Transcript auto-generated by Apple Podcasts

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ROBONZO: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Unstarving Musician.

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ROBONZO: I am Rabonzo.

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ROBONZO: How are you?

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ROBONZO: Where are you?

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ROBONZO: What are you wearing?

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ROBONZO: Are you holding it together in this crazy time of war?

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ROBONZO: I hope so.

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ROBONZO: If you’re a first-time listener, I sometimes talk a little bit about myself and things I’m thinking about in this portion of the intro.

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ROBONZO: You might be thinking, who is this guy, and why does he think I care about what he’s doing or thinking about?

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ROBONZO: Well, you know who I am now, and if you don’t care, skip ahead a couple of minutes, or just sit tight, make yourself a sandwich, and relax.

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ROBONZO: I’m learning a handful of new songs for a couple of upcoming shows, including one of my own songs, New Gods Part 2.

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ROBONZO: I’ve never performed New Gods, and it’ll be an adventure.

00:00:53.820 –> 00:00:59.760
ROBONZO: I’m also doing a number of great B-side covers for my self-indulgent memory archives.

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ROBONZO: My MO for this band I call Rabonzo.

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ROBONZO: If you find yourself in Queretaro, Mexico, in late May, come see one of the shows.

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ROBONZO: You can find dates and ticket info at rabonzo.com.

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ROBONZO: I’d love to see you there.

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ROBONZO: Before we move on to my guest for today’s show, the best way to support my work here is to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter, Liner Notes.

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ROBONZO: Whether you’re a musician trying to book better gigs, a writer navigating publishing, or any creative professional building, an independent career, you’re facing the same core challenges.

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ROBONZO: How do you balance artistry with business?

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ROBONZO: How do you find your audience?

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ROBONZO: How do you create sustainable incomes?

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ROBONZO: I started researching these questions to help musicians get better paying gigs, but what I discovered through hundreds of conversations with working artists, industry pros and creative professionals, it opened my eyes to strategies that work across all creative disciplines.

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ROBONZO: LinerNotes delivers this research and proven strategies from creators who are solving these problems.

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ROBONZO: Subscribe to get actionable insights on marketing that doesn’t feel gross, building genuine fan relationships, managing the business side without losing your creative spark, and turning your passion into sustainable income.

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ROBONZO: It’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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ROBONZO: If you’ve been thinking about sync licensing as a way to generate income from your music, there’s a good chance you’re focused on the wrong problem.

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ROBONZO: Most independent songwriters assume the barrier is technical.

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ROBONZO: The mix isn’t clean enough, the metadata isn’t right, the instrumental version isn’t ready.

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ROBONZO: And those things matter, but my guest today will tell you that’s not what’s keeping your music out of film and television.

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ROBONZO: The barrier is simpler and harder at the same time.

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ROBONZO: Nobody knows who you are.

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ROBONZO: Chris SD is the founder of Sync Songwriter, and what sets him apart from most people teaching sync licensing is that he’s built genuine relationships with music supervisors over years of networking, conferences, phone calls, and yes, at least one beach picnic.

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ROBONZO: Those relationships are now the foundation of what he offers his students.

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ROBONZO: Not just training, but direct introductions to the gatekeepers.

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ROBONZO: Two of those students had five songs placed in Anora, the film that won multiple Oscars earlier this year.

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ROBONZO: And his take on how that happened cuts straight to the point.

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ROBONZO: They had relationships with the supervisor and their music fit what the project needed.

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ROBONZO: Today, we’re talking about what sync ready actually means.

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ROBONZO: Why libraries and agencies are essentially a lottery?

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ROBONZO: Why authenticity beats writing for sync every time?

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ROBONZO: And what AI is and isn’t doing to the licensing landscape?

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ROBONZO: At the close of our conversation, Chris said some really nice things about the podcast, which you will hear.

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ROBONZO: I felt a little funny about leaving those comments in, but taking it out would have required some time consuming editing.

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ROBONZO: I didn’t have the energy for that, so I decided screw it, I’ll leave it in.

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ROBONZO: Thanks again for those kind words, Chris.

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ROBONZO: And now here is my conversation with Chris SD of Sync Songwriter.

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CHRIS SD: Sync licensing was an interesting journey because I started of course being a producer in a studio, right?

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CHRIS SD: And I was working with a lot of different artists, I was working with major label artists and as well as independent artists.

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CHRIS SD: And the indie artists often would have the just as good music as some of the major label artists.

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CHRIS SD: But they didn’t have the backing of agents or labels or anything propelling their careers along.

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CHRIS SD: And it was always like a real sort of crap shoot, what was going to happen with the record, right?

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CHRIS SD: Which was usually nothing because they were putting posters on polls or getting on social or whatever to get the record out.

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CHRIS SD: And things, we’d work hard on the record.

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CHRIS SD: So I was getting frustrated and thinking like, how can I find a way to get more attention for these records?

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CHRIS SD: And a little bit was selfish because I was working really hard giving them a big break on the price and everything and trying to make things happen for them.

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CHRIS SD: So I was like, I want something to happen with these records.

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CHRIS SD: So it was right around that time that licensing started to become a thing for indie artists.

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CHRIS SD: Before that, it was like selling out.

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CHRIS SD: No one wanted to do it.

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CHRIS SD: And so it was right around that time where I started hearing, I got a sync placement and I got all this notoriety and I got signed by a manager because they noticed me.

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CHRIS SD: I paid my rent for a year just off of one sync placement.

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CHRIS SD: So I was like, what is this thing?

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CHRIS SD: So started looking into it and sort of just, yeah, just kind of got into it that way.

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CHRIS SD: Started realizing the power of it and meeting music supervisors who are actually the people who get music into TV and film.

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CHRIS SD: And gradually started building that network over time, started introducing more musicians to them, whose music I thought would be a great fit.

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CHRIS SD: And then started Sync Songwriter to basically do this on a bigger scale for everybody else that I wasn’t working with in the studio, so I can’t work with everybody, obviously.

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CHRIS SD: There’s millions of musicians, millions of records out there.

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CHRIS SD: But that’s how that’s sort of how it got started.

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ROBONZO: You know, I was thinking before before our call, for some reason, I was kind of trying to think about the beginnings of sync, the popularity of it.

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ROBONZO: And an artist that sticks out in my head and I’m sure I’m sure we were in California at the time was Moby.

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ROBONZO: And he seemed like he gained a lot of notoriety through sync.

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ROBONZO: I don’t know if that’s actually true, but that was my memory anyway.

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CHRIS SD: Yeah, yeah, no, he absolutely did.

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CHRIS SD: And in fact, he is the kind of the OG, honestly, he was one of the first ones who broke that barrier for indie music.

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CHRIS SD: And he must have made millions of dollars from placements.

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CHRIS SD: I mean, there was like he had that one record play, right, which got synced over and over and over and over.

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CHRIS SD: It’s like, you know, because you don’t just get one song synced, you get like multiple songs that can be, you can get the same songs synced in multiple things.

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CHRIS SD: So it was really incredible, yeah.

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ROBONZO: And you know, I don’t know if this is actually part of sync or a different thing like licensing, but I know that his music, because my wife worked at such a company in Silicon Valley, was like played at some big corporate startup.com era.

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ROBONZO: Corporate meetings.

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ROBONZO: But I would imagine it was kind of an extension of what he was doing, whether it was actually part of sync or not.

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CHRIS SD: But yeah, I don’t know.

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CHRIS SD: I don’t know that side of it, but that’s pretty interesting.

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ROBONZO: What are you listening to lately that has absolutely nothing to do with sync?

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CHRIS SD: You want to know?

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CHRIS SD: Bob Marley on vinyl.

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ROBONZO: Nice.

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CHRIS SD: We just got the record.

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CHRIS SD: Because I had, it was a revelation to me.

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CHRIS SD: I know it sounds crazy because I’ve been in music all my life and everything, and I’ve owned turntables and everything.

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CHRIS SD: And I appreciate vinyl for what it is.

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CHRIS SD: And I like digital music too.

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CHRIS SD: It’s better at certain things in vinyl, and vinyl is better than digital.

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CHRIS SD: But I couldn’t get over how much better, at least to me, that the records, certain records sound on vinyl.

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CHRIS SD: Because they were recorded, I guess, for that medium or mastered for it and everything like that or something.

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CHRIS SD: But it just sounds so much more three-dimensional and everything.

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CHRIS SD: So I was sort of just listening.

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CHRIS SD: It was just yesterday, day before, and I was just like, wow, this is just absolutely amazing.

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CHRIS SD: So yeah, I’m all over the place with my music.

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CHRIS SD: Being out here, I like listening to the local radio station.

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CHRIS SD: So I’m into like a lot of Americana and Appalachian music.

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ROBONZO: I was about to say, are you getting some Appalachian hillbilly music?

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CHRIS SD: Yeah, heck yeah, man.

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CHRIS SD: There’s some great, great songs that were written up here.

00:09:04.560 –> 00:09:07.780
CHRIS SD: And of course, you can’t avoid Dolly Parton, right?

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CHRIS SD: She’s the one around here.

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CHRIS SD: She’s written so many songs.

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CHRIS SD: Everybody knows her for her big radio hits, but she’s just got this huge catalog.

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CHRIS SD: So yeah, I’m sort of all over the place.

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CHRIS SD: I’ll throw on the Beatles, and then I’ll listen to something super current, whatever’s going on, Paper Kites or whatever.

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CHRIS SD: And yeah, so I’m all over the map there.

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ROBONZO: You know, I bet you that, speaking of the Bob Marley album and how some things just don’t seem to translate to digital, that because I heard an interview of a guy who does remastering to the finest detail, and I’m just wondering, because I always noticed that those, well, I’ve always thought to myself, those Bob Marley songs don’t sound great, and I’ve only ever heard them on digital, I think.

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ROBONZO: When I was a kid, I probably heard it in the background, I didn’t pay attention, heard it on vinyl, or maybe tape, but I just never thought they sounded very good as a recording, but I suspect that there’s a specific bit of mastering that happens to make that transfer, and for whatever reason, I don’t know, they’re maybe the right people, I haven’t got a hold of it, but I’m very curious, I don’t currently have a turntable, I’ve certainly owned them, but when we left the US, we sort of burned the boats, and so I’ve been thinking about buying another one, but I’ll have to put that on my list to check out.

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CHRIS SD: Yeah, yeah.

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CHRIS SD: And you know, there’s a…

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CHRIS SD: To qualify this, right?

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CHRIS SD: To qualify what sounds good in how I’m saying it, is one of my favorite records is PJ Harvey’s Four Tracks.

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CHRIS SD: And that’s literally her on a four track, right?

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CHRIS SD: So if you’re looking for hi-fi, that is not it.

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CHRIS SD: But there’s this rawness and innocence and authenticity to it, which is absolutely insurmountable when it comes to trying to…

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CHRIS SD: Well, then they produce the record from those demos.

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CHRIS SD: In my opinion, the demos are better.

00:11:04.260 –> 00:11:09.380
CHRIS SD: So when I’m talking about listening to Bob Marley on vinyl, it’s…

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CHRIS SD: I’m not saying, well, now I can hear like how the guitars were, you know, recorded or that the recording of the production is quite exceptional or something.

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CHRIS SD: I’m not talking about those terms at all, the way I might listen to an Adele record or something.

00:11:23.200 –> 00:11:30.620
CHRIS SD: What I mean is that the song and the actual track communicates.

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CHRIS SD: It’s more compelling.

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CHRIS SD: It’s more evocative with vinyl, right?

00:11:34.660 –> 00:11:39.940
CHRIS SD: In the feeling of it and you just feel the songwriting more.

00:11:39.940 –> 00:11:47.560
CHRIS SD: And so I wouldn’t say that Bob Marley records are the pinnacle of, you know, music production.

