Active production music “Changing production music for the better”

Active Production Music, formed in January 2005, is the UK’s largest non-MCPS production music library.

With over 55,000 pieces of music, including an award-winning classical and opera section, Active offers a wealth of music that covers virtually all audiovisual requirements.

Why is it not MCPS? Marie Penlington, Founder of Active, explains … “For some time now, the UK music production industry has been dominated by two huge catalogs. Although there are over 150 libraries in the UK, the top two companies they are in a position to win the favor of customers. Therefore, the remaining libraries are dividing a much smaller pie. “

She continues … “We made the decision to compete for market share on price and the only way to do that was to become a non-MCPS library. This, in effect, means that we can create our own prices while all the other libraries operate on a fixed rate card produced by MCPS. Our way of working is similar to how production music is sold in the United States. “

Active’s basic pricing structure provides at least 50% savings over what you would expect to pay when using MCPS controlled music. Marie is quick to point out that reducing the price does not mean reducing the quality “Our music may be cheaper, but it is by no means inferior. We have music used in shows like Desperate Housewives, Lost, Punk’d, Pimp My Ride, Megastructures, West Wing, The Simpsons, American Idol, Hollyoaks and movies like Mr & Mrs Smith, Kill Bill vol 2, Bad Boys 2. We have also provided advertising and corporate music for Vodafone, Wendys, Specsavers, Jeep, to name just a few. “

Active’s catalog is available online or via hard drives distributed solely by the company.
Marie says: “In the beginning the decision was made not to distribute our music on CD, as, not only is it a dying method of music distribution, we did not want to see our products for sale on Ebay!” (If you search eBay at any time, you will find endless CDs of production music for sale for a pound.)

“By making music available online, we can deliver it to clients almost the same day it leaves the studio, whereas if we were to distribute it on CD, we couldn’t deliver it to clients until the music on a full CD was released. Recorded. “

Diversifying Active’s catalog is an integral part of the company’s growth plan. “There are countless music CDs available for AV customers containing the latest in Hip Hop or Dance Music. There is a very stereotypical outlet from most of the libraries that produce what they assume everyone wants Because the nature of the content of television broadcasts has been geared towards young people, there seems to be an obvious demand for youth music. However, even though we have high quality dance music We believe that a successful library must have a diverse palette of musical styles in order to accommodate the entire audiovisual industry. “

Active sites recent licensing deals with companies like Wild Goose Productions, which is a label specializing in folk music. “Our deal with Wild Goose means that we can deliver authentic period music in English, perfect for stage productions. This may not appeal to most show creators, but it embodies our ethic, which is to offer a selection of music that is just right. as diverse as possible and meeting everyone’s needs. “

In addition to this, Active has a talented group of UK writer producers who can compose music especially for clients who want a bespoke creation. Names to look out for are Vernon Woodward, Cypher, The Futz Butler, Sion Littledyke, Ballistix Twins, Spectral, Stuart Churchill, and Christopher John.

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