SynchTank: Streamlining Music Supervision

DITMAS PARK, BROOKLYN: They’re not cavemen by any means, but when you get down to it music supervisors have ridiculously simple needs: These people need the best possible music that they can afford for their project – FAST.

But that deceptively uncomplicated aim can prove logistically taxing. Content, publishing info, song data, video assets, paperwork, and the other things that make a license tick can be spread haphazardly across the globe, challenging even the best-connected rights holder or music supervisor to pull it all together in time for deadline. Sooooo, in the age of the Internet, which has brought us such workflow miracles as Zipcar, why has no one yet made an efficient system that pulls it all together?

Someone has. Operating out of Brooklyn, SynchTank is a solution that makes sense out of music supervision. A thoroughly comprehensive online subscription-based IP management and licensing system, it’s the brainchild of Joel T. Jordan, who realized that a better synch mousetrap was possible while busily running Earthprogram Music, his own music publishing company and a couple small labels over the past two decades.

Putting his shoulder to the wheel, he and business partner Dave Comeau brought SynchTank to life. The result is a truly all-under-one-roof music supervision resource that record labels, publishers, libraries, ad agencies, media producers – anyone who has to think about synch – needs to know about. In this interview, Jordan was only too happy to help spell it out.

When you meet someone for the first time, how do you describe what SynchTank does?
SynchTank is a new online music technology through which anyone with a catalog of music can set up and power their own uniquely designed cloud-based asset management and licensing system.

SynchTank allows them — or any other user with proper clearance — to access their assets online and perform all the tasks that would normally happen in a day of licensing, from search to pitch, to video compositing, license and delivery.  By connecting fragmented offline and online processes with assets and data in one online environment, SynchTank increases levels of efficiency and enables marketing and delivery from virtually anywhere.

That’s definitely something the synch sector can use. Can you drill down deeper into the main functions?
The basic explanation in five steps is that with SynchTank a user can:

1. Search for music by its audible descriptive characteristics — tempo/bpm, key, mood, timbre, vocal pitch, presence, rhythm complexity and more — as well as any combination of writer and publisher information, master or release info, and lyrical content.   We use a sophisticated music analysis algorithm to automatically tag the songs with the relevant audible metadata on upload, making it a breeze to set up a deeply enabled search across thousands of tracks.

2. Save selected music into project or client specific playlists with custom artwork and track notes. Users can access, modify, and pitch any of their playlists at any time.

3. Create online video synchronizations of selected tracks with any uploaded video.  Users can offset a waveform of the track against the picture to determine the potential of a track and video together without ever leaving the browser.

4. Share, pitch, deliver and track playlists, individual songs, saved searches, and video synchs to contact groups or individuals.  Virtually anything on the site can be pitched, and can be sent as a simple email or as fully-branded HTML campaign. Email metrics with detailed information measures the success of each delivery.  Recipients can stream the tracks from the pitch page or download the tracks depending on the access level and resolution set for that delivery.

5. License and download any selected song through an automated process.  Publishers can accept detailed online licensing requests, while master and copyright owners can create pre-defined licenses and prices to offer automated transactions. That effectively lowers the cost of sale for previously uneconomic transactions.

Very thorough. Why did you develop SynchTank? What was the big problem in music supervision/synch that you wanted to attack, and how does this provide the solution?
I’ve had the fun and sometimes perplexing experience of running an indie label and publishing company for the past 20 or so years, so I’m always thinking as a record promoter and for better ways to promote my tracks and artists, especially for licensing opportunities.  I was using all the current methods of the past 5 years – iTunes, Zip, FTP, file-sharing sites, and mailing list programs, but at every step there was some disconnect with applications living offline and online, in different locations, and requiring uploading and downloading and many steps by both parties before the tunes are even heard.   To top it off, to be truly mobile meant I would have to carry my catalog — and computer — around with me wherever I would go.

Enabling my clients and partners to check out my catalog passively beyond sending out discs, hard drives or massive archive files, and then educating them on what was important and why was another story altogether. Even I didn’t know the entire picture of each tune I owned and wanted to be able to see everything about the track all in one centralized location – master info, writer and publishing info, and audible descriptive data.