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CHRIS SD: Somebody might use it as a reference in an audiophile system to make certain determinations.

00:11:54.040 –> 00:11:59.320
CHRIS SD: But at the same time, due to their aesthetic and what they are, they’re actually fantastic.

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CHRIS SD: I mean, I can’t imagine the Redemption song being recorded any other way.

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CHRIS SD: And that’s just a very basic recording, you know?

00:12:07.540 –> 00:12:11.520
CHRIS SD: It’s not even that high quality if you wanted to qualify it that way.

00:12:11.520 –> 00:12:13.900
CHRIS SD: But it is so compelling.

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CHRIS SD: The way it’s recorded.

00:12:16.360 –> 00:12:17.880
ROBONZO: Yeah, part of the experience.

00:12:17.880 –> 00:12:18.560
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:12:18.560 –> 00:12:19.660
ROBONZO: Yeah.

00:12:19.660 –> 00:12:23.440
ROBONZO: So, what’s your getting into sync here?

00:12:23.440 –> 00:12:31.120
ROBONZO: What, and, you know, sync ready music, what’s your checklist for determining whether a song is sync ready?

00:12:31.120 –> 00:12:36.040
ROBONZO: And what are the most common kind of deal breakers you see?

00:12:36.340 –> 00:12:37.420
ROBONZO: Yeah.

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CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:12:37.660 –> 00:12:38.660
CHRIS SD: Great question.

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CHRIS SD: So, first, I want to qualify something is, I’m not someone who picks music for TV and film.

00:12:45.860 –> 00:12:48.380
CHRIS SD: So, I don’t pick it and I don’t pitch it.

00:12:48.540 –> 00:12:50.400
CHRIS SD: I’m not the one who shops it.

00:12:50.400 –> 00:13:00.960
CHRIS SD: Now, in sync songwriter, we absolutely participate in, you know, getting music from our students slash members to supervisors directly.

00:13:01.580 –> 00:13:10.320
CHRIS SD: But my main thing is literally introducing songwriters to music supervisors, because it’s an impossible task.

00:13:10.320 –> 00:13:13.180
CHRIS SD: It’s like an impossible thing, typically.

00:13:13.200 –> 00:13:19.140
CHRIS SD: Usually, they have to be musicians, got to be in like a library, a music library or an agency.

00:13:19.140 –> 00:13:28.480
CHRIS SD: And those are generally, you know, they’re easy to get into, and they’re great for the industry, because they can go there and find a song pretty easily.

00:13:29.160 –> 00:13:42.980
CHRIS SD: But they are nowadays terrible, in my opinion, for Indie songwriters, because everybody and their dog has a record out, and everyone’s trying to get into, you know, trying to get streams of Spotify or into TV and film and all that.

00:13:42.980 –> 00:13:47.700
CHRIS SD: So you’ve got these libraries that have some of the millions of tracks, right?

00:13:47.700 –> 00:13:53.460
CHRIS SD: And at least a hundreds, almost all of them now have like thousands to hundreds of thousands of tracks.

00:13:53.460 –> 00:13:58.120
CHRIS SD: So you’re floating in this ocean of music, and it’s like playing a lottery, right?

00:13:58.240 –> 00:14:06.280
CHRIS SD: So you’re just in there, just needle in the haystack, hoping to be discovered, which inevitably, of course, almost never ever happens.

00:14:06.280 –> 00:14:11.780
CHRIS SD: So the key is having relationships with the people who actually place the music.

00:14:11.780 –> 00:14:17.520
CHRIS SD: And so my job is not so much to pick the music and everything, and I’ll certainly talk about what works and what doesn’t.

00:14:17.520 –> 00:14:24.060
CHRIS SD: But just to kind of qualify, well, like what I do is I introduce songwriters directly to music supervisors.

00:14:24.060 –> 00:14:31.140
CHRIS SD: I’m like a matchmaker, so that they can form those relationships and make things happen based on their own relationship with them.

00:14:31.180 –> 00:14:33.420
CHRIS SD: I find that much more powerful.

00:14:33.420 –> 00:14:39.320
CHRIS SD: But I also, of course, teach the songwriters before I introduce them about what works and what doesn’t.

00:14:39.320 –> 00:14:49.900
CHRIS SD: So to answer your question is, things, the most important thing to know is every song has a home.

00:14:49.900 –> 00:14:51.580
CHRIS SD: Now, a lot of people don’t think that.

00:14:51.580 –> 00:15:01.620
CHRIS SD: They think you got to write for sync licensing, meaning you listen to a movie or watch a movie or whatever, or you’re into a show and you’re like, okay, I got to write something that’s going to fit that show.

00:15:01.620 –> 00:15:03.180
CHRIS SD: And there are people who do that.

00:15:03.180 –> 00:15:04.580
CHRIS SD: Some people do it very well.

00:15:04.580 –> 00:15:12.160
CHRIS SD: It’s in the vast minority because it’s hard to compete against people in genres that you don’t do all the time, right?

00:15:12.160 –> 00:15:25.620
CHRIS SD: You’re better sticking to your genius zone, doing what you do and write for your fans, write from your heart and do it the way you would do it, and then find a home for that track, not the other way around.

00:15:25.620 –> 00:15:28.680
CHRIS SD: You don’t want to just be chasing opportunities.

00:15:28.680 –> 00:15:30.600
CHRIS SD: You want to do what you do as an artist.

00:15:30.600 –> 00:15:35.140
CHRIS SD: And then because there’s so many opportunities out there, it’s crazy.

00:15:35.140 –> 00:15:37.940
CHRIS SD: It’s like almost a billion dollar industry.

00:15:37.940 –> 00:15:47.640
CHRIS SD: So you can just easily find opportunities in movies and shows and ads and streaming and YouTube videos, wedding videos even or whatever.

00:15:47.640 –> 00:15:50.060
CHRIS SD: So there’s all of these opportunities out there.

00:15:50.060 –> 00:15:58.100
CHRIS SD: So the things that work, once you understand that there’s a home for every song, you just need to find the right spot for it.

00:15:58.100 –> 00:16:02.440
CHRIS SD: Are some of the pitfalls are things like simple things.

00:16:02.440 –> 00:16:13.140
CHRIS SD: There’s basic things like in production, for example, like if your vocal is mixed like a radio mix, you have to remember that you don’t want to be competing with the dialogue on the screen.

00:16:13.860 –> 00:16:17.680
CHRIS SD: You want to be able to support what is happening.

00:16:17.680 –> 00:16:19.020
CHRIS SD: That’s your job.

00:16:19.020 –> 00:16:20.920
CHRIS SD: Your music is to support it.

00:16:20.920 –> 00:16:26.440
CHRIS SD: So you want to make sure that your music is not dominating, especially the vocal being too loud.

00:16:26.440 –> 00:16:30.620
CHRIS SD: So typically a sync mix will have the vocal down a little bit.

00:16:30.620 –> 00:16:34.520
CHRIS SD: Now I’m not talking about burying it or doing anything weird.

00:16:34.520 –> 00:16:37.100
CHRIS SD: It’s simply not doing a radio mix.

00:16:37.100 –> 00:16:38.460
CHRIS SD: So that’s like just one example.

00:16:38.460 –> 00:16:39.460
CHRIS SD: Another one is build.

00:16:39.980 –> 00:16:43.960
CHRIS SD: Supervisors love when songs have change and build and dynamic.

00:16:43.960 –> 00:16:46.080
CHRIS SD: So you’re taking the listener on a journey.

00:16:46.080 –> 00:16:51.340
CHRIS SD: So it’s not like you cut and pasted your chorus, you know, bump, bump, bump, one after the other.

00:16:51.340 –> 00:16:58.840
CHRIS SD: You’ve got some sort of motion and movement within a kind of a sonic story arc in your song.

00:16:58.840 –> 00:17:01.860
CHRIS SD: That’s really like an important thing.

00:17:01.860 –> 00:17:03.920
CHRIS SD: People worry about things they shouldn’t worry about.

00:17:03.960 –> 00:17:07.620
CHRIS SD: Like, what levels should this song be at, what my master be at?

00:17:07.620 –> 00:17:09.040
CHRIS SD: Does it matter if I have a fade out?

00:17:09.040 –> 00:17:10.280
CHRIS SD: What if my intro is too long?

00:17:10.280 –> 00:17:14.260
CHRIS SD: None of those things matter, because they’re going to go in there, they’re going to chop them up.

00:17:14.260 –> 00:17:19.860
CHRIS SD: They prefer hard endings on songs because they’re easier to segue into something else.

00:17:19.860 –> 00:17:24.340
CHRIS SD: But you know, another thing is have an instrumental only.

00:17:24.340 –> 00:17:31.380
CHRIS SD: Like, in fact, more songs get placed that are instrumental versions of your actual track.

00:17:31.380 –> 00:17:33.220
CHRIS SD: And they also like to cut between them.

00:17:33.820 –> 00:17:41.520
CHRIS SD: So, to give you an example, I produced a song at my studio, online studio, for one of our members.

00:17:41.520 –> 00:17:43.660
CHRIS SD: He also, he’s a very accomplished producer himself.

00:17:43.660 –> 00:17:44.900
CHRIS SD: He did his version.

00:17:44.900 –> 00:17:46.260
CHRIS SD: It got into Grey’s Anatomy.

00:17:46.260 –> 00:17:49.360
CHRIS SD: They took half of the one I did and half of the one he did.

00:17:49.360 –> 00:17:52.580
CHRIS SD: So people, they like to cut between different versions sometimes.

00:17:52.580 –> 00:17:58.980
CHRIS SD: And having an instrumental is great because they can have the instrumental coming in while the dialogue is going on.

00:17:58.980 –> 00:18:06.680
CHRIS SD: And then when the dialogue stops and one character stays walking off into the sunset, your lyrics can boom, they can kick right in there.

00:18:06.680 –> 00:18:10.060
CHRIS SD: And sometimes they’ll just use your lyrics only.

00:18:10.060 –> 00:18:23.700
CHRIS SD: We had a member who just got into the last Tribeca Festival in a big movie, saw his own sync that was really big for like, I don’t know, at least a minute and a half, two minutes or something, which is a long time in film.

00:18:23.700 –> 00:18:25.720
CHRIS SD: Right there in the theater, thought that was awesome.

00:18:25.720 –> 00:18:31.500
CHRIS SD: We had tracks that got into Anora, which is the biggest film of 2025 when five Oscars.

00:18:32.740 –> 00:18:35.060
CHRIS SD: We had somebody got into a Pain Hustlers.

00:18:35.060 –> 00:18:36.920
CHRIS SD: It was like, that was a two minute.

00:18:36.920 –> 00:18:39.560
CHRIS SD: They said it was like a music video for their song.

00:18:39.560 –> 00:18:45.640
CHRIS SD: And they got called by like festivals and got written up in Billboard magazine and their streams went crazy on Spotify.

00:18:45.640 –> 00:18:50.780
CHRIS SD: So having those different versions that you they can cut between is always always great.

00:18:50.780 –> 00:18:52.100
CHRIS SD: And there’s a bunch more.

00:18:52.100 –> 00:18:55.400
CHRIS SD: If we had two hours in this podcast, might be able to dig in deeper.

00:18:55.400 –> 00:18:58.540
ROBONZO: But that’s very informative, though.

00:18:58.540 –> 00:18:59.260
CHRIS SD: Oh, cool.

00:18:59.320 –> 00:18:59.560
CHRIS SD: Good.

00:18:59.560 –> 00:19:00.600
ROBONZO: Yeah, that’s good stuff.

00:19:00.600 –> 00:19:08.360
ROBONZO: So I assume that sync readiness is primarily like a production thing, as you described, not a composition thing.

00:19:08.360 –> 00:19:15.920
ROBONZO: But between those two areas, and tell me if I’m wrong about it, but are there, do artists tend to fall short on one more so than the other?

