want to license it for a commercial project. That comes back to me. And right now, when there’s so much uncertainty about what the future of the industry looks like, that kind of mutual support between actual humans feels like the right move.

So here’s how it works

There is an actual license for this. It’s called the Pitch & Demo License, and it normally costs £9.95. That price exists to prevent the catalogue from being abused, not to block people with a genuine reason to use it. If you’re a voiceover artist using it for demos or auditions, I’ll send you a code that brings the cost to zero. Keep that code; it’s yours to reuse as many times as you need, across as many tracks as you like.

That’s it. No catch.

Everything you need to know is at the link below. Feel free to listen to the music before you decide. And if you have any questions, just get in touch or leave a comment.

beanstalkaudio.com/voiceover-demo-license

The post Free Music for Voiceover Demos. Yes, Really. appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

Then in 2019, in the same week, he was made redundant and had his shoulder broken. He called it the best week of his life.

That combination of events gave Greg something he hadn’t had in a decade. Time. And the push he needed to finally make the career change into audio engineering he’d always wanted but never quite found a way to reach.

I knew it was the only opportunity I was ever going to get to do something different with my life.

He didn’t waste it. He stopped going out. Stopped drinking. Started exercising. Downloaded a free version of Pro Tools and started learning from scratch. He had a year’s worth of bills covered and nowhere to be, and he used every bit of that time to prepare.

Then everything changed.

He’d already approached George, the owner of 80Hz Studios at The Sharp Project in Manchester, and been told honestly there wasn’t much he could offer without studio experience.

Now, with this change in circumstances, Greg rang George and made him an offer. Six months of his time, for free, every day, to learn. George said yes.

He turned up to his first session with his arm in a sling.

What Greg does now

Six years later, Greg is a full-time audio engineer and sound designer at 80Hz Studios. He also runs his own freelance operation, Good Vibration Sound Design, alongside it.

He records bands, podcasts, voiceovers, ADR, and audiobooks. And when he talks about his work, he uses a phrase that doesn’t come up much in conversations about jobs: it doesn’t feel like work.

He’s doing work he genuinely loves.

He’s thoughtful about who he works with. Not every project is the right fit, and he’s honest about that. When he talks about the bands he chooses to work with, the word he uses is invested. He wants to care about what he’s recording, not just deliver a file.

That instinct, to do the work properly, with the right people, for the right reasons, is probably what makes the work feel the way it does.

The conversation

In this episode of Media Music Now Conversations, Greg talks about all of this and more: the career change, the six months for free, the psychology of working with artists in a studio, AI in music and what it’s actually good for, the EU AI Act and compulsory content labelling coming in August 2026, why the description of a music track matters more than the track itself, and the honest reality of freelance life.

No scripts, no agenda. Just a real conversation about what working in this industry actually looks and feels like right now.

Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page.

Greg can be contacted via his website: gvsounddesign.com

The post How the Best Worst Week Launched an Audio Engineering Career appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

At one time, if you needed a voiceover, a composer, or an editor, you’d send them an email or look at a trusted roster. Today, you’re forced into massive marketplaces that act less like helpful tools and more like digital gatekeepers.

For the person trying to hire, it’s a time-intensive process just to weed out the noise and find suitable professionals. For the freelancers, it’s become a race to the bottom.

These platforms hide direct email addresses and phone numbers. They trap both sides behind communication walls, so you can’t have a straightforward chat about a brief. They force everyone into platform-managed systems and take a chunk of the fee for standing in the middle.

It is frustrating for creators. Often ineffective for clients.

We’ve been in this industry since 2005, and frequently clients ask us for a specific accent, a foreign language voice, or a niche genre we don’t personally cover. At that point, we’re left using the same big listing sites. We don’t enjoy that experience, so we don’t like sending our own clients to them either.

So we’re building our own

We need a reliable hand-off, a trusted directory of vetted, professional peers where everyone can deal directly. Since we couldn’t find a suitable one, we decided to build it ourselves.

It’s called Connect

We’re building it on the following principles:

0% Commission. The client pays exactly what the artist charges. We take nothing.

