Howdy all....

I'm pondering making a music video of my current showcase song (Adrenaline) and a few other BIAB originals.
I gladly thank our BIAB program which is what I needed to finish them up or they would still be sitting in an "incomplete" folder.

I've never done any YT videos of my efforts.
It feels kind of scary putting one's songs on YT for the world to view.
Any tips from anyone....what to be aware of...that sort of thing would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any G2 on the process.

I think copyrighting your song would be a good idea. I'm not sure how you go about it, but I'm sure that others on the forum can advise.

This has been discussed many times here at least in reference to copyrights. The general consensus is that once you document your song's © date via uploading it to SC, YT, etc., you are good w/o going to the trouble of actually copyrighting it formally. The upload date stamps it for time immemorial.

We have 22 songs licensed via Songtradr to a very large worldwide company and we've never copyrighted a one. We also have many songs on Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, etc., that have been "formally" copyrighted.

And, honestly, unless you have a huge hit what are you gonna do if somebody steals it? Take some of the few cents it earns streaming, etc., and sue? FWIW I'd throw it up there and not worry.

Bud

Keith....G'day mate....
I haven't done any formal copyrighting of my material but that is something I should keep in mind.

Janice & Bud....
I totally agree.
I've never concerned myself with the formal copyright process because my ego is not that big.
I'm just a song writing bottom feeder and have no fantasies/illusions that someone would actually steal any of my material thinking it's a masterpiece to re-create and generate monies.
Your 'time stamp' comment is how I've always perceived it.
Putting one's songs on a YT channel seems to be the next level up in the exposure arena.
The thought is a bit terrifying to ponder....you know....the anticipation of receiving hundreds of "Dislikes".

Thank you both for providing your thoughts....I'm still measuring my courage to do it.

I wouldn’t worry about getting hundreds of dislikes or negative comments.

The fact is YouTube is a big place, and the chance of someone just randomly finding your video is slim. We have done a few videos over the last few years, and I’m sure that most of, if not all, the views we get are from my partner or myself plugging the video over on Facebook and other social media sites.

Howdy Blue....

I agree with that logic and likely just over thinking it.
But....doing a YT video of one's song vs just uploading a song on a music hosting site does seem to put one in a more critically vulnerable public position.:)
One has to be quite comfortable with what they are presenting.
So....I'm working on that.

Thanks for commenting....

We've been posting vids to youtube for six years but have never promoted them other than liniking to them on the user showcase when we post a song and occasionally on our fb page. Around a thousand views is the most we ever received (on a song that's not even in our featured playlist) and really low numbers are common for our vids that have been up a couple of years. I'm really lazy about adding descriptive tags, etc., that could increase views. We just sorta finish them, post them and forget about them. Same for Soundcloud where they range from a few hundred listens per song to a max of around 1500 over the years. Again no promotion but the PG Music user showcase forum and getting on PG Music featured SC radio will drive the numbers up.

We save what little promotion we do for Songtradr

And if you feel really uncomfortable you can also set the permissions to preclude comments, etc.

FWIW, old phart ramblings, etc.

Bud

Howdy Bud....

1) That's all I would do to.
2) Same here
3) "Showcase" views is all I rely on too.

Ha..."old phart ramblings" have hidden wisdom only "old pharts" can grasp.

Thanks amigo for chiming in on my mundane post.

We have around 350 videos running on our teaching channel with over 1000 subscribers and there's
only one piece of advice I can offer, but I think it's very important -

Make sure in your YouTube channel prefs that you have opted for all comments to be held for review
before being published. You can then delete the spam and trolls which you're almost certain to get,
before anyone sees them.

Hope this helps.

ROG.

Howdy ROG....

That is a very good tip.
I'm sure I'd get my share of "trolls" too.

Wowsers....350 videos....that's a lot to manage and follow up with/on.
Yes...very helpful and glad you thought to mention it.

Thanks again....

