RECORDING September 2022 - 65

SEPTEMBER 2022
TAXI's Virtual Road Rally 2021
Production Music Libraries: What they are and what they do for you
With Dean Krippaehne
Interviewed by Michael Laskow
Hello, Deano. How are you, buddy?
I am doing good. Thanks for having me here.
Thanks for doing this! Who better to talk to about
production music libraries than you? I want to
give the folks a little background on you before
we get going.
Dean Krippaehne is a veteran songwriter, musician,
author, artist, music producer, and highly
successful TAXI member. His music has been
heard on hundreds of TV shows, films, and new
media around the world-probably thousands by
now. He has also earned gold and platinum
records when his song " Do Your Thing " appeared
on Stephanie Heinzmann's album, Master Plan on
Universal. Dean is also the author of the Amazon
best-selling books Demystifying the Cue and
Demystifying the Genre, both of which are musthave
books. If you're watching this and you
haven't read these books. It's not a matter of,
" Should I? " It's a matter of if you don't, you are
only hurting yourself-I cannot stress that
enough. He also wrote Write, Submit, Forget,
Repeat, which was inspired by the often-heard
TAXI member mantra Write, Submit, Forget,
Repeat. If there's anybody who can explain what
production music libraries do, and why they can
be valuable partners for indie songwriters and
composers, Dean Krippaehne is that guy.
So, Dean, for people tuning in here today that
really don't fully understand what production
music libraries, are, can you please let them
know?
Production music libraries are... Well, it's a
business, it's a company. What they do is, they
seek to sign songs or [instrumental] cues from
artists, composers, and songwriters, and build
up a catalog of different styles, different genres
for the purpose of giving their clients the
right songs, the right cue, the right thing-the
clients being films, TV shows, and advertisers.
Michael Laskow and Dean Krippaehne live at TAXI's Virtual Road Rally.
So, yeah, that's basically what they do. They
are a kind of the in-between. They find great
music and great cues and great songs, and put
them into their catalogs, and they act as a
publisher.
So let's tell folks what the difference is between
a production music library, which, like you said, is
a publisher, and then a regular publisher, like
Sony ATV or Universal or Warner/Chappell would
be on the record side of the industry.
Yeah, the old-school publishers-old-school,
it's still going on-they're looking for songs
for artists, whether it's a Justin Bieber or Garth
Brooks, or whoever the people are. They're
looking for songs for those artists. In the case
of a production music library, the artists are a
TV show, a film, or a TV commercial, so
they're getting the music for those people, only
we-the creators-are actually doing the masters
and fully producing it, whereas in the old
days of songwriting, you could do a vocal song
demo, you get it to somebody and then their
amazing producers and musicians cut the
thing. But actually, now, especially in this day
and age of home studios, we're doing all that
stuff.
And the deals are a little different, in that like a
traditional publisher on the record side of the
industry, would sign a songwriter to a staffwriter
deal where they might give you an annual
stipend/advance of $25,000 or $50,000, or
maybe back in the day if you are somebody who
is kind of important and already successful,
$100,000 or more. And they basically work the
" push " model, which is, they hear that Ariana
Grande is working on a record, they look through
their catalog to see what they've got, then they
then go knock on her producer's door-figuratively
speaking-and say, " Hey, check out these
songs. We think they might be good for her, " or
whomever the artist is. The production music
library model is more of a " pull " model, in which
they come to you and say, " This is what we
need, " in the form of a brief or a TAXI listing.
" This is what we're looking for. Do you have anything
like that? " So, it's sort of filling orders on
the production music library side, versus pushing
your wares or shopping the material on the traditional
record industry side of publishing.
Continued on page 66
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RECORDING September 2022

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