Completely Open. No login walls. If a video producer wants an artist’s direct email, phone number, or portfolio link, it’s right there on the screen.

Hand-Vetted Professionals Only. Every profile is reviewed by us to ensure there is proof of industry experience.

This is just the start

Connect is in its development phase right now. The directory is being built, and we aren’t interested in amassing half a million subpar profiles just to look impressive. We want to create a focused pool of genuine talent across the audio disciplines, not an endless list.

We’re using our new landing page to build the initial community and share progress as we build it.

Joining the waitlist costs nothing. It simply means you’ll be kept informed. You’ll see the development updates as we build, and you’ll get notified when we launch.

We’ll be capping the initial launch to 500 Founding Members, who will get a lifetime discount that works out at less than the price of a pint or a fancy coffee each month.

We aren’t trying to create another vast marketplace. We’re building a quality resource for the media industry, backed by a brand that’s been here for over two decades.

The post The Freelance Platform Problem (And Our Answer to It) appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

The short answer is that you’re not just paying for a few hours in a studio. You’re paying for the years of training that got every single musician in that room to the point where they can do what they do.

The training path is longer than most people realise

An orchestral musician typically starts learning their instrument in school. From there, it’s grade exams, youth orchestras, years of lessons, and countless hours of practising before they’re anywhere near conservatoire level.

UK conservatoires, such as the Royal Northern College of Music, the Guildhall, the Royal Academy, and the Royal Welsh College, run four-year undergraduate degrees, and many professional players continue to a postgraduate qualification on top of that. By the time a musician auditions for professional work, they’ve spent the better part of two decades developing their craft. That’s before a single paying session has taken place.

When you book a session with sixty musicians, you’re not hiring sixty people for a few hours. You’re drawing on sixty careers’ worth of skill, discipline, and accumulated experience.

Jack Hughes, co-founder of Northern Film Orchestra, put it plainly when we spoke to him for the Media Music Now Conversations podcast. Each of them has spent as much time training as a pilot, and we don’t question the cost of that skill. But somehow that same assumption doesn’t always follow musicians, even though the commitment required to reach a professional standard is just as significant. The price of a session reflects that.

What the Musicians’ Union has to do with it

UK orchestral sessions are governed by agreements negotiated by the Musicians’ Union. The MU sets minimum rates for session musicians and protects their rights around how recordings can be used and licensed. This covers everything from the session fee itself to what happens when the music is used commercially further down the line.

It means musicians are paid fairly for their work, and it means the rights around a recording are clear from the start. For composers and producers, working within MU agreements also provides a clear chain of title. You know exactly what you’ve paid for and what you’re entitled to do with the music.

The Eastern Europe question

Recording in cities like Prague and Budapest has become a well-established option. The orchestras are skilled, the studios are well-equipped, and the rates are lower than in the UK. Production companies, film composers, and library music teams have been using Eastern European orchestras for years, and the results are often excellent.

Jack was straightforward about this when we discussed it. It’s not something Northern Film Orchestra can compete with on price, and they don’t try to.

If your primary concern is cost and a UK session is beyond your budget, Eastern Europe is a real option worth considering. But, it’s worth factoring in that you’re coordinating across time zones and recording outside the MU framework, which changes the rights picture.

For some projects, that’s fine. For others, particularly those with complex licensing requirements or broadcast chain-of-title concerns, it adds a layer of complexity that isn’t always straightforward to manage.

What Northern Film Orchestra does instead

Rather than competing on price, NFO use a different model. The shared session.

The idea is simple: instead of one composer bearing the full cost of a session, multiple composers share a day. Each pays for a defined block of time, and the cost is split between everyone involved. Jack described how this came about. He was finding composers through Facebook groups early on, working out how to make sessions viable for people who couldn’t afford to book an orchestra on their own.

It’s a practical solution to a real problem. For those who want a real orchestra — live players, live acoustic, proper recorded performance — but can’t justify the full cost of an exclusive session, it makes a UK recording accessible.

