One of the great things about doing music for advertising at Hit Productions is that my fellow composers and I are exposed to lots of different new artists and genres that we wouldn’t normally have found on our own. Here are a couple of research tools that we use to help unearth new discoveries.
Spotify (spotify.com) – This streaming service is like owning an iTunes library that has over 20 million songs. The caveat is that you need a credit card with a billing address from a territory where Spotify has already set up shop (and the Philippines, sadly, is not one of them). I use a US credit card but a Singapore, Malaysia or Hong Kong account might work as well.
SharePlaylists (shareplaylists.com) – Remember the mixtape? With Spotify plus this website, now you can swap virtual mixtapes with people the world over.
SoundCloud (soundcloud.com) – Unlike Spotify, the musical content on SoundCloud is user-uploaded and it plays host to a huge range of incredible talent. We’ve worked with and even hired people based on demo reels that they’ve posted to SoundCloud!
Shazam (shazam.com) / Soundhound (soundhound.com) You’re in line waiting for your tall non fat latte when a song starts playing on the sound system and you absolutely dig it .Whip out your smartphone, launch either of these apps and a few seconds later, you’ve got the title, artist, album, and a link to an online purchase if available. Awesome.
Beatport – (beatport.com) – An online music store geared towards electronic and dance music (house, dubstep, D&B, breaks, chill, trance … you name it). Song previews are generous in length (anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes or even more) so you can get a good feel for the track before purchase. And usefully for DJs, tracks are even tagged with BPM and key signatures.
Gnoosic (gnoosic.com/faves.php) – No fancy audio streaming or waveforms here. Just ï¬ll in the names of three bands that you like and it will start spewing out the names of similar artists you might be interested in. Works for books and movies too!
Contributor: Vic Icasas of Hit Productions Inc.