00:19:15.920 –> 00:19:18.020
ROBONZO: Speaking of production versus composition.

00:19:19.180 –> 00:19:20.460
ROBONZO: Sounds like production.

00:19:20.460 –> 00:19:21.340
CHRIS SD: That’s a great question.

00:19:21.340 –> 00:19:21.540
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:19:21.540 –> 00:19:26.020
CHRIS SD: I would say production is the most avoidable issue.

00:19:26.080 –> 00:19:27.520
ROBONZO: Easiest to control, yeah.

00:19:27.520 –> 00:19:28.180
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:19:28.180 –> 00:19:34.440
CHRIS SD: So if you looked at the song, I’m vamping on this one.

00:19:34.440 –> 00:19:53.820
CHRIS SD: If you look at the song like Lifestyle, and you look at going to the doctor and checkups prevention as the production, you can easily go to the doctor and get your checkups and catch things, could be anything.

00:19:53.880 –> 00:19:57.520
CHRIS SD: Maybe it’s a funny mole on your skin, you know, and there’s no big deal.

00:19:57.520 –> 00:20:00.860
CHRIS SD: Like 200 years ago, it would have killed you, right?

00:20:00.860 –> 00:20:06.200
CHRIS SD: But nowadays you walk in and like, oh, we should look at this mole and let’s take it out just to be on the safe side, right?

00:20:06.200 –> 00:20:07.520
CHRIS SD: No big deal.

00:20:07.520 –> 00:20:09.640
CHRIS SD: And so production is a lot like that.

00:20:09.640 –> 00:20:14.180
CHRIS SD: Productions, I mean, sure, it’s not easy to become a pro producer.

00:20:14.180 –> 00:20:17.100
CHRIS SD: It takes years to learn how to do it properly.

00:20:17.100 –> 00:20:19.460
CHRIS SD: But the production is the easiest thing to fix.

00:20:19.460 –> 00:20:21.280
CHRIS SD: It’s the easiest hurdle to overcome.

00:20:21.680 –> 00:20:26.040
CHRIS SD: It’s the easiest thing you can ask someone and say, you know, why don’t you like this track?

00:20:26.040 –> 00:20:27.540
CHRIS SD: What’s wrong with the track?

00:20:27.540 –> 00:20:31.540
CHRIS SD: And the simplest solution is do something in the studio.

00:20:31.540 –> 00:20:35.000
CHRIS SD: You can just redo it or hire someone who can.

00:20:35.000 –> 00:20:40.020
CHRIS SD: The songwriting, on the other hand, is about, has there some talent involved?

00:20:40.020 –> 00:20:44.820
CHRIS SD: And there’s some intelligence and know-how, you know, and experience.

00:20:44.820 –> 00:20:49.940
CHRIS SD: So all those things got to come together in the songwriting to write, you know, truly great songs.

00:20:50.580 –> 00:20:58.340
CHRIS SD: Now, thankfully, in sync licensing, the bar in production is not like it is maybe on, like, hit radio.

00:20:58.340 –> 00:21:02.500
CHRIS SD: You know, you can get stuff that sounds good into TV and film.

00:21:02.500 –> 00:21:04.260
CHRIS SD: It doesn’t have to sound great.

00:21:04.260 –> 00:21:08.400
CHRIS SD: The songs don’t have to be epic, like, make it or break it.

00:21:08.400 –> 00:21:12.720
CHRIS SD: You know, it’s either a hit song or a no, it’s not, and you’re going to starve this year again, you know?

00:21:13.200 –> 00:21:17.480
CHRIS SD: So you can do TV and film is more forgiving by a long shot with that.

00:21:17.480 –> 00:21:20.140
CHRIS SD: But you still have to hit the bar in both of them.

00:21:20.140 –> 00:21:24.520
CHRIS SD: But I would say the songwriting, of course, is the most crucial.

00:21:24.520 –> 00:21:28.220
CHRIS SD: And then the production, it’s like a Rubik’s Cube.

00:21:28.220 –> 00:21:30.060
CHRIS SD: You can just solve it.

00:21:30.060 –> 00:21:45.680
ROBONZO: I have a good friend who is a prolific songwriter, and he decided, I don’t know, in the last couple of years or more, that he wanted to get in the sync, and the first feedback he got is like, dude, your songs are great, but your production is lacking.

00:21:46.900 –> 00:21:49.880
ROBONZO: So yeah, and he’s such a DIY person, too.

00:21:49.880 –> 00:22:00.440
ROBONZO: I don’t know, you know, like you just said something almost magical to people who think that the only way is to do it themselves, but, you know, is hire somebody, you know, find someone who can do that job.

00:22:00.440 –> 00:22:03.620
CHRIS SD: Yeah, yeah, because, you know, there’s a couple of reasons for that.

00:22:03.620 –> 00:22:08.580
CHRIS SD: The biggest one is, you don’t want to waste great songs on mediocre production, you know.

00:22:08.580 –> 00:22:10.740
CHRIS SD: Nobody’s born a great producer.

00:22:10.740 –> 00:22:19.860
CHRIS SD: Just because you have a computer and, you know, an interface and some mics and you, like, watch some YouTube videos, doesn’t make you a genius mix engineer, you know.

00:22:19.860 –> 00:22:26.960
CHRIS SD: And you don’t have to be a genius, but you’ve got to reach a point where you can do it effectively.

00:22:26.960 –> 00:22:32.220
CHRIS SD: And so, in the meantime, hire somebody within your budget.

00:22:32.220 –> 00:22:44.360
CHRIS SD: And then, while they’re also creating better work than you could do, and you’re getting sync placements with your tracks now, you can learn from them, especially if they’re, like, using the same DAW as you.

00:22:44.360 –> 00:22:51.180
CHRIS SD: If you’re both using Pro Tools or both using Logic or whatever, tell them to send you the sessions, you know.

00:22:51.180 –> 00:22:52.940
CHRIS SD: And then go through the plugins, you know.

00:22:52.940 –> 00:22:54.720
CHRIS SD: If you don’t have them all, go get them.

00:22:55.060 –> 00:22:59.360
CHRIS SD: And just pop them in there and then see what they’re doing to your music.

00:22:59.360 –> 00:23:07.420
CHRIS SD: Because if they EQ your voice or do something to your particular voice in a particular way, that’s going to work on other songs on your particular voice.

00:23:07.420 –> 00:23:18.220
CHRIS SD: So you can learn so much while you’re, you know, while you’re learning, don’t waste your great songs on your kind of hobby or, you know, or attempting to to produce.

00:23:18.220 –> 00:23:23.160
CHRIS SD: So I mean, I was, I listened back to some old recordings I did.

00:23:23.160 –> 00:23:24.940
CHRIS SD: There’s a few I’m pleasantly surprised.

00:23:24.940 –> 00:23:27.900
CHRIS SD: I was like, oh, I wasn’t, I was better than I thought.

00:23:27.900 –> 00:23:29.660
CHRIS SD: But most of them, I’m cringing.

00:23:31.380 –> 00:23:35.840
ROBONZO: So yeah, the evolution of one’s talent.

00:23:35.840 –> 00:23:48.700
ROBONZO: Yeah, do you, I think you touched on this too, but and maybe the answer is no, but do you or have you ever coached artists to adapt an existing catalog versus writing intentionally for sync?

00:23:49.960 –> 00:24:02.360
CHRIS SD: Well, yeah, so exactly the, the main thing that I deal with at sync songwriter are independent songwriters, which means not people who are who are writing for sync licensing.

00:24:02.360 –> 00:24:05.600
CHRIS SD: So that is, I don’t really deal with, honestly, almost any of them.

00:24:05.600 –> 00:24:08.420
CHRIS SD: There’s a few that I work with, but not many.

00:24:08.420 –> 00:24:10.460
CHRIS SD: Most people are just songwriters.

00:24:10.460 –> 00:24:19.460
CHRIS SD: And the beautiful thing about that is that, like I said earlier, you’re writing from your heart and you’re writing, you’re doing what you would already do for your fans.

00:24:19.460 –> 00:24:30.120
CHRIS SD: And the reason that that’s so good and why I encourage that is because that’s what music supervisors ultimately are looking for.

00:24:30.120 –> 00:24:32.700
CHRIS SD: They’re looking for authenticity.

00:24:32.700 –> 00:24:34.360
CHRIS SD: They want something real.

00:24:34.360 –> 00:24:39.880
CHRIS SD: They don’t want it to sound like it was, you know, like you’re trying to be something.

00:24:39.880 –> 00:24:44.660
CHRIS SD: It’s a little like sending a postcard, you know, sort of going to the place, right?

00:24:45.060 –> 00:24:53.460
CHRIS SD: It’s that authenticity comes from you being real with, and you’re good at what you love to do.

00:24:53.460 –> 00:24:55.180
CHRIS SD: So you’re and the thing that you do over and over.

00:24:55.180 –> 00:24:57.680
CHRIS SD: So you’re going to be much better at certain things.

00:24:57.680 –> 00:25:01.000
CHRIS SD: And like, well, it’s like I would never try to write a hip hop track.

00:25:01.000 –> 00:25:03.180
CHRIS SD: You know, I like, especially 90s.

00:25:03.380 –> 00:25:05.580
CHRIS SD: I’m really into the boom bap hip hop stuff.

00:25:05.580 –> 00:25:07.740
CHRIS SD: And I had an MPC 3000 for a while.

00:25:07.740 –> 00:25:10.880
CHRIS SD: And I like programming beats when I’ve got time.

00:25:10.880 –> 00:25:14.560
CHRIS SD: But I’m not, I can’t compete because I don’t do it all the time.

00:25:14.680 –> 00:25:19.100
CHRIS SD: I could have been great, and I could if I dedicated, you know, a few years to it.

00:25:19.480 –> 00:25:22.680
CHRIS SD: I could be a great hip hop producer, but I’m not.

00:25:22.680 –> 00:25:29.940
CHRIS SD: So I don’t try to compete on that level, even though I like it, and have fun messing around with it.

00:25:29.940 –> 00:25:34.120
CHRIS SD: So my advice to songwriters is just do what you love to do.

00:25:34.120 –> 00:25:37.920
CHRIS SD: Like, just keep writing what you write, and then find the opportunities for your songs.

00:25:37.920 –> 00:25:40.760
CHRIS SD: Don’t chase opportunities and go that way.

00:25:40.980 –> 00:25:46.180
CHRIS SD: So I think that’s the most important aspect of that thing.

00:25:46.180 –> 00:26:13.680
CHRIS SD: So in terms of getting music and saying, well, I’ve got these tracks, and I want to get them into TV and film, the biggest challenge, if there’s one thing I can leave here listeners with today, the biggest challenge isn’t the production, even the songwriting or learning all the technical things, like how metadata works or the deal points and how the contracts work and your copyright and all that.

00:26:13.680 –> 00:26:22.500
CHRIS SD: The biggest challenge that you have by far, like by a long shot, is how do you get heard by the right people?

00:26:22.500 –> 00:26:24.620
CHRIS SD: How do you actually connect with the right people?

00:26:24.620 –> 00:26:26.420
CHRIS SD: That’s the biggest challenge of all.

00:26:26.420 –> 00:26:39.740
CHRIS SD: Because if you don’t do that, you’re either in a library or you’re in a sync agency, and then you’re just a needle in a haystack, you’re just sitting there playing the lottery, and the only real way to get consistent placements is having relationships.

00:26:39.740 –> 00:26:41.640
CHRIS SD: It’s a relationships business.

00:26:41.640 –> 00:26:43.300
CHRIS SD: And that doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

00:26:43.300 –> 00:26:55.560
CHRIS SD: It’s not nepotism, it’s not schmoozing, it’s just supervisors being like, man, I want to put money in your pocket because you’re an indie songwriter, I’d much rather give it to you than a publishing company or a big label.