I figured there must be a better way than spending afternoons at my desk sourcing tracks with only iTunes, gathering tracks, stuffing them into an archive, uploading them somewhere, sending out the link somewhere, and hoping that the recipient downloaded the tracks, unzipped them and put them in their computer or MP3 player.  This is a lot to hope for from a relatively unknown young indie label. Even worse was I wasn’t sending them anywhere that reinforced my brand, my music and my message.

Efficiency didn’t exist as I could only tackle one thing at a time with my limited resources, so any opportunity I could address would mean that another would fall to the wayside.  I was watching gigs pass by and taking gambles on others that might not even pan out. I knew all the steps could all be brought into one environment, allowing me to do all the creative work I was currently doing, but without ever having to leave the browser, work on a specific machine, or be in a specific location.

I imagined it wasn’t just me having these problems of access and delivering the materials in a consistent brand-reinforcing manner, and being able to do it from anywhere in an efficient, great-looking way that leads back to an actual measurable result: a view, click, stream, download, feedback or a license.

So I set out to design a tool that would not only reduce frictions and increase efficiency for me, but would also get the recipient to listen to the tunes with the least amount of steps.

So who stands to benefit most from SynchTank? Who are the different user groups that you’re anticipating?
Anyone interested in accessing and promoting their repertoire without the restrictions of traditional storage and delivery methods.  By traditional I mean what’s been available for the past five years alone.  Our current users are composers, producers, recording artists, bands, publishers, labels, distributors, management companies, production music catalogs, recording studios and synch houses.

I think anyone with creative intellectual property can and should use this software to their advantage.  I figure if you’re going to spend money on a website it might as well be extremely useful and not only generate more business, but help you manage it as well.

Who are some adopters right now?
Since January we’ve launched unique systems with top tier US clients like Primary Wave, IRIS Distribution, Reservoir Media Management, and with international clients ATC Mgmt (UK), CueSongs (UK), and Budde Music (Germany).  We’re now in negotiations with one of the majors, as well as many more indie labels, boutique publishers, digital distributors, and sound designers.

This is a deep system. How would you describe the experience of bringing something like this from concept to reality?
It started off like Superman III: sketched out on a napkin one night in the summer of 2008!  Since then it’s been an exhausting and exhilarating process making it come to life.

It’s been one of the longest projects I’ve personally ever been involved with, but one of the most deeply satisfying experiences as well because we’ve actually solved a real industry- wide problem. It’s been so much work — thought, design, discussing, sketching, programming, rethinking, redesigning, reprogramming — over and over till it’s refined.

The core design and development was done by just two people — myself and my partner Dave Comeau — and not by committee, so we’ve been able to move very quickly.  We’re both relatively talented at what we do — me being the designer, and him being the know-it-all programmer that literally can do it all — so we were able to sketch out the idea and have a working model that actually looked really good in about five months.

After the first beta we spent a year adding on and improving, breaking it up into a series of small projects that would compose the whole system, allowing us to focus without running in 20 directions.  This August will be the start of the fourth year of development and halfway through our first year as a revenue-generating business. There’s really no end in sight to our R&D plans, as the customers are now coming up with great suggestions to make the gear better and better, and we’re at it daily.

It’s great working with the labels and publishers: As they’re getting the benefit of real time development, without any of the risk or expenses of trying to develop and manage long-term high-tech projects internally, we’re benefiting from some of the most creative minds in music, marketing, and licensing helping to shape the product.

It’s a win-win! What have been the other big happy surprises that come with starting a niche-oriented, music industry business like SynchTank. What’s making all that work rewarding and worth the effort?
The biggest surprise was that there was an opportunity to begin with.  When I was initially doing research on existing systems I knew there were systems that did a bit of what I wanted, but upon a deeper look there was nothing out there that was affordable, did all the tasks I had hoped for in one place, and could be designed and modified any which way and without a ton of up front costs.

