Custom music creation is one of the many things we specialize in here at Music Dealers because clients love to have our amazing artist community available to create custom music for their campaign, show, film, etc.

Over the past few weeks, we have had a few artists reach out and ask about our Deal Board, so we thought it might be helpful to post these questions along with some insight on each.

The Deal Board is used when we need a custom song or cue made based on criteria given by our clients. We also use it when we have a call for a song that is rare or super specific. We get requests every day that need music sent over within 15-20 minutes, so the deadline time plays a big part in whether we can post it on the Deal Board or not.

A closed deal or a blue check mark means the deadline has passed, the opportunity is closed and we are no longer accepting submissions. Often times all submissions are listened to and the playlist is sent to the client within an hour after the opportunity closes on our Deal Board.

To make sure you are on the list for open opportunity notifications, login to your Music Dealers account. On your homepage it will say “Mailing List Subscriptions” to the left. Click on that and it will bring you to our subscription page. There are two categories of emails we send out, Newsletters and Custom Music Opportunities. Make sure “Custom Music Opportunities” is checked if you want notifications when we have new opportunities on the Deal Board. The Newsletter option is for our artist advice and tips emails and many other special opportunities that we get to present to our artists.

There are multiple ways your music can be selected for placement opportunities. We have 500+ clients all over the world with 24/7 access to our catalog through our Music Dealers Discovery Tool to search for the type of songs they need. Along with this, we have various network deals that use music for their shows and promos and report to us quarterly. Thousands of songs have been licensed through these sorts of deals in the past year. Lastly, we have hundreds of clients that come to us each week who need music for various projects. We have in-house Creatives that search our catalog and send clients what they need.

99% of our opportunities are done behind the scenes. The remaining 1% or so are posted on the Deal Board open for submission by our artist community.

To increase the potential to be pitched by Music Dealers and found by our clients, there are a few steps you can take.

1. Make sure your profiles are complete, including an updated pic of the band along with a detailed bio.

2. Make sure you have alternate versions uploaded and merged with the vocal version. If you have any explicit lyrics, make sure you have clean versions along with the instrumental versions. If you want to go above and beyond, you can even upload a capellas – we actually have some clients that request these quite often when editing songs into their episodes and ad spots. Having alternate versions will open your songs up to thousands more opportunities each week.

Lyrics are super important, especially for TV placements. If you have lyrics, not only will you show up in more searches done by clients, but we will be able to forward them to the client quickly when they request them. In the TV world, sometimes clients have to send lyrics of songs to networks to prove that they are clean and able to appear on the TV show. If you do not have them, you could easily miss out on many placements in the TV world.

3. Last but not least, Buzz Points. Make sure you keep us aware of recent tours, features, press, high social media numbers, etc. All this stuff acts as “ammo” when pitching you to clients. Especially in the Ad world, they want to know what artists are up to and they want to see if an artist is buzzing and active. You can send your buzz points to buzzpoints@musicdealers.com anytime and we will add them to your profile.

When we listen to all the submissions, we make a playlist along the way with the songs that best fit the brief. If your song is added to the playlist and sent to the client you will receive an email from us notifying you.

If you submit songs and are not sure if they went through you can click on “Job Submissions” under your picture on your artist profile. This will display all opportunities that you have submitted to. If your submission is listed in there – we got it.

This process can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months – it all depends on the client and the opportunity.

We actually reach out often with custom music requests. If you are able to complete custom music make sure you filled out the custom music section on your edit profile section. With the last update, we added an option to indicate if you are available for custom music as well as turn-around time and a few genres you specialize in.

You can get there by clicking “Edit Profile” under your picture on your artist profile. On the first page of the edit form it will ask “What are you available for?” – make sure you click Custom Music Opportunities and fill in the necessary associated questions.

If you have any further questions that were not answered, feel free to contact us at care@musicdealers.com and we will get right back to you.