00:26:55.560 –> 00:27:05.300
CHRIS SD: And you make my job easy because you’ve got great music, you give me what I want when I need it, and if I know I need something, I’m going to go back to you first.

00:27:05.300 –> 00:27:07.800
CHRIS SD: That’s where the magic happens.

00:27:07.800 –> 00:27:18.860
ROBONZO: Do you find that some of your indie songwriter students and prospective students or people that meet you, do they find any of this a big surprise?

00:27:19.500 –> 00:27:34.980
CHRIS SD: Yeah, because I think a lot of musicians, including myself, back in the day, I was in a band too, we all wear these rose-coloured glasses, because we, not all of us, but a lot of us.

00:27:34.980 –> 00:27:41.340
CHRIS SD: And the reason that happens, I think, is because the songs are so important to us.

00:27:41.340 –> 00:27:48.320
CHRIS SD: We write these songs about things we care about, people we care about or causes or whatever your motivation is to write.

00:27:49.120 –> 00:27:56.880
CHRIS SD: And when we do that, we bring out a part of us that doesn’t normally get out, right?

00:27:56.880 –> 00:27:58.580
CHRIS SD: But it gets out into a song.

00:27:58.580 –> 00:28:01.500
CHRIS SD: It gets out into a song, and there’s a vulnerability there.

00:28:01.500 –> 00:28:05.340
CHRIS SD: And it creates a bond with you and your song.

00:28:05.340 –> 00:28:07.920
CHRIS SD: It’s like almost like having a child in a way.

00:28:07.920 –> 00:28:11.080
CHRIS SD: And then, but those songs kind of get a life of their own.

00:28:11.080 –> 00:28:16.660
CHRIS SD: They sort of like go off and do these things and become these things almost apart from you, you know, at some point.

00:28:17.420 –> 00:28:30.740
CHRIS SD: And we view them with such deference and importance that when it comes time to imagining that, well, the right people just have to hear my music and everything’s going to work out.

00:28:30.740 –> 00:28:33.800
CHRIS SD: Like it’s going to be like, you know, going to be great.

00:28:33.800 –> 00:28:37.360
CHRIS SD: Now I just said that connection is the most important part.

00:28:37.360 –> 00:28:40.340
CHRIS SD: Getting those people to hear your music is the most important part.

00:28:40.340 –> 00:28:46.080
CHRIS SD: It still doesn’t mean though that what you did was genius or like it’s going to work for them.

00:28:46.260 –> 00:28:48.700
CHRIS SD: They might not even be looking for what you’re looking for.

00:28:48.700 –> 00:28:51.860
CHRIS SD: So you’ve got to, of course, send them what they’re looking for when they’re looking for it.

00:28:51.860 –> 00:28:55.060
CHRIS SD: There’s a bunch of different things you need to do in that.

00:28:55.060 –> 00:29:07.660
CHRIS SD: But ultimately, it comes down to keep writing, keep writing, keep creating more songs, be pragmatic about what you’re doing.

00:29:07.660 –> 00:29:14.240
CHRIS SD: And you should wear the rose-colored glasses, but you should know when to take them off too.

00:29:15.100 –> 00:29:16.220
CHRIS SD: I guess that’s the advice, right?

00:29:16.220 –> 00:29:23.700
CHRIS SD: You should be in love with what you do, but you gotta know that there’s a lot of talented people out there, right?

00:29:23.700 –> 00:29:27.820
CHRIS SD: Thousands and thousands and millions and millions who are all trying to do what you’re doing.

00:29:27.820 –> 00:29:31.400
CHRIS SD: So it’s like, well, how do I do this the right way?

00:29:31.400 –> 00:29:38.100
CHRIS SD: And there’s a few very basic steps that you gotta do, which this is what I do in Sync Songwriter.

00:29:38.100 –> 00:29:42.740
CHRIS SD: And if you can do those in the right order, you can absolutely get sync placements.

00:29:44.160 –> 00:29:46.080
ROBONZO: Yeah, that’s some of what you said.

00:29:46.080 –> 00:29:48.200
ROBONZO: It’s a recurring theme in my conversations.

00:29:48.200 –> 00:29:58.520
ROBONZO: And I’m just thinking of one from an artist who’s done a lot in sync and performs and has worked with some noteworthy names.

00:29:58.520 –> 00:30:01.460
ROBONZO: But he just said in a funny way something to me once.

00:30:01.800 –> 00:30:05.340
ROBONZO: And as he was saying, and I’m like, yeah, I’ve seen that in my lifetime.

00:30:05.340 –> 00:30:09.460
ROBONZO: But he said, you know, people think the music business is a talent contest often.

00:30:09.460 –> 00:30:11.100
ROBONZO: He goes, it’s really not.

00:30:11.100 –> 00:30:12.120
CHRIS SD: Yeah, it’s true.

00:30:12.580 –> 00:30:15.220
ROBONZO: And he went on to talk about relationships.

00:30:15.220 –> 00:30:23.900
ROBONZO: And yeah, I mean, obviously you do want to put out good music and all that, but relationships are so big.

00:30:24.020 –> 00:30:24.900
CHRIS SD: They are so big.

00:30:25.020 –> 00:30:25.740
CHRIS SD: And here’s why.

00:30:25.740 –> 00:30:28.800
CHRIS SD: It’s because there’s a human on the other side.

00:30:29.020 –> 00:30:30.340
CHRIS SD: That’s the reason, right?

00:30:30.340 –> 00:30:39.380
CHRIS SD: And a lot of people, like music supervisors, they get music for big Hollywood blockbusters and movies and shows and ads and all kinds of different things.

00:30:39.380 –> 00:30:49.300
CHRIS SD: And people have this vision of like, wow, they must go to work in these suits and ties, and they work in these big offices and like a Hollywood studio, and these are the people I’m dealing with.

00:30:49.300 –> 00:30:54.200
CHRIS SD: It’s like, no, they’re actually musician types.

00:30:54.200 –> 00:30:54.900
CHRIS SD: You’d want to hang out.

00:30:55.340 –> 00:30:59.340
CHRIS SD: I know a ton of them, and I have many who are good friends of mine.

00:30:59.340 –> 00:31:00.780
CHRIS SD: And they’re a great hang.

00:31:00.780 –> 00:31:02.200
CHRIS SD: They’re just like you and I.

00:31:02.200 –> 00:31:03.700
CHRIS SD: They’re just, they love music.

00:31:03.700 –> 00:31:05.940
CHRIS SD: They got the job because they love music.

00:31:05.940 –> 00:31:07.580
CHRIS SD: They support indie musicians.

00:31:07.960 –> 00:31:12.840
CHRIS SD: They love discovering brand new music that no one else has heard before.

00:31:12.840 –> 00:31:15.460
CHRIS SD: And they’re super, super easy to deal with.

00:31:15.460 –> 00:31:16.340
CHRIS SD: But they’re these people.

00:31:16.340 –> 00:31:17.360
CHRIS SD: They’re humans, right?

00:31:17.360 –> 00:31:22.540
CHRIS SD: So when they wake up in the morning till they go to bed, they’ve got a certain bandwidth.

00:31:22.540 –> 00:31:33.260
CHRIS SD: And just like you and I and everybody probably listening, you feel kind of overwhelmed at some point with all the emails and all the things that are going on, right?

00:31:33.260 –> 00:31:35.120
CHRIS SD: Life is kind of complicated.

00:31:35.160 –> 00:31:41.940
CHRIS SD: And it’s just like, no matter if you’re hanging out, living on a beach in Mexico or wherever you happen to be.

00:31:41.940 –> 00:31:44.140
CHRIS SD: And there’s always complications.

00:31:44.140 –> 00:31:46.240
CHRIS SD: There’s always things that you got to contend with.

00:31:46.240 –> 00:31:47.780
CHRIS SD: And they’re the same way.

00:31:47.780 –> 00:31:55.740
CHRIS SD: So if you can make their job easier and they get to know, you’re not like, ah, you’re the easy button, you know, I can just call you up because I’m comfortable with you.

00:31:55.740 –> 00:31:56.460
CHRIS SD: You’re cool.

00:31:56.460 –> 00:31:57.600
CHRIS SD: You’ve got great music.

00:31:57.600 –> 00:31:58.960
CHRIS SD: I know I can always get to you.

00:31:58.960 –> 00:32:00.260
CHRIS SD: You’re easy to work with.

00:32:00.260 –> 00:32:01.520
CHRIS SD: You don’t fight on the fees.

00:32:01.520 –> 00:32:07.680
CHRIS SD: You don’t, you know, you’re just, you’re instantly there when I, when I need something within 24 hours.

00:32:07.680 –> 00:32:09.280
CHRIS SD: That’s who they’re going to go to.

00:32:09.280 –> 00:32:11.440
CHRIS SD: And that’s why the relationships are important.

00:32:11.440 –> 00:32:14.840
CHRIS SD: And then there’s, of course, a million other people waiting on the, waiting behind the gate.

00:32:14.840 –> 00:32:16.300
CHRIS SD: They’re like, why not me?

00:32:16.300 –> 00:32:23.760
CHRIS SD: It’s like, well, you know, you’re just not the one in front of them that they, that they’ve developed a relationship with because they’re human and that’s it.

00:32:23.760 –> 00:32:24.320
ROBONZO: Yep.

00:32:24.320 –> 00:32:25.520
ROBONZO: That’s huge.

00:32:25.520 –> 00:32:43.320
ROBONZO: So what’s the, the timing strategy, speaking of relationships, like how, how do you know or how do you coach, like when someone wants to know how often to follow up on an opportunity, how do they do so without burning a relationship with one of these supervisors in terms of time?

00:32:43.320 –> 00:32:44.000
ROBONZO: Yeah.

00:32:44.000 –> 00:32:44.240
ROBONZO: Yeah.

00:32:44.240 –> 00:32:44.880
ROBONZO: Yeah.

00:32:44.880 –> 00:32:47.860
CHRIS SD: So, yeah, that’s another great question.

00:32:47.860 –> 00:32:56.280
CHRIS SD: So it really comes down to if you’re following up with supervisors because you’re not getting any response back from them.

00:32:57.380 –> 00:33:00.940
CHRIS SD: And maybe you didn’t have one in the first place.

00:33:01.160 –> 00:33:03.920
CHRIS SD: They didn’t have any sort of connection with them in the first place.

00:33:03.920 –> 00:33:06.320
CHRIS SD: You don’t have a relationship, right?

00:33:06.320 –> 00:33:09.320
CHRIS SD: So everybody’s emailing them.

00:33:09.320 –> 00:33:13.560
CHRIS SD: Like that’s they get hundreds of emails a day, some of the people that I work with.

00:33:13.560 –> 00:33:17.360
CHRIS SD: So they can’t possibly listen to everything that’s sent to them.

00:33:17.360 –> 00:33:25.640
CHRIS SD: And especially if it’s not solicited in some way or from someone they know, it pretty much goes to the spam folder, you know, because they’re busy, right?

00:33:25.640 –> 00:33:31.160
CHRIS SD: They’re busy working on getting music from their go-to people, the relationship people that they’ve got.

00:33:31.160 –> 00:33:36.560
CHRIS SD: So if you’re trying to cold email or cold reach out to supervisors, you might get lucky.

00:33:36.560 –> 00:33:51.820
CHRIS SD: I mean, I’ve heard it happen before, but you know, it’s like the story of the person who crashed their car and it exploded, but the person survived because they weren’t wearing their seatbelt and got ejected through the sunroof that happened to be open, landed in a pine tree and fell into a snowbank.

00:33:51.820 –> 00:33:54.420
CHRIS SD: And they’re like, I’m never wearing my seatbelt again.

00:33:54.420 –> 00:33:54.720
CHRIS SD: Right?

00:33:54.720 –> 00:33:57.860
CHRIS SD: It’s like, dude, you were just lucky, you know?