Now that the gear exists, I can see that I’m not the only one that feels this way, and that’s been the second biggest surprise: How quickly it’s being embraced by many different types of companies at many different levels.  It’s really rewarding to be assisting so many different cool companies with unbelieveable catalogs. We’re helping the industry solve some of its long-standing access and asset management problems, and at the same time helping the industry grow.

On top of what SynchTank is contributing, how do you see the music supervision/synch sector evolving, and why are new solutions for this market still needed – by both music buyers and sellers?
By easing processes and integrating the management, discovery, licensing and promotion of music into one platform, we’re now able to address more business and with higher levels of efficiencies across individuals or organizations.  Through even more automation and computer aid we can shift the gears of the global music licensing economy and enable an even larger, yet-to-be seen music market to emerge.

That’s what we call the big picture! So who inspires you? Let us in on some other business/music innovators who are keeping you motivated.
Steve Wozniak, Jim Henson, and Mark Twain. These days I find just the sheer number of new inventors and operations that have sprung up to support their ideas inspiring. The amount of ingenuity that is happening right now is mind-blowing. At times it’s like watching digital evolution at fast forward, and every day there is a guarantee of something new to learn.   We’re very excited to be a part of this wave of innovation that is shaping new methods and technology.  Thankfully there will always be a problem to solve, and that’s motivation enough.

Amen! What makes NYC the right place to launch SynchTank from?
I’ve been in NYC for 15 years now and I don’t know anywhere else I could get the inspiration, the guidance or the energy from.  If I weren’t in the center of it all, the project probably wouldn’t have clicked as quickly as it did. I can’t imagine being anywhere else trying to do something as in-depth without the given wealth this city offers.

Being here I have been able to seek out advice and expertise on anything and everything music-, copyright-, licensing-, business-, legal- and tech-related from some of the most connected and knowledgeable individuals that call NYC home. I have been able to literally take it to the doorsteps of the intended users and gather real time feedback as it develops.

– David Weiss

HFA Announces Licensing Deal with Cricket’s Muve Music Service

The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), an NYC-based provider of rights management, licensing, and royalty services for the music industry, has announced a licensing deal with Cricket for its music service, Muve Music.

In the deal, HFA will license Muve Music on behalf of HFA’s affiliated music publishers by clearing songs for limited digital downloads, ringtones and ringbacks, enabling a content-rich experience for Muve Music customers.

According to HFA, Muve Music is the first unlimited music service designed specifically for the mobile phone. The service provides customers with unlimited access and downloads to songs, ringtones and ringback tones as part of a monthly unlimited flat-rate wireless plan. Music downloads directly to the user’s phone without a need for a computer, cables or credit card so consumers can access and manage their music everywhere they go. The service was recently launched in all Cricket markets and already is nearing the 100,000 subscriber mark.

Cricket’s relationship with HFA is a key strategic deal for the company, employing HFA’s technology and song database to deeply broaden the issuance of volumes of song licenses for Muve Music.  HFA’s deep ties to and long-standing relationships with more than 46,000 music publishers will support Muve Music’s growing library of licensed music.

“With a licensing deal in place with HFA, we are able to provide additional full-track downloads as well as expand our offering of available ringtones and ringback tones, giving publishers two additional revenue streams while offering more content to our customers,” said John Bolton, director, Muve Music for Cricket.

Steven Alvarado Signs with Imagem Music Group/Rescue Records

New York City singer-songwriter Steven Alvarado announced that he recently signed an exclusive co-publishing deal with Imagem Music Group/Rescue Records in Los Angeles.

Alvarado previously managed Dubway Recording Studios for eight years while maintaining his songwriting career.

The deal aims to place Alvarado’s songs from his last two albums Let it Go and The Howl Sessions in a wide variety of television shows, commercials, and major studio films.

Imagem Music Group is a Dutch company and is the worlds largest independently owned music publisher.

Conference Alert: PromaxBDA Arrives in NYC June 28-30

PromaxBDA is the global association for marketing, promotion and design professionals in the entertainment industry. The organization’s annual conference returns to NYC in 2011 this week, June 28-30, at The Hilton, New York at 1335 Avenue of the Americas.