Making the right choice for your project

The cost of a live orchestra in the UK reflects the training, the agreements, the infrastructure, and the accumulated skill of everyone in the room. That doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for every project or every budget. But understanding what you’re actually paying for makes it easier to decide whether it’s the right choice for you.

If you’re considering hiring an orchestra or want to know more about the process, Jack’s conversation with Lee is worth listening to in full. He covers the practical side of booking a session, what composers tend to get wrong, and what the process actually looks like.

The post Why Does Recording an Orchestra Cost So Much? appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

What there isn’t much of, or at least what we couldn’t find much of, is people just talking honestly about it. Just a real conversation between people who work in the industry, about what it actually looks and feels like right now.

That’s the gap Conversations is trying to fill.

What Conversations actually is

Media Music Now Conversations is a podcast. Each episode is a long-form, unscripted conversation with someone working in the music and media industry. Composers, music business owners, editors, publishers, and anyone else whose work involves music and media.

There’s no script and no agenda beyond having a genuine conversation with someone interesting and seeing where it goes. Both sides know the subject well, and the conversation goes where it goes, rather than where someone planned it to go beforehand. In practice, that tends to produce more honest answers, more unexpected moments, and a much more natural listen.

The podcast is hosted by Lee Pritchard, co-founder of Media Music Now, who has worked in the music and media industry for over 25 years.

The first episode — Jack Hughes, Northern Film Orchestra

The first conversation is with Jack Hughes, co-founder of Northern Film Orchestra. Jack co-founded NFO at 25. From one string quartet session, he found he enjoyed the logistics more than the recording itself, and followed that instinct.

The conversation covers what it actually takes to run a professional orchestra in the UK. The Musicians’ Union agreements, the realities of session costs, what composers tend to get wrong when they book their first session, and what it means to be competing at the level of the major London studios when you’re based in Manchester. We also get into the wider industry: the royalty-free model that served composers well for years and then didn’t, what subscription libraries did to income almost overnight, and why sync licensing has become the only realistic path for most independent composers working today.

It’s a long one. And it covers a lot of ground. But that’s the point.

Who it’s for

Conversations is for anyone who works in music and media. Composers, musicians, producers, editors, sync executives, music supervisors, and library owners. Anyone who lives and works in that space every day.

It’s not a beginner’s guide, and it’s not an industry overview. It’s for people already working in it, who know what the work involves, and who’ll recognise the conversations we’re having because they’re having similar ones themselves.

More episodes coming

We’re planning to keep the conversations going and expand the range of guests and topics as we do. If you work in the music and media industry and you’d be up for a conversation, we’d like to hear from you. No formal pitches needed. Just head to the Conversations page and let us know a bit about what you do.

The post Why We Started Media Music Now Conversations appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

It was a practical decision more than anything. Composing work was sporadic, the income wasn’t reliable, and he figured that if he wrote a new batch of tracks, recorded them with a string quartet, and gave his website a refresh, he’d at least be a bit further along. That was the plan.

What he didn’t expect was to enjoy the organising more than the recording.

“I sort of realised I almost enjoyed organising it more than the actual recording in some way, which was an interesting sort of discovery.”

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That discovery, made somewhere in the middle of booking engineers, finding venues, and getting his music onto paper, is essentially how Northern Film Orchestra began. Not with a business plan or a gap in the market. Just a composer following an instinct that turned out to point somewhere completely different to where he thought he was going.

He started with guitar lessons at eight, learning from rock songs he’d heard on Kerrang. He wanted to make music for games, tried it, and realised it felt too much like an IT job. Pivoted to film music, and spent his early twenties checking tickets at Chetham’s School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, whilst trying to build a composing career on the side (as so many composers do).

“It was just very sporadic finding work,” he says. “At that point, I was just trying to find some kind of financial stability.”

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What changed things wasn’t a breakthrough composing job. It was working in those concert halls, being around orchestral music every day, and eventually recording that string quartet session. Then someone at a sound design studio asked him a simple question: Have you thought about making that into a paid service other composers could use?