00:33:58.680 –> 00:34:00.860
CHRIS SD: So it’s a lot like that.

00:34:00.860 –> 00:34:02.140
CHRIS SD: So it’s about the relationships.

00:34:02.140 –> 00:34:24.540
CHRIS SD: But once you have relationships with supervisors, you’ve already had a connection with them, then you’re generally not having to follow up too much, except to jog their memory or to kind of like follow up, because they’re just busy, just like you and I need prompting, I’m sure from people sometimes, or at least our automated apps have to remind us, you know, this thing’s coming up or whatever.

00:34:24.540 –> 00:34:25.940
CHRIS SD: But it’s really about the relationship.

00:34:26.100 –> 00:34:29.980
CHRIS SD: And it’s not like a friend, it doesn’t have to be about friends.

00:34:30.520 –> 00:34:34.380
CHRIS SD: You don’t have to be talking about each other’s cats or anything like that.

00:34:34.380 –> 00:34:37.380
CHRIS SD: The relationship I’m talking about is about the music, right?

00:34:37.380 –> 00:34:38.300
CHRIS SD: They admire you first.

00:34:38.300 –> 00:34:40.700
CHRIS SD: The personal relationship can come later.

00:34:40.700 –> 00:34:45.840
CHRIS SD: We have lots of them who develop relationships, they’ve got to text each other, you know, things like that.

00:34:45.840 –> 00:34:48.880
CHRIS SD: But I’m talking about just being able to be heard.

00:34:49.440 –> 00:34:50.380
CHRIS SD: That’s the key.

00:34:50.380 –> 00:34:54.000
CHRIS SD: That’s the step you need to take, essentially.

00:34:54.000 –> 00:34:54.560
ROBONZO: Great advice.

00:34:54.920 –> 00:34:59.820
ROBONZO: You have this step where you make direct introductions to music supervisors.

00:35:00.000 –> 00:35:06.660
ROBONZO: How did you build those relationships for yourself, and how does that translate to your students?

00:35:06.660 –> 00:35:07.300
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:35:07.300 –> 00:35:10.860
CHRIS SD: So that was a long, arduous path.

00:35:10.860 –> 00:35:18.860
CHRIS SD: So when I first started out, and as I was saying, in the studio working with independent songwriters, I was thinking like, this sounds great.

00:35:18.860 –> 00:35:22.780
CHRIS SD: So what I need to do is I just need to go talk to some supervisors.

00:35:23.520 –> 00:35:25.840
CHRIS SD: And I was a little bit smug, I have to admit.

00:35:25.840 –> 00:35:29.220
CHRIS SD: I thought, well, I’ve had success in the music industry.

00:35:29.220 –> 00:35:30.460
CHRIS SD: Got some awards under my belt.

00:35:30.460 –> 00:35:31.920
CHRIS SD: This should be easy, right?

00:35:31.920 –> 00:35:36.240
CHRIS SD: Should be able to like, call some up, say, hey, how you doing?

00:35:36.240 –> 00:35:37.260
CHRIS SD: Whatever.

00:35:37.260 –> 00:35:42.720
CHRIS SD: They’re totally two different industries and might be interesting to them, but I’m irrelevant to them, right?

00:35:42.720 –> 00:35:50.100
CHRIS SD: I’m just this music producer guy who is not, doesn’t even, you know, I like, I was totally approaching it the wrong way.

00:35:51.020 –> 00:36:02.120
CHRIS SD: So, I eventually got my foot in the door by talking to some supervisors, and I, you know, honestly, I would hang out with everybody I could.

00:36:02.120 –> 00:36:04.520
CHRIS SD: I went to everything I was invited to.

00:36:04.520 –> 00:36:06.120
CHRIS SD: I would go to conferences.

00:36:06.120 –> 00:36:18.000
CHRIS SD: I would, I even bribed one supervisor with a beach picnic in LA to tell me, to come and hang out with me and tell me the whole backend of how it all works.

00:36:18.000 –> 00:36:25.280
CHRIS SD: I was like, I really want to know, like, what happens and how does it all function, like, behind the scenes, you know, not what you can read about.

00:36:25.280 –> 00:36:28.520
CHRIS SD: And she was like, ha, you know, I’d be happy to, whatever.

00:36:28.520 –> 00:36:31.040
CHRIS SD: So we hung out in the beach and I took copious notes.

00:36:31.040 –> 00:36:32.720
CHRIS SD: And so just a bunch of things.

00:36:32.720 –> 00:36:35.280
CHRIS SD: It took me years to build those relationships up.

00:36:35.280 –> 00:36:37.700
CHRIS SD: And a lot of it’s based on trust.

00:36:37.700 –> 00:36:43.640
CHRIS SD: So I got to the point where they’re like, oh, Chris, yeah, he knows some great independent musicians.

00:36:43.640 –> 00:36:46.360
CHRIS SD: And Chris is, you know, above board.

00:36:46.360 –> 00:36:47.920
CHRIS SD: He’s a straight shooter.

00:36:48.520 –> 00:36:53.260
CHRIS SD: And he can introduce people who have great music to me.

00:36:53.260 –> 00:36:54.420
CHRIS SD: And I really like it.

00:36:54.420 –> 00:36:59.120
CHRIS SD: And I feel safe within Chris’ little ecosystem of Sync Songwriter.

00:36:59.120 –> 00:37:01.640
CHRIS SD: And that’s really what the magic is.

00:37:01.640 –> 00:37:14.500
CHRIS SD: So it’s this thing that the, you have to remember that supervisors don’t really trust independent musicians and songwriters because they’ve been burned so many times before in different levels.

00:37:14.500 –> 00:37:15.920
CHRIS SD: You know, I’ll give you one example.

00:37:16.820 –> 00:37:26.600
CHRIS SD: You can imagine that you write a song with your band, and then you get it to the supervisor somehow, and the supervisor listens to it, and they’re like, this is great.

00:37:26.600 –> 00:37:27.480
CHRIS SD: Now I got to clear it.

00:37:27.480 –> 00:37:28.640
CHRIS SD: Do you own the copyright?

00:37:28.640 –> 00:37:30.860
CHRIS SD: And you’re like, yeah, yeah, I got the copyright.

00:37:30.860 –> 00:37:32.400
CHRIS SD: And okay, awesome.

00:37:32.400 –> 00:37:34.100
CHRIS SD: So it gets into the movie, right?

00:37:34.100 –> 00:37:37.480
CHRIS SD: The movie’s about to come out in a month or whatever, the big release.

00:37:37.480 –> 00:37:41.720
CHRIS SD: And let’s pick on, who should we pick on today?

00:37:41.720 –> 00:37:43.420
CHRIS SD: The cowbell player.

00:37:43.700 –> 00:37:52.060
CHRIS SD: Yeah, the cowbell player in your band is saying, hey, man, I was in the room when you wrote that, and my cowbell part is kind of a hook.

00:37:52.480 –> 00:37:55.320
CHRIS SD: I’m in for 10% on that for the writing for sure.

00:37:55.320 –> 00:37:56.340
CHRIS SD: You’re like, what are you talking about?

00:37:56.340 –> 00:37:59.620
CHRIS SD: It’s like, no, you can’t use the song until we settle this.

00:37:59.620 –> 00:38:04.920
CHRIS SD: Well, that’s a complete absolute nightmare career ending moment for a supervisor.

00:38:04.920 –> 00:38:08.260
CHRIS SD: So they stay away from that stuff, right?

00:38:08.260 –> 00:38:11.520
CHRIS SD: What if you have a hidden sample in there that they missed, right?

00:38:12.020 –> 00:38:14.620
CHRIS SD: So there’s all these aspects that are there.

00:38:14.620 –> 00:38:22.240
CHRIS SD: So in Sync Songwriter, when I work with songwriters, they have to learn how things work.

00:38:22.420 –> 00:38:24.460
CHRIS SD: Now, they don’t have to learn a bunch of stuff.

00:38:24.460 –> 00:38:38.940
CHRIS SD: They have to learn the foundation and the essential things so that I feel safe introducing them to supervisors and the supervisors feel safe because they know they came through me and got that training to understand like, okay, they know what they’re doing.

00:38:38.940 –> 00:38:39.920
CHRIS SD: They got their ducks in a row.

00:38:40.000 –> 00:38:41.760
CHRIS SD: They got their paperwork all done.

00:38:42.100 –> 00:38:46.420
CHRIS SD: And that’s how we get a big advantage with that.

00:38:46.420 –> 00:38:55.920
ROBONZO: Of those couple of students who got songs in Anora, what did those two do differently in their preparation and pitching?

00:38:55.920 –> 00:39:01.000
CHRIS SD: Yeah, they didn’t do anything different in terms of within…

00:39:01.000 –> 00:39:03.760
CHRIS SD: Let’s talk about this first, internal and external, maybe.

00:39:03.760 –> 00:39:05.680
CHRIS SD: That’ll fully answer your question.

00:39:05.680 –> 00:39:07.800
CHRIS SD: Internally to sync songwriter, right?

00:39:08.060 –> 00:39:09.300
CHRIS SD: I don’t just work with two people.

00:39:09.400 –> 00:39:11.500
CHRIS SD: I work with a number of songwriters.

00:39:11.500 –> 00:39:16.420
CHRIS SD: So the question could be asked, like, why those two and why not other songwriters?

00:39:16.420 –> 00:39:17.840
ROBONZO: That’s my question.

00:39:17.940 –> 00:39:18.400
CHRIS SD: Okay.

00:39:18.400 –> 00:39:19.460
ROBONZO: Just kidding.

00:39:19.460 –> 00:39:20.300
ROBONZO: I’m kidding.

00:39:20.300 –> 00:39:21.080
CHRIS SD: Okay.

00:39:21.920 –> 00:39:26.060
CHRIS SD: And so that is the internal question.

00:39:26.060 –> 00:39:36.800
CHRIS SD: Well, for one, those two songwriters had relationships with that particular supervisor, but so did others, of course.

00:39:37.600 –> 00:39:42.800
CHRIS SD: But the key was, the supervisor was looking for particular kinds of music.

00:39:42.800 –> 00:39:45.520
CHRIS SD: And guess what got in there, right?

00:39:45.520 –> 00:39:52.460
CHRIS SD: When people say, oh, you got to write, like, pop or hip hop or country or rock and roll, the big four, to get into TV and film.

00:39:52.460 –> 00:40:04.340
CHRIS SD: It’s like, no, Anora, five-Oscar-winning film, those two placements, well, they got five tracks total between the two of them, jazz and Russian hip hop.

00:40:04.340 –> 00:40:06.500
CHRIS SD: So talk about esoteric, you know?

00:40:07.180 –> 00:40:10.580
CHRIS SD: So that’s what I mean, every song’s got a home.

00:40:10.580 –> 00:40:15.800
CHRIS SD: But there’s not a lot of people that have Russian hip hop tracks in their back pocket.

00:40:15.800 –> 00:40:21.900
CHRIS SD: And there’s not a lot of people who do jazz in that way that they were looking for.

00:40:21.900 –> 00:40:27.460
CHRIS SD: So that’s what I meant earlier about, you’ve got to give them what they want when they’re looking for it.

00:40:27.460 –> 00:40:36.100
CHRIS SD: There’s so many examples of, you know, indie songwriters have connected with supervisors and they love the music.

00:40:36.160 –> 00:40:38.260
CHRIS SD: They’re like, man, you are so talented.

00:40:38.260 –> 00:40:39.900
CHRIS SD: You’re so good.

00:40:39.900 –> 00:40:42.540
CHRIS SD: But I can’t use it.

00:40:42.540 –> 00:40:45.720
CHRIS SD: Because they usually they’re working on like multiple projects at the same time.

00:40:45.720 –> 00:40:52.620
CHRIS SD: But out of all the projects are working, they’re like, I literally can’t use this genre of music that you’re doing.