The Conference stands as the world’s largest entertainment marketing, promotion and design event, with high attendance and interest from television networks, cable channels, local stations, station groups, distribution, syndication, media/creative agencies, design and emerging media.

The 3-day event hosts multiple sessions, panels, exhibits, screenings and networking opportunities for attendees, focused on the international business of television marketing, promotion and design.

As a result, PromaxBDA is worth checking out for production music libraries, audio post professionals, and music supervisors who work within the sector. Note that walk-up registration from this point forward is $1,595.

Participants in this year’s conference include Spike Lee, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for creativity; keynote speaker Vice President Al Gore; actor Judah Friedlander of “30 Rock” ; founder and editor-in-chief of Motionographer.com Justin Cone; founder-CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld Cindy Gallop; and COO of Dentsu Network West John Partilla.

Also taking part will Elmore Leonard, author, screenwriter and executive producer of FX’s “Justified”, “Anderson” host Anderson Cooper, former NBC Universal President-CEO Jeff Zucker, PepsiCo’s CMO and Joint Ventures President Jill Beraud, TAXI’s Chairman and Co-Founder Paul Lavoie and modern film title designer Kyle Cooper. Myriad other leaders from the design, creative and music fields will be part of the panels and other sessions taking place throughout the event.

For the full schedule, visit Promax.

TuneSat LLC Secures a $6 Million Funding Round Led by General Electric Pension Trust

NYC-based TuneSat LLC, an audio fingerprinting technology company that enables music rights holders to track the usage of their music on TV and the Internet, announced today that it has raised over $6 million in a funding round led by General Electric Pension Trust, advised by GE Asset Management.

Scott Jones, Founder and CEO of ChaCha and former CEO and Chairman of Gracenote, together with several existing TuneSat investors, also participated in the round.  Jones and Carlos Monfiglio of GE Asset Management will join TuneSat’s Board of Directors.

According to TuneSat, the company will utilize the new equity capital to expand the global reach of its content monitoring services.

Founded by BMI award-winning “NFL On Fox Theme” composer and producer Scott Schreer, along with composer/producer Chris Woods, TuneSat provides rights holders with near-real time visibility into when and where their music is being performed on TV and the Internet.

The company utilizes a proprietary audio fingerprint technology and monitors hundreds of broadcasters and millions of websites across the globe.  As a result, using TuneSat data, content owners can ensure that they are properly paid for licensed music while protecting themselves against its unauthorized use.

The Royalty Network Launches New NYC-based Record Label, Krian Music Group

NYC-based independent publisher The Royalty Network has announced the launch of a new record label, Krian Music Group.

Based in New York City, Krian already has deals in place with artists including The Ettes, VHS or BETA, Buck$ and Richie Loop.

Krian Music Group is founded by Royalty Network President Frank Liwall. The full-service label will offer A&R, digital and traditional marketing, PR, radio promotion, and physical distribution by Universal/Fontana.

According to Krian, the record label’s initial focus is to sign artists with  proven publishing success, and seek to further develop these artists utilizing the resources provided by both the label and publishing companies.

Recent film and television placements for Krian Music Group artists include The Ettes song “I Heard Tell” in a currently airing KOTEX commercial,  and the Buck$ song “Bounce” for the CBS television series “Blue Bloods” and TNT television series “Franklin &  Bash”.

Additional Royalty Network licenses featured have been Outkast’s “So Fresh So Clean” for Fox’s “American Dad”, the Studio B song “I See Girls” for TIDE, Blackroc’s “What You Do to Me” for Zales, MIA’s “Jimmy” for the Xbox game Kinect Sport 2, and Pitbull featuring Afrojack’s  “Give Me Everything” for ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars”.

Upcoming releases include The Ettes this August and VHS or BETA this coming September. Krian Music Group will seek to expand their roster over the course of the next year as well.

401K Music, Full Service Music Publisher, Launched in NYC by Veronica Gretton

Publishing, Label and Management veteran Veronica Gretton has announced the creation of 401K Music, a boutique Artist Development Publishing company based in NYC.