“I don’t know why, when he said it, I was just like, yeah, that’s a good idea. Let’s give it a go.”

The timing of that decision, it turned out, was both terrible and perfect.

Northern Film Orchestra’s first shared session took place in January 2020. The concept was simple. Most composers can’t afford to hire an orchestra for a full day, but they might be able to afford a slot within one, splitting the time and the cost between several composers. Think of it like a timeshare, Jack says, or ten people sharing a car. Same principle.

The launch went well. They had composers lined up for March. And then Covid happened.

“I got made redundant in both my jobs,” Jack says. “So I suddenly had like infinite time on my hands.”

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What could have been a catastrophic start turned into an unexpected opportunity to do all the things — the website, the marketing, the business plan — that would have been rushed if life hadn’t changed. They started with 55 players, got forced down to a quartet by social distancing rules, and gradually worked their way back up to a full orchestra as restrictions eased.

“It was a bit of a trial by fire,” he says. “But since then we’ve just been full steam ahead.”

Six years on, Northern Film Orchestra is at an interesting point. The foundation is solid, the reputation is building. Now, the focus is on pushing through to the major studio projects: film, network TV, streaming. The competition at that level, Jack acknowledges, is Abbey Road.

But there’s a groundedness to how he talks about it. No bravado, no overselling. Just a quiet assessment of where they are, what they’re building towards, and an admission that it’ll probably take another eighteen months or two years to properly know how this chapter has gone.

“As of right now, I’m quietly confident,” he says.

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The conversation goes well beyond Northern Film Orchestra though. We also get into the wider music industry. The royalty-free music model that gave composers an income for many years before subscription services arrived and changed everything almost overnight. The uncomfortable reality that sync licensing is now the only realistic path for most independent composers trying to earn a living. The strange economics of a business where everyone agrees the product is brilliant, and the only question is whether the budget is there to make it happen.

That kind of honesty runs through the whole conversation. Nothing is dressed up or glossed over. What it’s actually like to build something in music, what the industry looks like from inside, and where it’s heading. It’s all in there, said plainly and without agenda.

Which, given that’s exactly what these conversations are supposed to be, feels about right.

Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page.

Jack is the co-founder of Northern Film Orchestra. Find out more at northernfilmorchestra.com

The post The Discovery That Started Northern Film Orchestra appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

As generative technology becomes more accessible, it’s easy to think a ‘sad piano’ prompt is a shortcut to a finished soundtrack. The reality is, while these tools are evolving, there’s still a clear gap between AI film scoring and the work of a human composer.

The formula of the background track

Most stock or corporate music follows a fairly predictable formula: a set number of chords, familiar instrumentation, and a steady, upbeat feel. Because these tracks follow a simple, predictable structure, they’re ideal for AI to replicate.

AI doesn’t need to understand a brand to generate a guitar-driven track that sits neatly in the background of a presentation.

If the goal is simply to add a bit of ‘decor’ to a video, a generated loop might seem like a quick fix.

But for professional projects, that convenience can come with hidden trade-offs. Questions over how the data is sourced, along with the lack of clear legal protection, mean these tracks don’t offer the same assurance as human-created music.

Film and high-end video production need more than a quick fix.

The narrative gap

Where this approach starts to struggle is with storytelling.

Film isn’t formulaic. A scene can shift in a moment — a realisation, a change in mood, a sudden lift in tension. The music needs to move with it.

That’s not something AI really understands.

It can’t watch a scene and recognise when silence would be more powerful than music. It doesn’t know when to hold back or when to push forward. It’s not reacting to a story; it’s simply filling time.

Think of a moment just before a key reveal, where pulling the music out completely creates tension; that kind of decision isn’t something an AI prompt can anticipate.

Consistency vs disconnected clips

One of the biggest giveaways with AI-generated soundtracks is how disconnected they can feel.

Because it’s not really seeing the film as a whole, the music often comes across like a series of loosely joined sections. Transitions feel off, key moments don’t quite land, and there’s usually very little in terms of sound design.