00:40:52.620 –> 00:40:53.960
CHRIS SD: Because I’m not just I’m not working there.

00:40:53.960 –> 00:40:55.600
CHRIS SD: So I have no help to you.

00:40:55.600 –> 00:40:56.320
CHRIS SD: Right?

00:40:56.320 –> 00:40:57.920
CHRIS SD: So that’s another thing about targeting.

00:40:57.920 –> 00:41:03.860
CHRIS SD: You want to find the opportunities for your songs and not just the supervisor who likes your music.

00:41:04.180 –> 00:41:14.880
ROBONZO: Doesn’t doesn’t start to interrupt, but doesn’t the artist have the information available to them in in the ideal cases to know that, hey, my music might fit there?

00:41:14.880 –> 00:41:20.540
ROBONZO: Or is it really because for a moment there, it was just sounding like, man, a lot of things have to align for a place.

00:41:20.540 –> 00:41:20.980
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:41:20.980 –> 00:41:28.620
CHRIS SD: So so you can find out about those things so that we’re basically we’re talking about two barriers here.

00:41:28.620 –> 00:41:28.960
CHRIS SD: Right.

00:41:28.960 –> 00:41:31.980
CHRIS SD: One is having the right music for the right opportunities.

00:41:32.400 –> 00:41:38.040
CHRIS SD: So no matter, you know, you could go to like, let’s use Grey’s Anatomy again, because everybody knows it.

00:41:38.040 –> 00:41:40.420
CHRIS SD: It’s such a big sync thing, right?

00:41:40.420 –> 00:41:46.180
CHRIS SD: Is you could be writing amazing music, but Grey’s Anatomy literally never places your kind of music.

00:41:46.180 –> 00:41:47.940
CHRIS SD: They just they just don’t use it.

00:41:47.940 –> 00:41:51.300
CHRIS SD: They just don’t never really put those genres in Grey’s Anatomy.

00:41:51.300 –> 00:41:51.960
CHRIS SD: Right.

00:41:51.960 –> 00:41:54.040
CHRIS SD: Or say it’s to Hallmark, right?

00:41:54.040 –> 00:41:57.520
CHRIS SD: Hallmark is all about family and holidays and things like that.

00:41:57.520 –> 00:41:58.780
CHRIS SD: And you’re a punk rocker.

00:41:59.060 –> 00:42:08.000
CHRIS SD: I mean, there might be some random scene where there’s a scene where somebody walking by a punk rock bar, where you’re like, does music emanating from it?

00:42:08.000 –> 00:42:11.420
CHRIS SD: But generally, they’re not going to be using your music, right?

00:42:11.420 –> 00:42:13.720
CHRIS SD: So there’s that’s barrier number one.

00:42:13.720 –> 00:42:21.880
CHRIS SD: And barrier number two is even be able to connect with the supervisor, which leads me to the external answer to your question.

00:42:21.880 –> 00:42:29.380
CHRIS SD: What made the Anora songwriters different than everybody else in the world trying to get their music into TV and film?

00:42:29.380 –> 00:42:32.220
CHRIS SD: And that was literally strictly connections, right?

00:42:33.480 –> 00:42:37.760
CHRIS SD: After the music being relevant, it was not being heard.

00:42:37.760 –> 00:42:44.900
CHRIS SD: Like that supervisor just doesn’t talk to the millions of musicians out there, right?

00:42:44.900 –> 00:42:47.900
CHRIS SD: Just they’ll never hear their music.

00:42:47.900 –> 00:42:58.200
CHRIS SD: And the sad thing, especially now, is because everybody can put records out, the vast majority of them, like and I’m talking, I’m making this up because I don’t know, but I think it is.

00:42:58.200 –> 00:42:59.800
CHRIS SD: This is an accurate estimate.

00:42:59.800 –> 00:43:02.180
CHRIS SD: I believe 99, it’s probably got to be 99%.

00:43:02.700 –> 00:43:17.500
CHRIS SD: It’s probably more than 99%, 99 point something, that will never see the light of day, that will never have any notoriety, that will never get heard beyond the friends and family of the artist, you know, or a few people on social.

00:43:17.500 –> 00:43:24.840
CHRIS SD: I mean, if you go to like SoundCloud and Spotify, there’s 100,000 songs a day that get uploaded to Spotify.

00:43:25.720 –> 00:43:28.240
ROBONZO: There’s too much, Chris, like I can’t take it.

00:43:28.240 –> 00:43:34.320
CHRIS SD: Oh, no, but I was, when I first heard that figure, I thought it was like per month.

00:43:34.320 –> 00:43:35.680
CHRIS SD: I thought that was nuts.

00:43:35.680 –> 00:43:36.180
CHRIS SD: That was like week.

00:43:36.180 –> 00:43:36.560
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:43:36.560 –> 00:43:38.760
CHRIS SD: And I thought it was a week, and that was daily.

00:43:38.760 –> 00:43:39.880
CHRIS SD: 100,000.

00:43:39.880 –> 00:43:43.020
CHRIS SD: Actually, I think I say 100,000, but I think it’s 120.

00:43:43.480 –> 00:43:46.380
CHRIS SD: But I always say 100,000 to be conservative.

00:43:46.380 –> 00:43:50.280
CHRIS SD: So does that mean that there’s no chance for you?

00:43:50.280 –> 00:43:53.100
CHRIS SD: Well, if we were all playing a lottery, there would be no chance.

00:43:53.840 –> 00:43:55.720
CHRIS SD: But here’s the way to look at it.

00:43:55.720 –> 00:43:58.800
CHRIS SD: So people say, well, then why would I even get into this, Chris?

00:43:58.800 –> 00:44:01.980
CHRIS SD: If that’s what you’re saying is true, then there’s no chance for me, right?

00:44:01.980 –> 00:44:04.620
CHRIS SD: I mean, I’m a needle in a haystack, blah, blah, blah.

00:44:04.620 –> 00:44:15.760
CHRIS SD: The way to look at it is to ask yourself if Elon Musk or whoever said, guys, we got this spaceship that’s going to go to Mars tomorrow, and we’re looking for some people to go to Mars.

00:44:15.760 –> 00:44:21.840
CHRIS SD: We pretend that they tested it and it’s perfectly safe and everything, and you could have a chance to go, and you really wanted to go.

00:44:22.540 –> 00:44:24.680
CHRIS SD: What are your odds of being selected?

00:44:24.820 –> 00:44:44.560
CHRIS SD: Well, we’re going to subtract, of course, anybody probably under 18 minimum, and then we’re going to take out the really old people, and we’re going to take out, just certain people just can’t get on the spaceship, and then we end up with still this huge amount of people, billions of them in the world, and so you’d be like, well, I’m one out of so many billion.

00:44:44.700 –> 00:44:54.240
CHRIS SD: Yeah, that’s true for a farmer in Nebraska or you, it’s probably one in, you know, say even half, four billion or something, right?

00:44:54.240 –> 00:44:55.500
CHRIS SD: A chance.

00:44:55.500 –> 00:45:01.520
CHRIS SD: But what is it for someone who went to space cadets or like got trained by NASA?

00:45:01.520 –> 00:45:03.200
CHRIS SD: Like, what are your odds then?

00:45:03.200 –> 00:45:09.040
CHRIS SD: Or you’ve got a degree in like Martian soil, you know?

00:45:09.040 –> 00:45:09.720
CHRIS SD: What are your odds?

00:45:09.720 –> 00:45:10.300
CHRIS SD: Al.

00:45:10.300 –> 00:45:13.540
ROBONZO: Or you know someone in the C suites of SpaceX.

00:45:13.540 –> 00:45:14.700
CHRIS SD: Yeah, right.

00:45:14.800 –> 00:45:16.260
CHRIS SD: Or you know, thank you, yes.

00:45:16.260 –> 00:45:17.980
CHRIS SD: Let’s see, you can bring that in there.

00:45:17.980 –> 00:45:20.600
CHRIS SD: That direct kind of relationship, of course.

00:45:20.600 –> 00:45:22.800
CHRIS SD: So now what are your odds?

00:45:22.800 –> 00:45:26.260
CHRIS SD: They’re like astronomically better, right?

00:45:26.260 –> 00:45:28.360
CHRIS SD: And that’s the same thing as sync licensing.

00:45:28.360 –> 00:45:31.540
CHRIS SD: You’re not playing a lottery if you’ve got the relationships.

00:45:31.540 –> 00:45:33.000
CHRIS SD: So you actually filled in the blank.

00:45:33.000 –> 00:45:34.280
CHRIS SD: Best for me on that one.

00:45:34.280 –> 00:45:36.580
CHRIS SD: So, you know, about the relationship.

00:45:36.580 –> 00:45:40.580
CHRIS SD: But anyway, that’s kind of where that is.

00:45:40.580 –> 00:45:41.200
ROBONZO: That’s good stuff.

00:45:42.280 –> 00:45:46.420
ROBONZO: You, I believe you cite like a six to 12 month window for first placements.

00:45:48.260 –> 00:45:49.280
ROBONZO: Is that right?

00:45:49.280 –> 00:45:50.820
CHRIS SD: Nope.

00:45:50.820 –> 00:45:51.920
CHRIS SD: Where’d you hear that?

00:45:51.920 –> 00:45:52.520
ROBONZO: Well, okay.

00:45:53.020 –> 00:45:56.360
ROBONZO: This is the way I inferred this from my notes.

00:45:56.360 –> 00:46:04.880
ROBONZO: And forgive me, fact check me, that you would assume a six to 12 month window for first placement for your students, like when they’re ready.

00:46:04.880 –> 00:46:06.020
CHRIS SD: Oh, I see what you’re saying.

00:46:06.020 –> 00:46:06.740
CHRIS SD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:06.740 –> 00:46:09.820
CHRIS SD: So the reason for that is, well, to talk.

00:46:09.980 –> 00:46:14.320
CHRIS SD: Okay, so placements, there’s no way to know when they’re going to happen, right?

00:46:14.320 –> 00:46:17.200
CHRIS SD: So the one, there’s no guarantees, someone’s going to get a placement.

00:46:17.200 –> 00:46:18.200
CHRIS SD: No one can guarantee it.

00:46:18.200 –> 00:46:23.380
CHRIS SD: Not even the supervisor can guarantee it because the directors and the producers have the final say.

00:46:24.040 –> 00:46:24.840
CHRIS SD: So there’s that.

00:46:24.840 –> 00:46:25.640
CHRIS SD: All right.

00:46:25.640 –> 00:46:30.700
CHRIS SD: So then secondly, a placement can happen right away.

00:46:30.700 –> 00:46:34.920
CHRIS SD: They might hear it and be like, this is perfect for what I’m working on because it’s already top of mind, right?

00:46:34.920 –> 00:46:36.280
CHRIS SD: They’re already thinking, boom.

00:46:36.280 –> 00:46:38.840
CHRIS SD: So we get placements like that, that happen immediately.

00:46:39.500 –> 00:46:42.000
CHRIS SD: Some of them can be a week or two later.

00:46:42.000 –> 00:46:43.780
CHRIS SD: Some of them can be a few months later.

00:46:43.780 –> 00:46:47.040
CHRIS SD: Some of them can be years later, out of the blue, three years later.

00:46:47.040 –> 00:46:50.200
CHRIS SD: It’s like, hey, I had your song in my little collection.

00:46:50.200 –> 00:46:54.080
CHRIS SD: I always remembered it, and it was not something I normally work on.

00:46:54.080 –> 00:46:55.680
CHRIS SD: I got hired to work on this thing.

00:46:55.680 –> 00:46:59.340
CHRIS SD: I went back and I did it, and boom, right?

00:46:59.340 –> 00:47:03.040
CHRIS SD: The number I think that you have is based on my program.

00:47:03.040 –> 00:47:05.600
CHRIS SD: So I have a program called The Art of the Song Pitch.