Having already established a reputable roster with the launch,  401k Music has acquired a substantial stake in the first four albums by The B-52s (including the songs “Rock Lobster”, “Private Idaho” and “Planet Claire”).

In addition, the Company has signed Dylan Rau, songwriter and lead singer of highly touted Brooklyn band Bear Hands. Bear Hand’s debut LP “Burning Bush Supper Club” was Top 20 at CMJ Radio for the first two months of its release, and the band have been hailed by tastemakers and the music press worldwide as a band to watch. “High Society”, the first commercial single off the album, recently entered the Billboard Top Dance Singles at #3 and the Nielsen SoundScan Top Singles charts at #7.

Synchronization exploitation, as well as establishing deeper relationships between brands and artists, is a top priority for 401K. Recent synchronizations for The B-52s and Bear Hands include commercials for Target, David Yurman and French Connection, movies (“Paul”), TV shows (“Skins”, “The Good Wife” “Glory Daze”) and video games (“Rock Band 3”).

The first two signings demonstrate 401K’s flexibility – one deal is a straightforward administration agreement with additional creative services: highly proactive synch placement for example. The other is a co-publishing deal with an advance against royalties, and with additional funds available for recording, marketing, promotion and PR for the actual masters.

“I want to be uniquely, and completely flexible with our deal making – I want to be able to create the best possible scenarios for the Writer and Artist, ones that they are comfortable with and ones that will further their careers,” explains Gretton. “In addition, we can release the records ourselves or license to another company and work alongside them, whichever is best for the artist.”

Gretton has 25 years experience working in music publishing, recording, touring, branding, synchronization, licensing, merchandising, new media and business affairs.  In her career, she has worked in London, Los Angeles and New York, with such artists as The Cure, The Stone Roses,  Talking Heads, the Ramones, Tori Amos, Live, Black Grape, Ambulance Ltd, The Pogues and Mick Jones of The Clash.

Leveraging her relationships with managers, record company personnel, music supervisors, publishers, agents, radio, DJ’s and journalists Gretton’s expertise includes developing new artists, and re-inventing and maintaining established artist’s careers.

Game Scoring: “Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed” – Remixing Anberlin, Rise Against and More

FASHION DISTRICT, MANHATTAN: Strapping yourself in to play the heart-stopping EA race game, Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed, you realize that reality rules. From the helmet-cam to the tire pressure and every bump on the racecourse, everything here is as real as it gets. Except for the music – which is as unreal as they could make it.

Available on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC since the end of March, Unleashed intentionally messes with the standard notion of licensing tracks for video games. First, EA’s famed, Vancouver-based Black Box Studios got the rights to 10 killer rock songs: “Night Of The Hunter” by 30 Seconds To Mars, “We Owe This to Ourselves” by Anberlin, “Mountains” by Biffy Clyro, “Ours” by The Bravery, “Issues” by Escape the Fate, “Levitate” by Hollywood Undead, “Action Needs An Audience” by Jimmy Eat World, “Help Is On The Way” by Rise Against, “Take A Load Off” by Stone Temple Pilots, and “The Sound (John M. Perkins Blues)” by Switchfoot.

Next step: get seven top game composers on the case to create a multi-genre slew of remixes, making “heroic”, “surreal” and “dirty” versions of each song to play out at various stages of gameplay.

GETTING IN ON THE PROJECT
Here in NYC, it was the composer/producers at Heavy Melody that emerged as the top choice to give the songs the “dirty” flavor (read twistedly gritty electronica), joining them with what would be one of the largest composition teams Black Box had ever hired to score a game. Ramin Djawadi, Troels Folmann, and Mick Gordon were selected for Heroic (Epic, Hybrid Orchestral), and Stephen Baysted joined Djawadi for the Surreal set (Ethereal Orchestral, dreamy).

The Heavy Melody squad – Dave Fraser, Neil Goldberg, and Ari Winters – was first paired with Black Box Audio Director Charles Deenen to score Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for Wii. Their software development alter ego, Heavyocity, had made a big impression on Deenen when he heard the Evolve and Mutations virtual instruments in action — it wasn’t long before he wanted the men behind the machines to be in on his game scores.

“A couple of months after Hot Pursuit wrapped, Charles called us and said, “We have this new concept for Need for Speed,” Fraser says. “Licensing songs for video games is not new, of course, but in this case they wanted to use the songs in a new way, remixing them into three emotional states: epic/heroic/gladiatorial, surreal/ethereal, and aggressive/electronic/industrial/dirty.

“Our job in doing the dirty remixes was to take the original songs and then reflect the angst and excitement of the driver before the race – give them this aggressive, racy kind of vibe.”

CREATING THE ELEMENTS
While typical video game scoring famously makes demands on composers to deliver a wealth of flexible stems and elements, Goldberg explains that Shift 2: Unleashed had less-daunting-than-usual deliverable requirements. “With games, there’s usually a long list of what’s needed to make it interactive. That wasn’t the story here – in this case, the music primarily had to be hard-hitting, and aggressive.”

Although the approval process would prove arduous, the reduced advance planning necessary gave Heavy Melody time and energy to do a lot less math and have a lot more fun. “We could focus on making beautiful tracks,” says Winters. “We didn’t have to say, ‘Will just one or two stems work by themselves?’ It was about making the track sound cool as a singular entity. The litmus test was if it would work on radio.”

Working in their spaciously stylish Fashion District studios, where they’ve worked on projects for clients such as 2k Games, Atari, The NFL, Sony, NBC and more, Heavy Melody started with each song’s vocal stems and then took a big detour from there.

“We took the lead and background vocals, and then recreated virtually everything else underneath,” Fraser says. “We took the tracks to places they hadn’t been before. We roto-rooted the sound of these tracks, and twisted them with a lot of weird experimentation. There were completely new bridge sections that we created, we would stretch the vocals, and really go extreme with it. It was pretty exciting.”

SOUND SCULPTING TOOLS
With tools like Digital Performer 7.22, the Dangerous D-Box, Native Instruments Kontakt 4, Evolve, Evolve Mutations, UAD-2 cards from Universal Audio, Waves Platinum, Soundtoys Decapitator, Ohm force, PSP Audioware, and the Brainworx Digital V2, Heavy Melody radically restructured the songs.

Listening to the stuttering mind-burst of remixes like STP’s “Take a Load Off” or the crushing pulsations of Anberlin’s “We Owe This to Ourselves” (several of the remixes are streaming from the Heavy Melody Website). You’ll hear the composer team was in their element as they attacked the remixes.

“Throughout the process, we focused not so much on the song structure, as the sound of the remixes,” Winters notes. “For example, we’d take three different versions of a snare – weird, punchy, echoed – combine them, and then continue to tweak. It was about making new sounds, sound by sound.”

LONG DISTANCE LISTENING
With audio director Deenen and the Black Box studios on another coast in another country, developing a common sonic language over long distance was essential.

“We had sonic tracks to reference and match in terms of frequencies,” Goldberg says, “and we spent a lot of time early on making sure we knew what was good sonically for him, so we could figure out how to duplicate that in our studio. Charles was very particular about the style and what he wanted it to sound like – very current.

“The sonic delivery of the remixes was equally as important as how cool the parts were. Charles is a recording engineer with a lot of years in the music industry, and an incredibly talented sound designer who’s mixed trailers for Hollywood films. He has an amazing 5.1 studio in Vancouver, and he really gets it.

“It was refreshing to talk to someone who says, ‘Can we increase the frequency range of this sound?’ Rather than the typical producer who says, ‘Can we just make it bigger?’ For example, he’d be listening there, and we’d be listening here in NYC on Genelecs and subs. He’d say, ‘Turn your sub off, and give me the biggest wall of low end you can pump out.’”

SURVIVING THE APPROVAL PROCESS
With not just notoriously exacting video game creatives to please, but also the rock stars that they had just remixed, Heavy Melody held their breath for the approval process.