A human-led approach is different. It’s not just about laying music over a video; it’s about shaping it around the edit, hitting key moments, and using subtle sound design to tie everything together so it feels like one continuous piece, not separate parts.

Finding the emotion in the edit

A computer can generate endless notes, but it cannot create a moment.

As AI film scoring becomes more common, it still struggles to capture the deliberate choices a composer makes.

What human-composed music does well is interpret emotion and bring something extra to the visuals. It adds intent.

With AI filling the space with more background music, that difference becomes more noticeable. For projects with a clear vision, the soundtrack shouldn’t feel like an afterthought or a quick fix; it should feel like part of the story. And that’s not something you get from a prompt alone.

If you’re interested in how music can shape a story, you might also like Making the Music Fit the Story.

The post Why Great Films Need More Than a Sad Piano Prompt appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

The instinct is to reach for the volume fader or let the track drift out with a long fade. But more often than not, that just softens the problem rather than solving it.

In our experience, the projects that really land are the ones where the music feels like it was built for the film.

When we’re editing music for video, the goal is usually to make that work invisible.

Starting at the finish line

A common sign of an unfinished edit is the ‘placeholder’ fade-out. When a track just fades under a logo, it can feel like the energy is leaking out rather than arriving somewhere.

A simple way around this is to ignore the beginning for a moment and focus on the end.

We look for the tail, that final note, chord, or hit, and place it exactly where the video finishes. Then we work backwards.

If the track is too long, we don’t trim the ending. We take time out of the middle instead, finding a section that can be removed without breaking the flow. That way, the final moment still lands where it should.

A typical example is a two-minute track trying to fit a 90-second edit. Letting it fade early often weakens the finish. Taking 30 seconds out of the middle keeps the structure intact and gives the ending somewhere to land.

Finding the musical seams

Editing music for video is a bit like tailoring; you need to find the seams before you make a cut.

Most tracks are built in small sections that repeat, often in four or eight-bar blocks that feel complete. If you cut through the middle of one, it can feel slightly off, even if you can’t quite put your finger on why.

The safer option is to move between those natural points, jumping from the end of one phrase to the start of another. When you do that, the rhythm holds together, and the edit tends to disappear.

When the music gets in the way

Another common issue is when a track starts to compete with the voiceover. Lowering the volume helps, but it can also drain the life out of the music.

Instead, we’ll often look at the arrangement itself. If there’s a lighter section, just rhythm, or fewer instruments, we’ll use that under dialogue, then bring the full arrangement back in when the visuals open up.

It keeps the energy there but gives the voice space to sit comfortably.

Why the invisible stuff matters

In the end, it’s about getting the music and visuals to move together.

Not in a perfectly engineered way, just in a way that feels natural, like each part is aware of the other.

When that happens, you stop noticing the music as a separate layer. It just feels like part of the video.

And that’s usually when you know it’s working.

While you’re here: If you’re at the start of a project and still deciding on the right track, you might find our post on How to Choose Music for Your Video helpful for defining the role of music in your story.

The post Making the Music Fit the Story appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

When you’re figuring out how to choose music for a video, the first step isn’t opening a music library. It’s looking at your timeline and asking: what is the music actually doing here?

Is it driving the energy and leading the viewer (a Hero track)? Or is it sitting underneath everything, holding it together without drawing attention (Underscore)? Mix those two up, and things can start to feel messy, like the edit’s trying to do too much at once.

Making underscore work for you

A lot of production music, especially those familiar ‘corporate’ or ‘motivational’ tracks, is created to work as an Underscore. They’re the workhorses of the industry. Built to be steady, predictable, and unobtrusive.

If your project leans heavily on dialogue or is packed with information—training videos, explainers, or anything technical—this is exactly what you want. You’re not asking the music to shine; you just need it to support. Think of it as filling the silence so the edit doesn’t feel empty, while staying out of the way of the dialogue.

If you want your underscore to work effectively, a few things really matter:

• Consistent volume: Choose tracks that stay steady, without sudden jumps in volume or instruments that compete with the voice.
• Space for speech: A good underscore naturally avoids the mid-range frequencies where dialogue sits.
• Repetitive structure: Easy to loop or cut without things feeling awkward.