00:47:05.600 –> 00:47:14.080
CHRIS SD: So we have to, as I said earlier, I have to kind of train the Indie songwriters first before I introduce them.

00:47:14.080 –> 00:47:17.400
CHRIS SD: And it’s a six-month program, and they do that within the program.

00:47:17.400 –> 00:47:22.840
CHRIS SD: So it’s really should be, you know, it’s really three months we start pitching music after they start.

00:47:22.840 –> 00:47:26.840
CHRIS SD: But there is a beginning part where they, yeah, I don’t introduce them before they’re ready.

00:47:26.840 –> 00:47:31.600
CHRIS SD: So you got the right idea, just the wrong time frame.

00:47:31.600 –> 00:47:32.620
ROBONZO: Got it, got it.

00:47:32.620 –> 00:47:43.600
ROBONZO: So are there, if we’re looking at the correct time frame, are there variables that move someone along that a little faster once they’ve completed that program?

00:47:43.600 –> 00:47:44.180
CHRIS SD: Yeah.

00:47:44.180 –> 00:47:57.260
CHRIS SD: So the one thing that moves people quicker is the amount of relationships that they have and how they really sort of are involved in the process.

00:47:57.260 –> 00:48:03.780
CHRIS SD: So some people, you know, will just be like, hey, I’ve got, I know two supervisors, you know, and they just keep hitting those two up.

00:48:04.420 –> 00:48:06.720
CHRIS SD: Other people are really proactive, right?

00:48:06.720 –> 00:48:09.660
CHRIS SD: And because I can introduce them to a lot.

00:48:09.660 –> 00:48:13.680
CHRIS SD: And they might, they’ll have tens of, you know, the 50 music supervisors.

00:48:13.680 –> 00:48:22.740
CHRIS SD: And if they’re always following up with them and they’re prolific, they’re writing music and producing it, they’re just by the sheer numbers, they’re going to probably end up with more sync placements.

00:48:22.740 –> 00:48:24.240
ROBONZO: Yeah.

00:48:24.240 –> 00:48:25.460
ROBONZO: Okay.

00:48:25.460 –> 00:48:49.280
ROBONZO: You know, I was thinking of this as we first started talking and, you know, relationships came in early in our conversation, but I would imagine that you sometimes meet people that you’re having a little bit of a tougher time imagining them being able to break some of the barriers that they might need to, like maybe their network’s okay, but you might be concerned for them just because of the personality part that you see.

00:48:49.280 –> 00:48:52.180
ROBONZO: I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I would just kind of imagine that.

00:48:52.740 –> 00:48:58.040
ROBONZO: Do you kind of, do you coach people on that side of things?

00:48:58.040 –> 00:49:01.240
CHRIS SD: We don’t really, well, yes and no on the personality.

00:49:01.340 –> 00:49:09.100
CHRIS SD: There’s something more important that I’ll talk about in a second, but in terms of their sort of how they come across or, well, let’s just call it that.

00:49:09.100 –> 00:49:14.600
CHRIS SD: Let’s say it’s how somebody is their demeanor and how they approach things, right?

00:49:14.600 –> 00:49:19.620
CHRIS SD: I certainly tell people what’s important on that level with music supervisors.

00:49:19.620 –> 00:49:24.380
CHRIS SD: And it’s contrary to what a lot of people think it is.

00:49:24.380 –> 00:49:26.200
CHRIS SD: You want to be viewed as a peer.

00:49:26.200 –> 00:49:29.660
CHRIS SD: You don’t want to be overly deferential to them.

00:49:30.400 –> 00:49:31.740
CHRIS SD: Like, please, you know, do me a favor.

00:49:31.740 –> 00:49:36.540
CHRIS SD: I know you really want to get a placement, but you never want to come across as, you know, desperate or anything.

00:49:36.540 –> 00:49:40.620
CHRIS SD: And you certainly don’t want to be condescending on the opposite pole, right?

00:49:41.680 –> 00:49:46.680
CHRIS SD: So, in terms of that, of course, I can do some light training.

00:49:46.680 –> 00:49:51.100
CHRIS SD: I call it light because you can’t change people easily, you know?

00:49:51.100 –> 00:49:53.820
CHRIS SD: Personalities don’t really change that much.

00:49:53.820 –> 00:49:59.000
CHRIS SD: People, smart people can recognize that they might have a deficiency in something and say, you know what?

00:49:59.000 –> 00:50:00.860
CHRIS SD: And I’m not talking just about this.

00:50:00.860 –> 00:50:05.960
CHRIS SD: Talking about, I think it’s good for all of us to sort of recognize what our weaknesses are.

00:50:05.960 –> 00:50:11.560
CHRIS SD: And as I was saying before, you know, if you can’t produce records well enough, don’t beat yourself up.

00:50:11.560 –> 00:50:13.080
CHRIS SD: Hire somebody and just get better.

00:50:13.080 –> 00:50:15.180
CHRIS SD: You know, take revenge later, right?

00:50:15.340 –> 00:50:16.600
CHRIS SD: You’ll get good.

00:50:16.600 –> 00:50:17.340
CHRIS SD: Just take your time.

00:50:17.340 –> 00:50:20.360
CHRIS SD: In the meantime, recognize that you’re not that great at it.

00:50:20.360 –> 00:50:21.880
CHRIS SD: And so, I think it’s important.

00:50:24.540 –> 00:50:26.020
CHRIS SD: There’s a Clint Eastwood line, right?

00:50:26.020 –> 00:50:29.400
CHRIS SD: A man’s got to know his limits or something from a Dirty Harry movie.

00:50:29.400 –> 00:50:31.720
CHRIS SD: So it’s popped into my head.

00:50:31.720 –> 00:50:39.100
CHRIS SD: So I think that it’s important for people to sort of understand what those things are, but you can’t change those things.

00:50:39.100 –> 00:50:41.960
CHRIS SD: But we’re absolutely careful about that.

00:50:41.960 –> 00:50:48.660
CHRIS SD: If we have some people we don’t think are a good fit, we don’t sort of work with them, essentially.

00:50:48.660 –> 00:50:51.020
CHRIS SD: We think they’re going to be a problem for the music supervisors.

00:50:51.480 –> 00:50:54.060
CHRIS SD: We’re a bit of a gatekeeper that way.

00:50:54.060 –> 00:50:57.240
CHRIS SD: But thankfully, it’s like very, very far and few between.

00:50:57.240 –> 00:51:04.560
CHRIS SD: I mean, you know, there’s all kinds of people in this world, and sometimes blunt might be considered aggressive when it’s not.

00:51:04.560 –> 00:51:10.100
CHRIS SD: It’s just people are, you know, different culture, different personality, whatever.

00:51:10.100 –> 00:51:11.420
CHRIS SD: So that’s not what I’m talking about.

00:51:11.420 –> 00:51:18.080
CHRIS SD: It’s like the one that kind of everybody can say, oh, yeah, this is, you know, not a very nice person or, you know, whatever.

00:51:18.500 –> 00:51:20.920
CHRIS SD: They’re creating problems or something.

00:51:20.920 –> 00:51:27.000
CHRIS SD: More important of that, of course, is the music, making sure the music comes across in the right way.

00:51:27.000 –> 00:51:28.600
CHRIS SD: And so that’s a big part of it, right?

00:51:28.600 –> 00:51:30.580
CHRIS SD: There’s a production module.

00:51:30.580 –> 00:51:33.580
CHRIS SD: And I talk about the do’s and don’ts of songwriting.

00:51:33.580 –> 00:51:43.040
CHRIS SD: It’s not teaching people how to songwrite, but it’s like the pitfalls, things to avoid, the things that don’t work, things like that, how to target your music correctly.

00:51:43.040 –> 00:51:47.540
CHRIS SD: Like when I was saying earlier, you want to find things that your music’s going to work well in.

00:51:48.280 –> 00:51:51.100
CHRIS SD: Then you need to know how to target those opportunities.

00:51:51.100 –> 00:51:52.900
CHRIS SD: Like how do I even figure out that?

00:51:52.900 –> 00:51:59.520
CHRIS SD: Well, there’s a system I have that is really easy that actually shows you exactly what the best opportunities are.

00:51:59.520 –> 00:52:08.900
CHRIS SD: And then circling back to what you were asking about is how to pitch and interact with the supervisors.

00:52:08.900 –> 00:52:11.620
CHRIS SD: But in the end, it comes down to your music.

00:52:11.620 –> 00:52:12.980
CHRIS SD: That’s the most important part.

00:52:12.980 –> 00:52:15.120
CHRIS SD: It’s the part that the supervisors really care about.

00:52:15.620 –> 00:52:19.240
CHRIS SD: You know, it’s as you would expect.

00:52:19.240 –> 00:52:23.440
ROBONZO: Probably more so than many other places in music.

00:52:23.440 –> 00:52:30.760
ROBONZO: They put a lot of themselves out there when they recommend stuff for a project.

00:52:30.760 –> 00:52:31.920
CHRIS SD: Exactly.

00:52:31.920 –> 00:52:44.560
ROBONZO: So I was reading a HypeBot piece that you did covering AI and music licensing, and maybe much has already changed just with the rapid change of everything in AI.

00:52:44.720 –> 00:52:55.800
ROBONZO: But what would you say is the most urgent thing SYNC seeking artists need to understand about AI’s impact on their income potential right now?

00:52:55.800 –> 00:53:02.440
CHRIS SD: First thing I want everybody to do who’s worried about that, is take a nice deep breath and relax.

00:53:02.440 –> 00:53:05.960
CHRIS SD: Because it’s not as dour as some people think it is.

00:53:05.960 –> 00:53:11.600
CHRIS SD: So the reason that there’s not a ton of bad news, so let’s start with the worst news.

00:53:12.160 –> 00:53:15.860
CHRIS SD: AI is making inroads into the sync industry.

00:53:15.860 –> 00:53:17.980
CHRIS SD: But it’s all at the bottom.

00:53:17.980 –> 00:53:26.180
CHRIS SD: So it’s mainly in production libraries, and that’s music that gets into like sportscasts and like YouTube videos and things like that.

00:53:26.180 –> 00:53:29.120
CHRIS SD: That’s all instrumental, easy to replicate, right?

00:53:29.120 –> 00:53:32.640
CHRIS SD: AI can replicate sort of production music fairly easily.

00:53:32.640 –> 00:53:35.300
CHRIS SD: Like, you know, background music for things.

00:53:35.360 –> 00:53:41.200
CHRIS SD: In terms of songs, which music supervisors are mostly interested in, besides composers, right?

00:53:41.200 –> 00:53:44.980
CHRIS SD: So there’s either composers or there’s songwriters.

00:53:44.980 –> 00:53:51.700
CHRIS SD: They, there’s one massive barrier for AI right now, and that is copyright.

00:53:51.700 –> 00:54:00.160
CHRIS SD: So if you go and use AI to generate music, whether it’s lyrics or the melody or anything, you cannot copyright it.

00:54:00.160 –> 00:54:07.880
CHRIS SD: So even though the AI platform might say in their terms of use, they might say, hey, you know what, you own everything you do on here.

00:54:08.100 –> 00:54:10.860
CHRIS SD: The Copyright Office begs to differ.

00:54:10.860 –> 00:54:12.140
CHRIS SD: They’re like, no, you don’t.

00:54:12.140 –> 00:54:14.280
CHRIS SD: It’s like we have not legislate that.

00:54:14.280 –> 00:54:15.720
CHRIS SD: It’s not been legislated.

00:54:15.720 –> 00:54:17.460
CHRIS SD: It may never get legislated.

00:54:17.460 –> 00:54:21.580
CHRIS SD: You don’t own the copyright for the music that was generated via AI.

00:54:21.580 –> 00:54:24.340
CHRIS SD: So therefore, it cannot be used in single licensing.