“The final stage was the band, the label and the management signing off on the work that we did. After we spent two months honing these tracks we said, ‘What if the band hates these?’” says Winters. “We were really psyched when the emails came back, ‘Anberlin, approved. Rise Against, approved…’ Only STP requested slight changes to their track.”

NEXT THEY GET TO PLAY IT
With the game on the market and garnering great reviews, Heavy Melody has been glad to make it to the true final stage: The part where they grab their controllers, and play Shift 2: Unleashed with their music crunching hypnotically out of the speakers.

“You work so hard on a project, and when you’re at the end of it you get to the point where you’re burning out,” Goldberg says. “Not because it’s a bad project, but because it’s really hard work. You’re going back and doing the same thing over and over again to get it right. When it’s done and it’s the can, you get to take a breath.

“When it’s finally on the shelves and you can actually play, all you can say is, ‘Wow, this is the fruits of our hard labor.’ You get filled with goosebumps hearing it in the game itself.”

– David Weiss

Pro Sound Effects (NYC) Releases Soundrangers Library for Interactive Media Production

NYC-based sound effects/licensing provider Pro Sound Effects has announced the release of the Soundrangers Sound Effects Hard Drive, created by the Soundrangers game interactive audio studio.

The library contains 21,117 sound effects, and is delivered on a portable Glyph hard drive that features search software and includes one year of free sound effects updates. The Soundrangers library has been used by companies including Google, Nickelodeon, Microsoft, Cartoon Network, Adobe and HBO.

The Soundrangers library has been created for maximum ease of use in interactive environments. In developing, formatting and organizing the library, the Soundrangers team applied their own workflow and creative expertise in sound design for console and social games, iPhone and iPad apps, interactive software and websites.

The hard drive is meticulously organized into intuitive hierarchical categories such as gameplay and user interface elements, foley, nature, animals, vehicles, weapons, looping ambiences, whooshes, cinematic transitions and more. One shots are provided with multiple variations and precisely edited for easy plug and play and ambiences are pre-edited to loop.

The introductory price is $2900 USD, single user license (retail $3900 USD).

Soundrangers Sound Effects Hard Drive Features:

•    21,117 sound effects (137 GB) on external hard drive
•    Compressed formats: mp3 and Ogg Vorbis
•    Optimized for interactive, video game, and web design
•    Embedded Metadata, Intuitive Category and File names
•    Sound Effects Search Software (NetMix Lite): Search, Audition, Drag & Drop
•    1 Year of Free Sound Effects Updates (digitally delivered 4 times per year)
•    Mac and PC compatible
•    3 -year Data Replacement Policy

Licensing and the American Songbook: Sunflower Entertainment Advances the Chess Legacy

MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN: It’s not just artists that need a niche. Publishing and licensing companies have to have a strong idea of who they are, as well – a fact that NYC’s Sunflower Entertainment has a firm hold on.

Co-founded in 2002 by Jamar Chess, Juan Carlos Barguil and Marshall Chess, Sunflower’s seeds are sown in one of America’s most musically influential family trees: the legendary Chess Records which paved the way for blues, R&B, and yes – rock and roll itself. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters are just a few of the seminal artists who were on the Chess Records label.

Sunflower’s catalog is a mix of iconic American songbook recordings and up-to-the-minute independent Latin music – imagine having recordings by Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Ike Turner, Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding, Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk, Marvin Gaye, Duke Ellington, and Charles Stepney under your aegis. We checked in with Jamar Chess on the rewards and challenges of representing his charges in 2011, and find out why snagging synch licenses from music supervisors today is never a cakewalk – even if you’ve got ole’ Blue Eyes on the roster.

What types of music does Sunflower Entertainment work with, and what do you do for the music you represent?
We are a global music publishing and licensing company with two distinct areas of specialty. The first is our Latin side of things: Many years ago we saw a need for a genuine music company in the independent Latin music business and saw the Latin demographic as being a major power.

Our first Latin deal was with the largest and oldest independent label in South America, Discos Fuentes, whom we still represent. We took over the administration of their publishing arm, Edimusica — 25,000 classic salsa, cumbia, vallenato and tropical titles — and master recordings as well. Within the first year we increased revenues by 300% by meticulous copyright detail, hands-on administration and aggressive exploitation in film, TV and new media areas. Now we represent quality catalogs, artists and songwriters from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Mexico.