It’s less about finding something exciting and more about finding something reliable.

When a scene needs a hero track

Then you’ve got the other side of things: the Hero track. This is where the music does matter. It has personality, a melody, and a distinct sense of movement.

You reach for this when the visuals are leading—brand films, intros, montages—anything where you want the audience to feel something without being told. A good Hero track doesn’t sit quietly in the background; it leads.

When you are looking at how to choose music for a video that needs to make an impact, you’ll usually hear it in a few ways:

• It builds: Starting simple, then opening up into something bigger.
• It has a signature sound: Something unique and memorable that sticks in the mind.
• It feels like a complete piece: A clear beginning, middle, and end.

This is where music stops supporting the edit and starts shaping it.

Bridging the gap between scenes

Not every moment needs to be a big statement or sit quietly in the background. Sometimes you just need something to connect things. That’s where bridges (stings, bumpers, or short transitions) come in.

If your video moves between sections, these little moments make a huge difference. Instead of jumping abruptly from one track to another, you keep things feeling connected. A simple trick is to use alternate versions or shorter cuts of your main track. It’s a small detail, but it’s what stops an edit from feeling ‘stop-start’.

Mastering the mix in your timeline

Knowing how to choose music for a video is only the first step. What really makes things feel professional is how you treat the audio once it’s in your timeline.

Getting underscore levels right

If you’ve got music under dialogue, you’re aiming for it to sit just underneath. As a guide, let your music peaks sit somewhere around -18dB to -24dB. You should feel it more than hear it.

If it’s still getting in the way, don’t just turn it down; try a small EQ cut (around 2–3 dB in the 1–3 kHz range). That’s where the human voice needs space to stay clear.

Letting hero tracks do their job

When there’s no dialogue, let the music lead. Here you can push levels much higher, around -6dB to -3dB, so the transitions really land.

If you’re mixing music with voice, a bit of audio ducking goes a long way. Let the music dip slightly under speech and rise back up in the gaps. That movement makes everything feel more natural and intentional.

Why getting the balance right matters

A common mistake is trying to force a Hero track into an underscore role. You might have a great piece of music, but if it’s too busy, too emotional, or too present, it’ll get in the way of the voice. On the flip side, using a flat, repetitive bed for something that needs high impact will make the whole thing feel underwhelming.

It’s not just about whether the track is good; it’s about whether it’s doing the right job.

Three questions to guide your music choices

Before you even open a music library, take a second and look at your timeline. Ask yourself:

1. Is there dialogue? Lean towards Underscore.
   • Example: A training video, explainer, or interview where the narrator does the talking.
2. What kind of voice is it? Choose music that leaves room for the voice.
   • Example: A deep, resonant narrator might pair better with acoustic guitars or soft pads rather than dense synths.
3. Does the music need to lead or support? If the visuals are doing the heavy lifting, keep the music simple.
   • Example: A montage of product shots might get a minimalist, steady rhythm rather than a full orchestral score.

Once you start thinking this way, you stop guessing. That’s usually the point where your edits feel deliberate and purposeful, without adding extra time to your workflow.

The post The Star or the Stage? How to Choose Music for Your Video appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

AI-generated visuals, voices, and music are appearing everywhere. When assets can be created in seconds, the pressure to produce content quickly increases, and it’s easy to focus on quantity over quality. For quick social mock-ups or temporary internal references, the convenience is undeniable. It’s impressive to see what these tools can do, and it makes you wonder what they’ll be capable of in a few more years.

As the initial excitement around these tools settles, there’s a sense that professional production may be reaching a turning point. While the technology is more capable than ever, it also feels like the right moment to pause and weigh the convenience of speed against the long-term value of original work.

The details you can’t quite fake

One thing that really stands out is how hard it is to replicate emotional connection. There’s a certain feeling when a piece of music or a voiceover just lands. It’s rarely about being technically perfect. It’s about the character and emotion behind the performance.

