INDUSTRY NEWS

Blog Glossary

Blog Glossary

The Tunedly Team
Below you'll find a list of popular terms that are used throughout our blog and website, along with what they mean.

• Audio Engineer

An audio engineer listens to your song or composition and performs various adjustments (mixing and mastering), and maybe suggestions to help improve the sound clarity, frequency and audio levels, so that your finished song is pleasing to the ears of music listeners and matches the modern sound of songs nowadays. You can connect with several highly trained and qualified audio engineers for mixing and mastering services via the Tunedly website.

• EPK

Electronic Press Kit. This is an electronic collection of promotional items showcasing important information about a musician and selective pieces of work that can be shared with music industry professionals. You can upload a profile picture, add your best songs, videos, and also lyrics.

• Full Song Production

A full song is one that has gone through the music production process and is ready to be distributed to music streaming and downloading platforms, published on albums for sale, and/or played on the radio.

Tunedly provides everything you need to get from song idea to a full, radio-ready and distribution-ready song, whether you’re a non-performing songwriter who wants other artists to perform your songs, or looking to perform your song yourself. The process includes:

- Recording the necessary instruments - Recording the vocals using the supplied lyrics (lead, or/and background) - Mixing (combining) all the different tracks (parts) into a uniform song - Performing mastering work for an overall polished sound.

• Hire a Session Musician

Tunedly is home to dozens of hand-picked, vetted session musicians who play a wide variety of live instruments. You can hire any amount of them to play on your song, such as drums, guitar, or piano parts, all for low fees. What’s more, you can collaborate in real-time through chat or via email, so you get to have real creative input into how the final product is developed.

• Hire a Session Singer

Session singers provide vocal services on songs that you can’t sing yourself or need additional voices for. The Tunedly roster has dozens of qualified session singers who you can hire for a minimal fee to provide professional vocal services for your song. You can hire:

- Lead vocalists: this is the main singer, the singing voice that will be heard the most while listening to the song. Needed when you can’t sing the main parts yourself.

- Backing/background vocalists: this a singer or singers who provide background harmonizing vocals to support the lead singer on a song to create a full sound. They can sing actual words or make sounds, such as “ooh,” “yeah,” etc.

• Indie Artist

An indie or independent artist is a songwriter or singer who is not signed to a record label. An indie usually tries to find musicians to collaborate with in order to make music, as well as to seek services that can provide music distribution and/or song plugging opportunities. Tunedly provides all the expertise and services desired by indies at any level of their career.

• Live instruments

In making music, live instrumentation is using physical acoustic and electronic instruments for recordings or live performances, as compared to virtual instruments on computer software. They are considered to offer sounds that provide more emotional connection than their more modern, digital counterparts. Session musicians at Tunedly play real, live instruments to ensure your songs have that rich, authentic sound that many music listeners desire.

• Mastering

Mastering is the final step in the music production process. It involves tweaking a mixed stereo track using various mastering tools to ensure uniformity and consistency of sound across media formats and ensuring the best possible audio playback. The track is ready to be distributed once mastering is complete. Here at Tunedly, you can have your song mastered by professionally-trained and experienced human engineers, which allows your finished song to have an authentic feel, which connects better with listeners than tracks that are mastered with machines.

• Master Rights

When a song or composition is recorded, a master recording is created. By law, the individual or company that recorded the work and paid for it own the master rights. For example, if you're signed to a record label and they pay to have your song recorded, they would now own the rights of the master recording. On the other hand, if you're an unsigned music creator and pay to have your work recorded, most likely you would own the rights to the master recording. Such is the case when you collaborate with Tunedly, which employs a work for hire system to ensure you maintain all rights.

• Mixing

Audio mixing involves taking all the recorded parts of the song (vocals and instruments) and combining them to produce one uniform track. You can have your pre-recorded vocals and instruments professionally mixed by a Tunedly engineer or you can order a full production, which will include mixing services.

• Music Distribution

After creating a song or composition, you want to share it with the world in order to make money, whether from actual sales or royalty. This is where music distribution comes in. Popular music distribution platforms include Apple Music and Spotify.

• Music Production

Music production involves the process of combining lyrics, instruments, and vocals to create a complete musical composition. Having your song produced with Tunedly involves selecting the right session musicians, singers, and engineers, coordinated by an assigned project manager to ensure your project is produced at the highest possible standards available in the industry.

• Music Samples

A music sample is a piece of sound recording that can be added to another piece of music or song to create a new and interesting sound. They can be instrument tracks or loops using live or virtual instruments, as well as sound effects.

• Online Recording Studio

Unlike a physical recording studio, an online recording studio allows music creators to connect with the professionals and services they need to record demos or full songs, from anywhere they are in the world. Tunedly is a premier online music recording studio that makes it easy for anyone looking to make premium, professional-sounding music by connecting with world-class, qualified talents.

• Pitching

In the music industry, pitching has to do with an individual or company emailing a song to an industry professional who needs music for a project, such as a music supervisor who might be looking for music to place in a film or TV show. The music file is often not what is sent, but instead links to an online stream of the song, so the prospective client can listen without having to download it. Tunedly members have the option to submit their songs for potential pitching opportunities via our team of song pluggers.

• Publishing Rights

These are rights owned by the songwriter or composer for the song/composition they created. Publishing rights for songs can be held by just one or several songwriters, depending on how many people are credited with writing it. Publishing rights can be held by one or more publishing houses, depending on the preferences of individual songwriters. If a songwriter is not signed to a publishing house, then he or she is the declared publisher of whatever percentage of the publishing rights of the song(s) they have written. This is especially important for sync licensing situations, where 100% of the publishing rights have to be cleared with all writers before a song can be used for a sync placement. The exception is where a blanket license is in effect.

• Song Demo

A song demo is a basic recording of your song. It can either be a mix of a single instrument and vocals to show off the bare essentials, or a mockup of a full production to demonstrate what your song could sound like when completed. Demos can be sent to record labels and artists for consideration of doing a complete song in a record deal. Tunedly provides its members with high-quality, free demo recording services to ensure you have the best chances of success.

• Song Pluggers/Plugging

One way to gain exposure for your music and make money off it is to have your songs picked up by an artist or record label, or placed in a TV show, movie, or even an advertisement. A song plugger acts as a go-between, pitching your songs to the industry professionals who might be looking for songs for such projects. Tunedly offers song plugging opportunities to all its members.

• Songwriter Services

A songwriter writes the lyrics and music as the basis for creating a song. If you’re a songwriter looking to have your songs recorded and produced professionally, you will find all the songwriter services you need if you are successful in applying for Tunedly membership. This includes session musicians, singers, and engineers, as well as music publishing opportunities that will allow you to uncover possible opportunities to have your songs placed and earn royalties from your music.

• Sync

Sync or synch is short for synchronization. It involves synchronizing your song or composition with the contents of visual media, which includes movies, TV shows, ads, or even games. An appropriate sync license for the publishing rights or master rights is required before a song or composition can receive a successful sync placement.

• Work for Hire

A work for hire agreement is one where a contractor agrees to do a task for a fixed price. In music production, once a work for hire agreement is entered into, the contractor agrees to do the specified work and gets paid for it based on the agreed amount. When you make music with Tunedly, all projects are carried out as work for hire, which means you get to keep all the rights to the finished product once you’ve paid for it.