That would be awesome ! yes make some videos for your songs.
If you only have one camera just video the whole song from one angle then do another take from another angle, all you need to do is play the song from CD while videoing then mix the video tracks with the original audio you have up there now. Have the CD playing loud enough for the camera to pick up so to give a sync reference to align with the original audio.
You can make it with Reaper or there are plenty of other free video creating software.

This one was just all style tracks and got on CMT, there's another one somewhere there too.
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=317099

Mornin' Pipeline....

Quick qualification....my videos wouldn't be me playing live or with a band.
For example, it would be the song with images/pics relating to the song subject and/or an image with scrolling lyrics.
Not sure how I will approach it yet.
Still building up some courage on this front.

Thanks for contributing and the link to check out.

Have a great day everyone.....

Yep you can have a lot of fun making and putting a video on Youtube, I have used a few programs probably one of the easiest to use is Muvee auto producer, you just load the pictures and your audio and pick a theme and and it auto produces the video with transitions and panning zooming etc.

Just went to their site and it seems they are running a sale now $15 or so according to the popup. I think this is very reasonable. I have found it so easy to use.

https://www.muvee.com/products/muvee-reveal-encore-automatic-video-editor

As this does seem an old sale price I would make sure through live chat on there or email that the offer is still on before you part with any money.

I did this song with it, can be a little tricky at times if you want a particular picture at a particular place in the song, so it took me a little time to get things reasonably right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvFJ4mYTocA

If you want more control over your video and have the time to spare to make it, in the past I have messed around with Cyberlink power director (an old verison)

Dont worry too much about people leaving comments on youtube, the BIG problem is,to get them to your youtube page (I have found) in the first place, you could end up with a small number of views, of if the song is fairly topical and has a few keywords in the Youtube heading a lot more.

Looking forward to seeing your song there.

Looks like you are doing a good job at getting people to watch your video, over 4000 views on that video you posted, pretty good IMHO!

The most views we have ever got is 1500, but mostly we see between 100 to 200. How are you getting people over to your page?

One suggestion: get Pat Marr's opinion. Maybe PM him to look at this thread.

Pat is remarkably good with video. He did some documentary work on my band a few years ago. He has some very interesting work on YouTube.

Howdy....

musiclover....
Great comments.
I should have noted I do have the movie software...Sony Platinum 9.0.
It's old but serves my needs well enough and I've made a couple of vids already.
IE: My personal Vietnam documentary and another of my Music Anthology.
Ha... I "look forward to" mustering up the courage to do just that.
I just checked out your video....great job and the format/content would be the same for me.

Matt....thanks for that tip about PM'ing Pat.
Hope you're doing well with your music.

Thanks again to all for chiming in....

Don't forget the audio portion of your video. YouTube currently specifies a loudness normalization level of -14 LUFS. Anything hotter than that will get YT brute force normalizing, and your audio quality will suffer.

TBProAudio have several useful tools for this.

dpMeter 4 is a free meter that includes LUFS measurements.
https://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/dpmeter4.html

FinalLoud2 (29 €) is a True Peak limiter that will automatically match the master buss level to a target level.
https://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/finalloud2.html

dpMeterXT2 (79 €) is a very fancy version of the freebie.
https://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/dpmeterxt2.html

There are similar products from other companies.

Howdy Maartien....

Another great tip that I'll be aware of.

Thank you very much for taking the time to comment and the links.

Have a good one...

Very good topic. There was a good conversation on this last fall right here:

Your Loudness Penalty

You Tube licensing, (Through Harry Fox Agency, HFA,) has come a long way over the years. The downside on that is, so has Big Tech's creative capacity for evil. Still, the old adage holds, "It is cheaper for "them" to simply buy the song than to risk expensive legal consequences. This speaks to the idea of stealing being over rated. Also, Big Media works with themes, marketing themes, tried, tested, and committed to. Big Music is big business, with contracted production workers, writers, and distribution outlets. The business model is very conservative, the rules are strict, and the people are tight. It is not all that hard to get a job in that industry.