It might be a tiny pause in a narrator’s voice, the way a note lingers just a fraction longer, or a track that seems to move with the scene rather than against it. It’s those little details that make a project feel real and give it character.

Most producers recognise the moment when the music just fits the scene. You can’t always put it into words, but you notice it immediately. As AI-generated audio becomes more common, those human qualities are what set premium work apart.

We’ve explored this in more detail in our post Why AI Film Music Feels ‘Off’, showing how it often misses the little things only a person can bring.

When everything starts to sound the same

One of the less-discussed side effects of the AI boom is that audio can start to sound a little similar.

Because AI models are trained on existing material to find patterns, they naturally gravitate toward a kind of middle ground. The results can be technically convincing, but they often sit right in the centre of what’s most statistically likely.

Human-created music, on the other hand, brings a specific perspective. Each track is crafted by an artist, not just put together by an algorithm. Choosing that human touch helps projects stand out and feel unique.

Then there’s the small print

Beyond the creative side, there’s also the practical question of managing risk.

AI-generated music can be appealing for its speed and convenience. But these tools can’t always guarantee that the output is completely free of copyright issues. They’re trained on music made by real people, after all.

Responsibility for accidental similarities can fall on the user. If a track closely resembles existing music, the AI company may be protected by the fine print, leaving the producer or agency to handle any copyright issues.

Working with a traditional music library or professional audio production house takes much of the guesswork out of using music. You’re not just getting a track, you’re getting clear permission to use it. The licensing process is straightforward, so you know exactly how the audio can be used in your project.

Why human-created music matters

It’s also worth thinking about the long-term health of the industry.

AI can capture a style very convincingly, but real innovation still comes from people. New sounds and creative shifts usually emerge from artists experimenting, reacting to culture, and pushing boundaries. That’s something algorithms can reproduce, but the spark of creation is still human.

By licensing music from composers and working with real voice talent, you’re reinvesting in the people who make great content possible. It helps ensure that the creators making the work we all use and enjoy can keep developing new ideas

So where does that leave professional audio?

As AI makes it easier for anyone to create content, the value of professional, human-led audio may actually become more noticeable.

• Authentic audio acts as a trust signal. For brands, it shows an investment in identity rather than settling for something generic.
• Human-created music provides clarity and assurance. For agencies, it removes much of the uncertainty that can come with algorithmic generation.
• Curation is a creative choice. For producers, it’s about choosing a track that genuinely fits the story, not simply because it was the fastest result.

The goal isn’t to ignore technology, but to recognise where it reaches its limits. Speed is a useful tool, but authenticity is often the stronger long-term strategy.

Choosing music made by real people is one of the simplest ways to make a project feel different from automated content. It’s the human element that makes it connect.

The post Why Authenticity is Becoming a Premium in Audio appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.

“Music: Something cinematic and dramatic.”

If you’re a producer or editor, learning how to write a music brief isn’t about adding more paperwork to your day—it’s about clarifying your own thinking. Whether you’re searching a library yourself or working with a supervisor, you won’t find the right track until you’re clear on what the music needs to do.

Why Keeping a Brief in Your Head Fails

When working with ‘off-the-shelf’ music, very few people sit down to provide a formal brief. Most approach a library with a vague ‘vibe’ in their head and hope for a spark of inspiration. The problem is that without a clear plan, your ears get tired. You get distracted by tracks that sound ‘cool’ but don’t actually fit the edit, and before you know it, you’ve lost three hours to searching.

Professional music supervisors generally approach a project by establishing the technical and emotional requirements before they start listening to tracks. Even for a self-service search, taking five minutes to define the structural requirements of a track is a practical way to stay objective and make your search more efficient.

Not sure how to turn a ‘vibe’ into search phrases? We’ve put together some helpful ways to describe music that make searching easier.

The 4 Key Areas of a Library-Friendly Brief

A good brief for royalty-free music isn’t about fixed timestamps; it’s about identifying the structure and build of the track. Consider these four areas to hone in on what will actually work for your project:

1. The Narrative Energy

Does the music need to be a ‘Constant State’ or a ‘Progression’?

