How to create the best music metadata for your cues

Making music is fun. Making music metadata should be fun, too. Lets explore the different recommended categories that should be included in your music metadata.

Ownership/PRO Metadata

Ownership/ PRO metadata describes the owners, composers and publishers associated with a piece of commercial music. In order to get paid by Performance Rights Organizations (PROs), TV networks, production companies and other parties looking to license music, metadata for cues should ALWAYS include the following elements:

• Track Title

• Library/Label/Owner name

• Library/Label/Owner Contact Info (Email + phone)

• Composer(s) (include PRO and PRO #)

• Publisher(s) (include PRO and PRO#)

• ISRC

• Year

Descriptive Metadata

Descriptive metadata describes what the music "sounds like" and optimizes the metadata for searches by editors, music supervisors and producers. Your metadata should include these categories:

• Music Genre (country, rock, pop, soundtrack/score)

• Music Subgenre (punk, alternative, Top 40, grunge, bubble gum)

• Film/TV Genre (action, adventure, comedy, thriller)

• Film/TV Subgenre (superhero, epic, procedural, dramedy, reality TV, indie)

• Tempo (upbeat, slow, fast)

• Vocal Elements (male vox, female vocals, choir/choral)

• Mood (dark, light, fun)

• Key instruments (i.e. if it's mostly piano, put "piano")

• Distinguishing features (intro, outro, building, drum score, sound fx, didgeridoo solo- anything that sets the cue and makes it unique)

Should I use sentences or single words?

I recommend single words because that's the way people search. A description that says "Unsettling horror music that begins with a flute solo and crescendos into a string orchestra" will be much less effective than "unsettling, horror, thriller, dark, intro, building, flute, flute solo, strings, orchestra, fear, soundtrack/score, slow". Music supervisors and editors are there to listen to your cues, not read them.

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