The other side is our classic publishing catalogs, which has about 7,500 titles — they date back to Tin Pan Alley times. We administer classic jazz works by Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Django Reinhardt and Thelenious Monk to soul and R&B from Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and Jerry Butler and some great Christmas songs like “Do You Hear What I Hear” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. We have classics and treat them like that. That’s what we do best.

We’re an old school-style music company where the music comes first — not how many songs are in my catalog. We’re music lovers and the best music usually earns the best money. I don’t want to become a major conglomerate that looks at songs only as numbers!

An important part of Sunflower’s story stems from your very notable family history. For those who may not be familiar, please explain the Chess’ role in modern music.
My father Marshall is a living legend, although he is still Dad to me. He has had an amazing career spanning over 50 years in the business, from growing up in the family business, Chess Records, to starting Rolling Stones Records — with the tongue and lip logo — in 1970, executive producing and managing seven classic Stones’ albums (Sticky Fingers through Black and Blue) to the birth of hip hop with Sugar Hill Records and most recently running a successful publishing company.

But, I want to say it was my grandfather Leonard and great uncle Phil who are the real innovators and legends. They came from a poor Jewish village from Poland to America for a better life, and they went from first working in a scrap metal yard to owning a liquor store, then a nightclub to starting Chess Records. They discovered and produced Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf,and on and on and on. They changed what America listened to; the artists they promoted planted the seeds of rock ‘n’ roll that still influence music today. They made history, it’s an amazing story…it still amazes me all the time, I am deeply humbled.

When you started Sunflower Entertainment in 2002, along with Marshall and Juan Carlos Barguil, what was the licensing and publishing landscape like? What you’re your primary strengths in the market at that time, and what were the most effective ways to capitalize on those strengths?
We founded Sunflower out of my family’s publishing company Arc Music (the publishing arm of Chess Records, which we recently sold). First, we solely concentrated in the Latin market, signing independent artists, catalogs and producers. As we started paying royalties and providing proper administration, our reputation started to build as the place to come to if you did Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Tropical, and Reggaeton and want your songs in TV, films, compilations, digital distribution and copyright protection.

Fast forward to 2011 – what are the most notable ways that the licensing/publishing marketplace has evolved? You mentioned to me, for example, that you believe licensing has become much more competitive.
Yes, I mean, who doesn’t want to be on next week’s episode of “Gossip Girl” or “Dancing With The Stars”? So, we’re all competing for those placements much more intensely now. You can break a new artist with a fantastic synch – 10, 15 years that wasn’t happening.

We have to be on our toes with new technology and new media. Wherever music can be consumed, used or streamed we as content owners have to be there to monetize effectively. Read Wired magazine every month.

Always stay five minutes ahead! What are some notable synch licenses that Sunflower has helped line up in the last couple of years that you think were an especially good use of your songs?

There are a bunch of great uses but personally I like the end credit use on “Mad Men” last year – it was the Christmas episode, and the song was “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. We also had one of our big Dominican acts, Vakero, in an excellent foreign film, Sin Nombre. It won a couple of awards at Sundance, an amazing film, watch it on Netflix.

What have you learned about working a niche catalog like yours with music supervisors?
What I try to do is let them know that if you’re looking for great Latin, jazz from the ‘40s, or some ‘60s soul from Memphis call me, that’s all — not try to shove music down the supervisors. It’s “We’re here, what’s the scene and feel? I’ll send you a link in a few hours.” You have to be quick.

Being based out of New York is the best, but for synch it’s mostly happening in LA. I go out there a handful of times a year to keep up the relationships. It’s still about personal relationships in this business.

Pop quiz! If you could obtain the catalog of any recording artist ever for Sunflower — cost not a factor — who would it be?

Anything historic…that will always be valuable no matter what.

Last but not least: What are the trends to watch out for next?
Streaming…Streaming….Streaming….

– David Weiss

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