Once you have recorded a large amount of raw material and then edited this material into a batch of finished sound effects it is time to associate data with these products so that you can submit your library to distributors. This data is generally called metadata and gives potential licensees information on pertinent characteristics of each sound in your library. Main categories of data that have proven to be useful in my own catalog are discussed below.
Initially you want to pick the right format for listing your metadata. I have found that .xls projects and the most requested format for metadata which assign each sound a row and each category a column. This type of document, as opposed to a text file, will let you search your sounds easily in the future according to each characteristic.
1. The first column should be title Main Category and should broadly include categories such as Amusement and Games, Home and Office, and Web Buttons. Minimalism in choosing main categories is the best means of having a tightly organized library right off the bat.
2. The next column, Sub-Category, should divide each main category into more specific types such as Vehicles:Cars, Vehicles:Trucks, Vehicles:Watercraft.
3. If you associate a SKU number of three letters unique to you, such as your initials, and five digits such as SFX00001_DogBark with each sound effect upon their creation your sounds will be perfectly organized. The sound to follow the above example would begin with SFX00002 and so on which assigns a totally unique identity to each sound. This numbering system alleviates confusion in the future should you have multiple Dog Barks and only organize them alphabetically.
4. Simply friendly titles such as Car Honk 1 are best for the Title category because they will be displayed for interested customers.
5. The Time Length is a valuable piece of information to include in your meta-data because longer sound effects and generally more valuable than shorter ones and the licensee should be able to tell right off the bat how much sound they are licensing.
6. Track info stipulates whether the sample is stereo or mono as well as the sample rate, bit rate , and file type such as Stereo 48k 24bit .wav which informs the licensee about the quality of the sample.
7. Keywords are very important in letting potentials buyers find your sounds and should not be ignored. They should contain the plurals of the sound, associated sounds, phrases, and even misspellings such as dog, dogs, dog bark, dog barks, bark, barks, dog pack, pack, wolf, canine, wolves, canines, barck, barcks.
The next step after cataloging your sounds according to the above seven steps is submission to online distributors for sale of licensing rights.
Initially you want to pick the right format for listing your metadata. I have found that .xls projects and the most requested format for metadata which assign each sound a row and each category a column. This type of document, as opposed to a text file, will let you search your sounds easily in the future according to each characteristic.
1. The first column should be title Main Category and should broadly include categories such as Amusement and Games, Home and Office, and Web Buttons. Minimalism in choosing main categories is the best means of having a tightly organized library right off the bat.
2. The next column, Sub-Category, should divide each main category into more specific types such as Vehicles:Cars, Vehicles:Trucks, Vehicles:Watercraft.
3. If you associate a SKU number of three letters unique to you, such as your initials, and five digits such as SFX00001_DogBark with each sound effect upon their creation your sounds will be perfectly organized. The sound to follow the above example would begin with SFX00002 and so on which assigns a totally unique identity to each sound. This numbering system alleviates confusion in the future should you have multiple Dog Barks and only organize them alphabetically.
4. Simply friendly titles such as Car Honk 1 are best for the Title category because they will be displayed for interested customers.
5. The Time Length is a valuable piece of information to include in your meta-data because longer sound effects and generally more valuable than shorter ones and the licensee should be able to tell right off the bat how much sound they are licensing.
6. Track info stipulates whether the sample is stereo or mono as well as the sample rate, bit rate , and file type such as Stereo 48k 24bit .wav which informs the licensee about the quality of the sample.
7. Keywords are very important in letting potentials buyers find your sounds and should not be ignored. They should contain the plurals of the sound, associated sounds, phrases, and even misspellings such as dog, dogs, dog bark, dog barks, bark, barks, dog pack, pack, wolf, canine, wolves, canines, barck, barcks.
The next step after cataloging your sounds according to the above seven steps is submission to online distributors for sale of licensing rights.
About the Author:
SFXsource contributes written text, has a Door sounds fx library, and maintains a Sound Effects Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment