This is BFlat BSharp BNatural — a weekly newsletter on the unglamorous work of running a music project.
Last week I said we’d talk about sync licensing. So let’s do it.
What is sync licensing?
A “sync” is when your music is synchronized to moving images — a TV show, a film, a commercial, a YouTube series, a video game, a podcast intro. When someone pays to use your song that way, they’re buying a sync license. You get paid a flat fee (called a “sync fee”) upfront, and if it airs on broadcast TV or gets distributed commercially, you also collect performance royalties on the back end through your PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC).
The math can look very good. A mid-level TV placement might pay $500–$5,000 in sync fees. A national commercial can pay $25,000 or more. A film trailer can pay $10,000–$50,000. These aren’t guaranteed numbers — they’re ranges that depend on how your music is used, for how long, in what territory, and who’s licensing it.
That’s the upside. Here’s the reality.
Is it worth your time as an independent artist?
Honest answer: maybe. And the maybe depends entirely on your catalog and your approach.
Sync supervisors — the people who choose music for TV and film — are looking for a few specific things:
- Clean clearance. They need to know who owns every piece of the song. If your track samples something you don’t own, it’s dead on arrival. No exceptions.
- Stems or instrumentals. Many placements need your song without vocals, or with vocals swapped, or with just the beat. If you can’t deliver stems, you lose a percentage of opportunities before they even start.
- Metadata in order. Title, writer credits, publisher info, ISRC code, BPM, key, mood tags. If your metadata is incomplete, you’re invisible to most music search databases.
- Emotional clarity. A track that does too many things — starts dark, goes upbeat, ends in a breakdown — is harder to place than one that holds a consistent mood. Supervisors are cutting to picture. They need a song that works for a specific 30-second window without them having to explain it.
If your catalog is mostly original, you have stems available, and your metadata is clean: sync is worth pursuing. If your catalog has samples or you can’t produce stems: fix that first.
How to actually get in front of sync supervisors
Music libraries. This is the primary access point for independent artists. Libraries like Musicbed, Artlist, Pond5, Epidemic Sound, and Marmoset license music to brands, filmmakers, and content creators — they do the placement work and split the revenue with you (typically 50/50 or better). The tradeoff is exclusivity: some libraries ask for exclusive rights to the tracks you submit, meaning you can’t pitch those songs elsewhere. Read every contract before you sign.
Non-exclusive libraries. These let you retain full ownership and pitch the same song to multiple libraries simultaneously. The revenue per placement is usually lower, but you stay in control. Taxi, Jingle Punks, and SoundStripe offer non-exclusive deals. Airbit and BeatStars have sync licensing add-ons as well.
Direct pitching. Harder, but it exists. Film students, independent documentary makers, and small YouTube creators often license directly from artists because they can’t afford library fees. LinkedIn, film school networks, and a simple “sync” page on your own site with a contact form can surface these opportunities. The fees are smaller, but the volume can add up.
Supervisors on social media. A growing number of music supervisors maintain public Twitter/X or LinkedIn presences where they post about what they’re looking for. Follow them. Don’t cold-pitch immediately. Learn what they’re working on and when they post open calls, respond with something specific.
What the “A Lil’ Dis A Lil’ Dat & A Lil’ More” LP means for sync
The new LP from Ronald O’Keith Downing covers rock, R&B, jazz, a cappella, and inspirational — across 10 tracks. That range is actually an asset in sync. Supervisors don’t want one thing from one artist; they want catalogs that can serve multiple placements. A jazz instrumental from that record could sit in a drama. An inspirational vocal could land in a documentary. A rock track could work for a car commercial.
The key next step: if any tracks on the LP don’t already have stems and an instrumental version, make those versions now. While the LP is new and you’re pitching it, is the time to have all the assets ready.
Is sync licensing worth your time?
Here’s my honest bottom line:
Don’t make it your primary strategy until your catalog has 20+ cleared, stem-capable tracks. The volume game matters in sync. Supervisors license 200 tracks a year and might place 15 of yours — but only if you have 200 tracks for them to pull from. If you have six songs, sync isn’t going to be your income. It’s a bonus.
Submit to at least two non-exclusive libraries this month. It costs you nothing except the time to fill out the submission form and upload files. Your music could be generating passive sync revenue for the next five years from a placement you don’t even know about yet.
Keep releasing music. The more you build the catalog, the more sync becomes viable. Every track you release is another ticket in the lottery.
Next week — we’re talking about music blogs and editorial coverage: how to actually get covered, what press matters for indie artists, and what to do when no one writes about you.
— D