I wonder how much money the "modern producers" make. I'm talking about guys who put their music on YouTube and they go viral for like 1-2 months and then become forgotten, mainly modern house and similar today's genres. I mean, 1 million views on YouTube MUST bring you some money, no?

Maybe I should stop (trying to) making music I like, lol

 

Please don't disappoint us. With all the respect for the community we should accept that we're not pro enough. Pro guys usually don't complain about this matter. We really need to continue the road and with every step increase our experiences . Maybe someday we'll be pro too.

And also sometimes audiences' reactions about the bad musics are justified (please don't call them stupid because we're the listeners too). What do you expect from the listeners? There are thousands of people that make better musics than us. Are they compelled to listen to ours? No I don't think so. Convincing them to be our fans requires a lot of time and we should never be discouraged.

 

I'm gonna tell you my romantic story :}

I quit my job 3 years ago and started to work on making music. Before that, I was just playing with samples. I've tried to specialized on scoring (film music). After 1,5 years later I got my first paid job. A small money for some sound effects. 6 months later than that, a director called me and wanted me to compose music for his movie. So I was in film industry. (I saw my name at the end of the fragman ) He also called me yesterday and told me about his another project. I'm also making music and some sound fixing for 2 movies. But they are unpaid jobs. I had to take them for a wider portfolio.

So, I'm not earning enough for living but I'm actually just a beginner even for 3 years and I feel I succeed something from now.
If you want to make money from your own music, you should find who's gonna pay for them and keep in touch with them. You don't have to make music for films, I say every song is a soundtrack. If anybody can use your song as his/her own life's ost, then you get paid. Patience is the key for me.

 

Yes, that's the answer that pleases me. Thank you.

BTW, a serious question. As you know for making nowadays' musics, music theory is not needed much and the talent is more preferable than that. How much music theory is needed for that kind of scoring you named? Is equipping with an advanced one is vital to be successful in it?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 25, 2016

No, it's not vital. As I saw, many directors are not interested in music theory. They just wanna like what they hear and a harmony with the scene. So, if you have very good samples, some sample logic libraries or even some atmosheric waves, you can use them without a single music theory rule. I'm speaking about for low budget movies. I know a kid who makes really bad sounded songs. We are members of a filmmaking forum. I feel like an expert while listening his music :} But some people liked what he did. Those some people are directors and writers. So, I think it's possible to score without even basic information but it's just using wave files and won't be original. It just works for low/no budget movies.

 

It reminds me of the composer of the Silent Hill OST's, made by Akira Yamaoka whom have never studied music theory in his life. If you hear the music in the film and in the games you will notice that almost 95% of the sounds are samples from many CD sample libraries. The difference with him is that his compositions sounds very good, you wouldn't think that this guy doesn't know about music theory, and now he is considered to be one of the best composers of videogames in the history.

BTW, I have just made $50 dollars with 5 albums during 5 years

 

@Zenarcist man that was one of the most brilliant things I've heard in a long time man ! wicked !

"It seems you know the price of everything and the value of nothing Ideals can be had without spending a single penny"@Zenarcist


Btw wait till the TPP passes I hope it doesn't then the real fucking begins.

 

Enough to live comfortably.

 

What's the name or a link to the forum?

 

Definitely Film industry has more earning potential than music industry. I have been making about 1200-1500 $ only from income streams within the music industry, luckily i am now about to expand to film industry to fill the gaps. To make a living from music is incredibly difficult. Someone has to do that for 15-20+ years to even get a basic income. Needless to say, there is no employment in this. You have to be self employed and have dozens of income streams, each generating something every month. You need top level skills for a few years to build these streams. I think i started making music in 2000, now is 2016 - so here it is. I started making money in 2012. Not enough of course. If someone needs something serious as a profession - study software development. I do myself on a side. After all these years I realise I can pay the bills from music production, but to live a comfortable life - don't think its possible.

 

It's in Turkish. So I think it's useless for you. But I can suggest to you https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/
I don't know but there must be a similar subreddit for game developers too.

 

it's just a hobby for me, but i can say i spent much more than i earnt.. at least it helped me with knowing girls

 

Depends on what you mean by "producing music". If you mean playing music for other people, there's a way to make $50 to $100 a day by becoming good to excellent on an acoustic instrument (decent voice helps too), going out to a busy street corner, putting your hat out and playing your ass off. I know a couple of friends that do this, and they at least support themselves. It's not a lot of money, but doing it every day can pay the bills.

 

If it is true then that is the end of creating music for many musicians. It is simply because a professional musician, producer, composer is called professional for a reason and that is he/she lives from music productions/performances, meaning he/she lives from music, earns hi/her living from music thus makes money from being a musician. Most people have to work in some kind of a job to make money to be able to pay rent/mortgage, for food, for utility bills, for internet… etc. and nowadays people have to work really hard and also a lot even just to make it for the next day and even that is not enough in the long run. Now if you can’t make money as a musician because the system simply wont allow it anymore and therefore you have to work in a regular job you will not have enough amount of time and energy to be able to compete with some fortunate others adequately and to make really great and also great sounding music anymore. Thus if it is true and nothing will change very soon then music will fall back to the middle ages where kings and immediate supporters kept musicians alive from making/performing music. Music will suffer the most.

 

Been in production, recording, songwriting, and performing for a long time. Most money I made was in the DJ booth, easily.

My guess is because DJs provide an audio related service to a client (club owner) that can immediately see the return of investment.