Where indie music meets mainstream media

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The company has launched a new Web-based tool, called the MyPump Soundtrack service, to meet the musical needs of rookie Internet video makers and help them stay on the right side of copyright law. After creating a login profile and linking his or her video file to the MyPump software, the video maker can synchronize the video with music from the Pump Audio catalog.

A client searching for the perfect background tune, for example, can run the video against a backdrop music from any of several different genres (rock, pop, drama, electronic, world, classical, blues, hip-hop and others) or subgenres (alternative rock, roots rock, hard rock, metal). The music also can be searched according to the mood it conveys (up/positive; aggressive/edgy; down/dark/melancholic; laid back/groovy; quirky/wacky/silly, among others) or it's tempo. When the perfect piece is found, it can be edited into the video file.

After clicking "sync and submit" the video creator pays for the music--which, because it is being used in a noncommercial, amateur video, costs about 99 cents a song--and receives the completed, musically enhanced video file. The company hopes to eventually strike alliances with video sites that would allow Pump Audio to integrate its MyPump program into partner site Web pages.

The main criterion for songs accepted into the PumpBox is decent sound quality. It takes neither a flat belly nor bulky biceps to get discovered.

Ellis thinks that as video-related sites look for ways to make money, video commercials using Pump Audio-type material in their soundtracks will become more widespread. And as search engines present more local advertising, they will help drive the market for relatively cheap, easy-access music.

Another promising market: TV networks that have started producing content exclusively for the Web. Pump Audio recently got the contract for all the background tracks in the CBS broadband channel Innertube series "Greek to Chic" and "BBQ Bill." One half-hour episode can contain up to 50 pieces of music, some shorter than a second.

Today Pump Audio has 18 employees companywide, with staff in New York, Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam. All except one of these employees are longtime musicians who bring a perspective to the business that is important to the way the company treats its contributors, Ellis said. "It is fair, which is unheard of in the business of music. It is a contract with an artist that I would have agreed to sign."

Every dollar is split 50-50 between Pump Audio and the musician, in a nonexclusive agreement that allows artists to keep copyright and publishing rights to their music. "They are free to pursue all the other opportunities they may have. We don't try to own and control them. If we make money off their music, they make money. If we don't, they lose nothing."

How much the creator earns depends on how the song is used. Global commercial use costs more than noncommercial or local use. A tune used in a major TV commercial can haul in tens of thousands of dollars, while two seconds in the background of a TV show might yield something like $10.

Nobby over Jimi
The music doesn't need to be a hit to work in a specific context, Ellis said. The main criterion for songs accepted into the PumpBox is decent sound quality. It takes neither a flat belly nor bulky biceps to get discovered.

"The beauty of our market production is that nobody cares how young or how beautiful you are. What they care about is that the piece of music works for the moment they try to synchronize it with," he said.

Ellis loves telling the story of how Nobby Reed, a blues guitarist from Georgia, beat both Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and the Commodores' "Brick House" to the contract for a Crest toothpaste commercial. "The concept was older people at a party, a woman walks in and three gentlemen go, 'Look at that beauty,' and 'Do you think they're real?' And they are talking about her teeth." All three songs were indeed amusing in the context of the ad, Ellis said, but the Hendrix and Commodores songs, famous as they are, tended to overwhelm the ad's message. So the ad producers picked a tune by Nobby Reed.

Although there are happy stories to be told, Ellis says that most Pump Audio artists don't get rich. One woman got her song into a Kodak commercial and managed to make a down payment on her house, but there are no promises of fame, glory or glamour.

"We have been through the process of not making any money and being promised a lot of stuff," Ellis said of the working musician's plight. "We like the idea of actually creating revenue for our artists, not the promise of fame and riches. They tend not to materialize, those promises."

Yesterday's news from CNET Today

Pathetic "journalists"

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Free Music Downloads

Gotta a look ta this resource on music downloads.. pretty comprehensive.. http://www.freemusicdownloads.be/result.php?Keywords=Free+Music+Downloads

[bhushan bhaagii]

Did Steve Ellis Save His Marriage

Pump Audio has succeeded, brilliantly. But did Steve Ellis succeeded in saving his marriage?

[alek_nedic]

Pump Audio has succeeded

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