• Constant State: This track maintains a consistent energy level from start to finish. It is ideal for background underscore, corporate presentations, or 15-second social ads where you need the music to provide a steady bed without distracting from the message.
• Progression: This track evolves as it plays. It might start with a single instrument and gradually add layers, building toward a climax. This is best for brand films or mini-documentaries that require emotional growth or a clear resolution at the end.

2. The ‘No-Go’ List

In a search, what you don’t want is often more important than what you do. Deciding what to ignore is the fastest way to narrow the field and avoid generic-sounding edits.

• Example: ‘The brand is rugged and industrial. No uplifting acoustic guitars, no light piano melodies, and absolutely no whistling.’
• Example: ‘This is a serious interview. Avoid anything with quirky percussion, finger snaps, or high-pitched synths.’

3. The ‘Edit-Ability’

Since you aren’t commissioning a custom score, you need a track that is easy to cut and edit to your project. You are looking for ‘anchors’—moments where the music naturally shifts or breathes.

• Look for Sections: Clear ‘breakdowns’ or ‘stings’ make a track much easier to work with. A piece with a 4-bar intro followed by a shift in energy is much simpler to fit into a 30-second edit than a continuous wash of sound.
• The Ending: A ‘cold end’ — a definitive final note or ring-out — gives you much more professional control over the ending of your video than a standard fade-out.

4. The Frequency Space

This refers to where the music ‘sits’ in the audio mix. You need to ensure the music isn’t competing with other important sounds, such as a narrator’s voice or ambient layers.

• High-Frequency Focus: If your narrator has a deep, bassy voice, look for music that is ‘bright’ — violins, bells, or high synths. Because they occupy different frequency ‘pockets’, the voice will stay clear without having to lower the music too much.
• Mid-Range Light: Human speech lives in the mid-range. If your video is heavy on dialogue, avoid ‘busy’ mid-range instruments like distorted electric guitars or saxophones, as they occupy the same space and make the speech harder to understand.
• Bass-Driven: If your video has very little dialogue and needs to feel big, serious, or impactful, look for tracks with sub-bass, deep pulses, or orchestral percussion. This leaves the top end of the mix open for sound effects to cut through clearly.

Thinking Like a Music Supervisor

The best practice, even for a solo creator, is to treat yourself like a client. If you had to explain your music needs to an external supervisor, what technical ‘ingredients’ would you give them? If you can’t define the energy, the lead instrument, or the ‘No-Go’ list to another person, you aren’t ready to search yet.

By writing these points down—even just as a few bullets in your edit notes—you stop being a passive listener and start being a proactive curator.

Putting it into Practice: A Sample Brief

To see how this looks in the real world, let’s take a vague concept and turn it into a library-friendly technical brief.

The Project: A 60-second brand film for a sustainable architectural firm.

The Vibe: Professional, Natural, and Acoustic.

The Technical Brief:

• Narrative Energy: Progression. We are looking for a track that starts sparse and builds into a more driving second half. Focus on tags like ‘Building’ or ‘Evolving’.
• The ‘No-Go’ List: No synthetic pop leads, no aggressive rock drums, and ‘no claps and whistles’ corporate tracks.
• Edit-Ability: The edit requires a clear rhythmic shift or a breakdown mid-way through. We need a track with a definitive final note and natural ring-out rather than a fade-out.
• Frequency Space: Mid-range light. The film features a warm female voiceover, so we need to avoid instrumentation that will compete with the narration.

Need a Second Pair of Ears?

Sometimes, even with a clear idea of what you need, the right track remains hard to find.

We’re working on ways to make our library feel less like a limitless search and more like a creative partner. If you’ve spent time figuring out how to write a music brief for your current project but still haven’t found ‘the one’, we’d be happy to help.

If you have a clear brief but can’t quite find the right track, get in touch, and we’ll put together a hand-picked shortlist from our library. It’s a great way for us to understand what you’re looking for and make sure you’re getting the most out of our music.

The post How to Write a Music Brief for Better Search Results appeared first on MediaMusicNow Blog.