I have $10,000. I need music, voice-over, sound effects and a final mix, and I need it shipped and dubbed by Tuesday.’

That’s what clients demand, and that’s what commercial music houses are trying to deliver.

Commercial music and sound isn’t for the complacent. In an industry where music meets marketing, composers and producers are broadening their base and vying to give clients the most appealing bottom line. Success requires not only talent and technology but business savvy as well.

With more players chasing a pretty consistent pool of work, jingle shops have been searching out means of increasing their profit margins. Some have decided that bringing more production in-house will better allow them to meet the needs of clients with tight budgets.

Toronto’s Louder Music and Sound Design has done just that. It’s renovating its in-house studio and adding a ProTools digital recording system. It will also be expanding the client area and voice booth.

‘There’s an increasing demand for in-house demos and research tracks,’ says Louder producer/director Steve Convery. ‘Clients don’t always have the budgets to go to a facility like Sounds Interchange or Manta.’

Expansion vs.

downsizing

On the other end of the scale, Jody Colero of Toronto’s Einstein Bros. is running from that trend. He’s not interested in expanding; in fact, he wants to get even smaller. ‘I just want to be me. I want to put together whoever I want to work with for whatever the job is.’

Colero says bigger overheads mean producing more work with less time to concentrate on each project.

Ted Rosnick of Toronto-based Rosnick MacKinnon agrees. ‘You could invest in all that stuff yourself, but you’d have to do an awful lot of work to pay for it. I’d rather not be cranking out work to pay for gear. I’d rather let someone else worry about it.’

Advertisers, uneasy about audience fragmentation, are changing their demands. While clients tend to be more cautious about what they spend their money on, their efforts to target individual markets more specifically often means more versions of their spots.

‘There are definitely more versions being produced,’ says Rosnick. ‘They’re producing bigger campaigns rather than one big spot. They want to keep it interesting and reach a bigger audience.’

Colero, the self-professed ‘beer guy,’ agrees. ‘It’s not the case so much for beer companies, because they know their market. But other advertisers want a generic spot, a youth spot, a young adult spot, and on and on.’

The U.S. – friend

and foe

Despite budgets that have remained flat over the past few years, shops report they’re as busy or busier than ever before. Many producers attribute the volume to international work, particularly work from the u.s.

‘The u.s. is where it’s at right now, especially with the dollar like it is,’ says Mark Stafford of Toronto’s Jungle Music. ‘Our volume is up marginally, but only because of our American clients.’

Sausalito houseboat

studio

Colero has gone so far as to set up an office in the States: a houseboat in Sausalito, ca houses an office and full midi gear. ‘It’s almost a full-blown studio.’

While producing original material for u.s. clients is a boost for Canadian houses, commercial music/sound producers also report they’ve been adapting more foreign spots, particularly American spots, for Canada.

‘As a creator, that’s not really what you’d like to be doing,’ says Judy Henderson, president of Montreal-based Air Tango.

Louder’s Convery has also noticed the trend. ‘Multinationals are doing more work in the u.s. and sending it here for pickup,’ he says.

Although the last five years may have indicated the obsolescence of live musicians within the industry, producers are seeing, and in some cases participating in, a comeback. ‘I can see a warmer, more acoustic trend happening in the States and the u.k., and that’s usually a precursor to what happens here,’ says Henderson. ‘For awhile we heard a lot of cool, icy synthesis. It was less human.’

Rosnick MacKinnon and Einstein Bros. are both using more live players. ‘When everything’s programmed, the result can be good and clean, but it lacks the imagination of live musicians,’ says Rosnick. ‘Music has been lacking that live feel.’

Colero thinks the practice of presenting prepackaged demos tends to water down the end product. ‘Live musicians are incredibly scary, but it’s way more fun,’ he says. ‘You used to go into a studio and all hell would break loose. But then at the end of the day you’d have something really cool. So about a year ago I decided to do that, and people liked it.’

But while producers tend to prefer the energy of live musicians, Stafford questions whether clients are ready for that kind of change. ‘I think clients prefer the pre-prepared demo because they know what they’re getting. Live artists change the feel, make it different. They put an edge on it. Clients want to know what they’re paying for up front.’

Henderson also warns that clients have to be willing to pay more for live input. ‘The budgets must enable the musicians to get paid for their work. I think that’s why some things, like large sessions with strings and horns, won’t come back. It’s just too expensive.’

At a time when recording technology is better, cheaper and more accessible to producers, many predict that the two mediums, live players and machines, will be mixed more successfully. ‘We’re getting top-flight equipment at a reasonable price. I think that can only help us creatively. We have so many tools at our disposal now,’ says Stafford.

Beyond commercial work

Those available tools will be increasingly important to commercial music shops as they continue to broaden their base. Most houses have expanded into film, television and multimedia work to some extent.

Einstein Bros. has been working with l.a.-based cd-rom company Sanctuary Woods. They’ve also worked on Epitome Pictures’ Liberty Street and Alliance’s Due South and Harlequin Romance mows.

More film work

Colero hopes to get into more film work. ‘Within a year or two, I’d like to be doing 80% film, tv and multimedia, and 20% commercial work,’ says Colero. ‘I don’t know if advertising is going to remain like it is for the next five years. With more stations, satellite tv, the Web and all that stuff, it’s obvious that advertisers are going to be looking elsewhere.’

Although the current players admit the Canadian market is tight, that hasn’t discouraged new teams from getting into the game.

Jim Longo, Don McDonell, Bryant Didier and Kevin Staples have formed a yet-to-be-named music house to design for advertising, film, tv and multimedia out of Toronto’s Trax Sounds. They hope to grow and encompass other creative artists to allow them to work on virtually any project.

Longo says although the commercial business is pretty static, there are other areas to expand into. ‘With the boom in television production and with the advent of multimedia, there’s a lot more uses of music than there has been in the past.’

The Phoenix Group, formed by veteran jingle writer Tommy Ambrose (formerly of Trudel), synthesizer composer Russell Walker, recording engineer Phil Sheridan and manager Graham Orwin, has been in business for three months.

Ambrose, creator of Labatt’s ‘When You’re Smiling’ and the Ontario Egg Marketing Board’s ‘Get Cracking’ jingles, has also noticed the trend towards more acoustics and vocals, and he thinks his group can capitalize on that. ‘It’s been a sound design world, but I think the jingle is coming back. It’s already back in the u.s.’

Although the Phoenix members are experienced and carry with them sterling reputations, Ambrose admits the biggest obstacle to breaking into the market is resistance to change. ‘Clients get comfortable with the same producers and the same house. Mind you, that can lead to them becoming boring as well.’

But times change, and they tend to change quickly within this industry. ‘Ten years ago, when I was at Trudel, some of the companies that are around right now were nipping at our heels. That was 10 years agomaybe they are considered old hat now.’