The Cliche Is the Job: Derek Jones of Megatrax on How Production Music Libraries Work (Episode 47)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

That music under the dialogue in your favorite TV show? The track playing when the characters walk into a nightclub? A lot of it comes from a production music library. In Episode 47 of The Career Musician, Nomad sits down with Derek Jones of Megatrax, the LA production music library where Derek is director of creative services and production, chief engineer and producer.

If you have ever wondered how production music libraries work, how to write for TV and film licensing, or how to get your cues into a catalog, this is the episode. Derek has been there almost 19 years and gave away the playbook.

Be the person who creates the work

Derek is a drummer. He came up recording his own drums in his high school band room in Massachusetts on a cassette four-track, because somebody had to. Every time he handed someone a tape, the answer was the same: the drummer's good, but who recorded this? He learned early that acoustics trump everything. If it is bad going into the mic, you are just polishing it.

At Berklee, he built his own major so he could take production, engineering, business, arranging and orchestration classes. His reason is the best career advice in the episode.

"You're always kind of going around trying to find somebody that needs work... I always wanted to be the guy that created the work, and they could hire other people to do it."

Derek Jones, 13:01

Nomad stopped the interview right there to point it out. You can wait for a gig, or you can be in a position to generate the work. That is Make Music Your Business.

The interview is the audition

Derek moved to LA in December 2000 trying to be a touring drummer. He taught drum set at a youth center in South Central LA, then heard about a drummer who landed a band gig because he was the assistant engineer at the studio where they were recording. So he started applying at studios, and through the Berklee alumni network he found a posting at Megatrax in 2001.

Getting hired was not a handshake. They sat him at an editing system and a recording setup and made him prove it. Years later the chief engineer told him two little things helped him beat out everyone else. The studio used a thumb trackball, and every other applicant fumbled with it, while Derek had one at home. And he was the only person who showed up to the first interview in a suit. Not because the industry is formal, but out of respect.

Everything you do is an audition. The trackball and the suit counted.

In library music, the cliche is the job

Here is how a library works, in Derek's words. They don't score films. They record music ahead of time in the hope that someone will need it later. John Williams scores the movie, but when the actors walk into a nightclub, nobody is asking John Williams for the club track. Megatrax makes targeted albums the way a record label would, but on a different scale: Derek counted over 700 albums in his time there, and 176 he was directly responsible for last year alone.

The biggest mistake composers and players make? Trying to be original.

"The cliche is very important for what we do. We're not trying to break new ground. We're not trying to be the innovator."

Derek Jones, 37:08

He once asked for happy acoustic ukulele, the kind you hear in a hundred commercials with hand claps and tambourine. What came back was virtuoso new age ukulele drenched in reverb and delay, soloing over lush pads. The composer got mad when Derek couldn't use it. But a library cue is one element in somebody else's final product, like a sound in your virtual instrument. If it distracts from the dialogue, it is useless to them.

So stay inside the style. If the brief says Chicago blues for a roadhouse bar scene, don't fuse it with hip-hop drums. If it is 80s rock, make it as 80s as you can. Nomad shared his own example: Derek commissioned a hybrid flamenco project from him, sent reference tracks, then specific notes on the drafts. Nomad made the changes instead of getting offended, and the project got done. Be pliable, take direction, follow instructions. That is Low maintenance / no drama, and it is how you get the next call.

Diversify, and move sideways

When Nomad asked for words of wisdom, Derek had already given them.

"In the music industry you end up having five to ten different careers to make one career. You have to be able to do everything... You should diversify. It's like an investment portfolio."

Derek Jones, 43:50

He has gotten a lot of gigs by moving sideways. You play guitar on a session, the bass player finds out you arrange, and now you have an arranging gig. On top of Megatrax, Derek has worked as a dialogue editor and recording mixer and now mixes scores for several Netflix shows with composers. Work begets work, and it doesn't only come from straight up the ladder. It is Diversify or Die, from a guy who lives it.

The same goes for your catalog. Don't send everything to one or two libraries. Each one has different strengths and different client relationships. He has seen two composers write sports rock albums for the same competitor, and one made a lot of money while the other made almost nothing. His advice: put around 30 tracks in each of several catalogs, mix your styles, ten jazz, ten rock, ten orchestral, and see which ones start earning. Then feed the ones that work.

It is a long game, and a volume game

Derek was straight about the numbers. Don't come to him with ten cues and ask why you haven't seen money. He tells people you start seeing real money somewhere around 250 to 300 cues in circulation, and it usually takes two or three years of really pursuing it. Deals vary: some libraries pay upfront, some split revenue, but you usually keep your writer's royalties. If you can only write ten songs and you can't let go of them, this isn't your industry. If you can write ten every week or two, it might be.

Know your forte, too. Don't walk up and say you do everything. "Latin music" means cumbia, norteño, mariachi, salsa, flamenco and more, and each takes a lifetime. Lead with what you actually excel at.

How to actually get in the door

When Megatrax opened up submissions, they got 100 to 150 a day, with a production team of a handful of people. Derek gets 100 to 200 work emails a day. So face to face is best, and when you do email, follow up. If you don't hear back, it is not personal. Send a friendly nudge, send new tracks, find reasons to stay in touch without being obnoxious about it.

His favorite tip is the Production Music Conference, held once a year by the Production Music Association. He told a story about a punk rock guitarist friend who sat down at the cocktail hour, struck up a two or three hour conversation about punk with an older guy from the UK, and found out afterward he was talking to the head of a major library. Within months he was writing for them too. Luck = preparation + opportunity. He already had the catalog to back up the conversation.

The takeaway

Production music is a real career lane, but it rewards craft, volume, patience and the ability to take notes. Write to the brief, lean into the cliche, diversify across catalogs, follow up without taking it personally, and give it two or three years. Derek ended up doing exactly what he got his degree in, in a studio he calls his dream job. If you are building more ways to get hired, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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