00:54:24.340 –> 00:54:25.260
CHRIS SD: You have to own the copyright.

00:54:25.260 –> 00:54:27.260
CHRIS SD: Someone’s got to own the copyright.

00:54:27.260 –> 00:54:29.640
CHRIS SD: So that’s the number one thing.

00:54:30.460 –> 00:54:50.380
CHRIS SD: Then, this very close second is that when it comes down to especially higher end movies and shows that have loyal audiences and things, not just entertainment, but people get into a show and stuff, they don’t want to feel like there’s some computer singing at them.

00:54:50.380 –> 00:54:52.160
CHRIS SD: They want to feel like there’s a person.

00:54:52.800 –> 00:55:05.600
CHRIS SD: It’s like airbrush models on billboards, it’s like, it’s like, wow, it’s supposed to be the epitome of beauty, I guess, and I guess it is, but I just don’t connect with it.

00:55:06.960 –> 00:55:13.760
CHRIS SD: It’s that thing that the audience is very cautious about, and the supervisors are thus the same way.

00:55:13.760 –> 00:55:18.320
CHRIS SD: They never want to be accused of slipping in a fake song, quote unquote.

00:55:19.020 –> 00:55:25.060
CHRIS SD: So there’s a whole culture that’s against AI music in a lot of applications.

00:55:25.060 –> 00:55:32.060
CHRIS SD: So that’s really the two big things that contain the human element, you know?

00:55:32.060 –> 00:55:39.600
CHRIS SD: And so human music is absolutely prioritized, it’s legal, and it’s been going gangbusters.

00:55:39.600 –> 00:55:48.480
CHRIS SD: I mean, we’ve gotten more sync placements in the last couple of months, the beginning of 2026, than in any other similar period since we started Sync Songwriter.

00:55:48.480 –> 00:55:51.740
CHRIS SD: So we’re years into AI already, right?

00:55:51.740 –> 00:56:01.500
CHRIS SD: We’re like three years probably of operational AI that can actually make some semblance of decent sound, and it keeps it increasing, right?

00:56:01.500 –> 00:56:06.500
CHRIS SD: So in terms of human sync placements, so there’s nothing to worry about.

00:56:06.500 –> 00:56:12.200
CHRIS SD: Now, there could be at some point, but, and by the way, you can use AI to assist you.

00:56:12.200 –> 00:56:22.280
CHRIS SD: You can use AI to do demos, you can use AI to, you know, help you out, but you have to have written the melody and you have to have written the lyrics.

00:56:22.280 –> 00:56:30.180
ROBONZO: You sort of reinforced the impression I’ve always had, and that is that creators, some of them anyway, seem more enamored with AI than audiences do.

00:56:30.220 –> 00:56:32.560
CHRIS SD: Yeah, exactly.

00:56:32.560 –> 00:56:34.040
CHRIS SD: Very true.

00:56:34.040 –> 00:56:36.600
ROBONZO: Okay, last question for you, I think.

00:56:36.600 –> 00:56:39.660
ROBONZO: Unless you make me think of another one.

00:56:39.660 –> 00:56:47.300
ROBONZO: If a musician has never pursued sync licensing before, what’s the single first step they should take this week?

00:56:47.300 –> 00:56:48.700
CHRIS SD: Oh, yeah.

00:56:48.700 –> 00:56:49.200
CHRIS SD: Very…

00:56:49.200 –> 00:56:50.360
CHRIS SD: Okay.

00:56:50.360 –> 00:56:54.680
CHRIS SD: I got a bunch of answers, but you qualified that this week.

00:56:54.680 –> 00:56:58.980
CHRIS SD: Well, the very first thing that I would do is…

00:57:00.480 –> 00:57:01.000
CHRIS SD: I’ll make this…

00:57:01.500 –> 00:57:02.880
CHRIS SD: I’ll give you a couple of answers, okay?

00:57:02.880 –> 00:57:08.240
CHRIS SD: Just because I could just say, make sure you got good music and you got the right tracks, and you’re ready to go, right?

00:57:08.240 –> 00:57:11.600
CHRIS SD: So that you’ve got actual product, quote unquote.

00:57:11.720 –> 00:57:19.120
CHRIS SD: But that just literally means something to give to the supervisors, your widgets, which are your tracks and your songs, you know?

00:57:19.120 –> 00:57:26.300
CHRIS SD: So make sure you’ve got your ducks in a row, and you’ve got your music ready to rock, and you’re prepared, and you’ve already reached that stage, right?

00:57:26.300 –> 00:57:30.560
CHRIS SD: You’re not just learning to write music, you’re not learning how to produce, you got things half done.

00:57:30.560 –> 00:57:33.560
CHRIS SD: You don’t want to be starting to get into sync with things half finished.

00:57:33.560 –> 00:57:39.000
CHRIS SD: You want to have finished masters done, because those are the things that actually get into TV and film.

00:57:40.880 –> 00:57:54.120
CHRIS SD: The big answer, though, would be the most proactive one, is you need to figure out, before you start doing other things, how you’re going to connect with the right people in TV and film.

00:57:54.120 –> 00:57:55.680
CHRIS SD: You need a road map.

00:57:55.680 –> 00:57:59.820
CHRIS SD: So you need to figure out, like, how am I actually going to connect with them?

00:57:59.820 –> 00:58:03.060
CHRIS SD: I got my music ready, and I could do all these other things.

00:58:03.060 –> 00:58:06.760
CHRIS SD: I could get into a library, I could get into, try to get a sync agent.

00:58:06.760 –> 00:58:08.700
CHRIS SD: I can try to cold e-mail.

00:58:08.700 –> 00:58:14.720
CHRIS SD: I could send off my music for a fee to who knows who to judge.

00:58:14.720 –> 00:58:17.360
CHRIS SD: Some people are offering briefs that I can pay for.

00:58:17.360 –> 00:58:24.200
CHRIS SD: There’s all these avenues that lead to very, very little in my long experience in this industry.

00:58:24.200 –> 00:58:26.380
CHRIS SD: And what really does work are the relationships.

00:58:26.380 –> 00:58:28.080
CHRIS SD: It’s a relationship business.

00:58:28.080 –> 00:58:33.400
CHRIS SD: You need to figure out, how am I going to get someone who can do something to hear my music?

00:58:33.900 –> 00:58:37.080
CHRIS SD: That’s the biggest nut to crack.

00:58:37.080 –> 00:58:41.420
CHRIS SD: And that should be your main focus and main concern.

00:58:41.420 –> 00:58:43.000
CHRIS SD: So do your research online.

00:58:43.000 –> 00:58:47.780
CHRIS SD: And again, it’s relationships, so you just can’t look it up and all of that and everything.

00:58:47.780 –> 00:58:51.920
CHRIS SD: And I don’t jump on the podcast here to pitch my business.

00:58:51.920 –> 00:58:53.840
CHRIS SD: I come on here to inform and whatever.

00:58:53.840 –> 00:58:59.080
CHRIS SD: But if you do want to work with me, we only open once a year and that’s in every January.

00:58:59.080 –> 00:59:01.700
CHRIS SD: So but at the very least, you can hop on our mailing list.

00:59:01.700 –> 00:59:02.980
CHRIS SD: I put up blogs every week.

00:59:03.560 –> 00:59:08.340
CHRIS SD: And you can learn a ton just like you learned here about how to do it.

00:59:08.340 –> 00:59:12.000
CHRIS SD: And then if you want to work with me later, I’ll talk to you next January.

00:59:12.000 –> 00:59:15.640
ROBONZO: Where do they find you for all that good stuff?

00:59:15.640 –> 00:59:18.500
CHRIS SD: Well, the best thing to do would simply be just go to the website.

00:59:18.500 –> 00:59:20.020
CHRIS SD: You can jump on the mailing list there.

00:59:20.020 –> 00:59:21.720
CHRIS SD: You can reach out and send me a note.

00:59:21.720 –> 00:59:23.960
CHRIS SD: You know, I read every single one that comes through.

00:59:24.640 –> 00:59:27.400
CHRIS SD: If it’s relevant to me, the team will send it to me.

00:59:27.400 –> 00:59:29.660
CHRIS SD: And that would be syncsongwriter.com.

00:59:31.960 –> 00:59:34.840
CHRIS SD: And yeah, we’ll see you there.

00:59:34.840 –> 00:59:36.820
ROBONZO: Thank you for spending time with me today.

00:59:36.820 –> 00:59:38.400
ROBONZO: It’s great talking with you.

00:59:38.400 –> 00:59:40.980
CHRIS SD: It was really a pleasure talking to you too.

00:59:40.980 –> 00:59:44.080
CHRIS SD: And I gotta say, I’ve done a bunch of podcasts.

00:59:44.080 –> 00:59:45.740
CHRIS SD: And this is certainly top tier.

00:59:45.740 –> 00:59:49.220
CHRIS SD: Like you have really smart questions.

00:59:49.220 –> 00:59:51.520
CHRIS SD: It sounds like you’re coming up with them on the fly.

00:59:51.520 –> 00:59:54.680
CHRIS SD: And they’re really relevant and very smart.

00:59:54.680 –> 00:59:57.600
CHRIS SD: And so I really appreciated you as an interviewer.

00:59:57.600 –> 00:59:58.360
ROBONZO: That’s a relief, man.

00:59:58.440 –> 01:00:06.480
ROBONZO: I feel stiff a lot when I listen to the recordings over and all these after doing, I’ve almost done 350 episodes just for this podcast.

01:00:06.500 –> 01:00:13.040
ROBONZO: And I’m like, I’m like, God damn, when am I gonna, you know, remember to stay a certain distance from the microphone?

01:00:16.020 –> 01:00:17.380
CHRIS SD: Hey, we’re all learning, man.

01:00:17.380 –> 01:00:18.700
CHRIS SD: We’re all learning.

01:00:19.840 –> 01:00:22.720
ROBONZO: As an independent podcaster, your support means the world to me.

01:00:22.720 –> 01:00:24.780
ROBONZO: You could even say I depend on it.

01:00:24.780 –> 01:00:27.240
ROBONZO: With that in mind, here are some things you can do to help support us.

01:00:27.640 –> 01:00:30.320
ROBONZO: Follow us on your favorite podcast app.

01:00:30.320 –> 01:00:32.700
ROBONZO: Leave us a review on your favorite podcast app.

01:00:32.700 –> 01:00:39.280
ROBONZO: Or shoot me a review by email, robanzo at unstarvingmusician.com, that I can use on the website.

01:00:39.280 –> 01:00:41.600
ROBONZO: Or just share this episode with a friend.

01:00:41.600 –> 01:00:44.860
ROBONZO: This makes a huge impact on our audience growth.

01:00:44.860 –> 01:00:56.580
ROBONZO: You could also visit our crowd sponsor page at unstarvingmusician.com/crowdsponsor to learn of the many other ways of supporting the podcast, including a quick and easy online tip jar.

01:00:56.660 –> 01:01:01.040
ROBONZO: It’s like click, tip, done, easy and super appreciated.

01:01:01.040 –> 01:01:05.340
ROBONZO: The music you’re hearing is New God’s Part 2, The Instrumental Mix by yours truly.

01:01:05.340 –> 01:01:10.080
ROBONZO: You can hear the full version downloaded or buy it at robonzo.com.

01:01:10.080 –> 01:01:20.860
ROBONZO: And if all this was too much to remember or process, just go to the show notes for this episode at unstarvingmusician.com to find links to all the stuff talked about in this episode.

01:01:20.860 –> 01:01:25.000
ROBONZO: You can leave us feedback, questions, comments, complaints at unstarvingmusician.com/feedback.

01:01:27.480 –> 01:01:28.860
ROBONZO: Thanks for listening.

01:01:28.860 –> 01:01:31.040
ROBONZO: Peace, gratitude, and a whole lot of love.