Syncly Music – Creating and Licensing Music Made Easy

News

by Jeff LochJune 10^th, 2019

Syncly Music is not just another stock music library or music licensing platform. Of course, they have some cool songs for your next project, but this platform aimed at filmmakers is bringing something new with a robust integration directly into Premiere Pro. Also, you can customize the tracks by removing instruments or increasing the tempo. Let’s take a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_WemjA19t0

What Is Syncly Music

Syncly Music is a new platform designed from the ground up with filmmakers in mind. They know that budgets are often really tights for independent content creators. Most of the time, you only have the budget to buy a pre-existing soundtrack, and you try to make it fit your film as best as you can.

Do you remember the countless hours looking for the perfect track for your film? How many times did you hear an awesome song and all of a sudden, an instrument kicks in and ruins what you had in mind? What if you could mute that instrument? This is the idea behind Syncly Music; create something else. A platform where you could pick a song, and adjust it to your likings, with one goal: make it sound unique.

Syncly Music soundtracks are not “baked-in”; they are based on stems. If you are not familiar with what a stem is, it is a discrete or grouped collection of audio sources mixed all together. For example, the “acoustic guitar” stem in one song can be all the guitar tracks of a particular guitar. Same goes for every other instrument. This stem technology behind Syncly Music is what allows you to reduce the volume of an instrument in a track, or mute it entirely.

Syncly Music For Filmmakers

There are two ways to use Syncly Music: directly on their website, or via an extension inside of Adobe Premiere Pro. As a filmmaker, option two makes more sense to me. All you have to do is install the extension, open it in Premiere Pro – a small window pops up – you sign-in to your account, and you immediately have access to all the music libraries.

You can search for songs by type, mood, instrument, or browse the various existing libraries. Each library contains six tracks.

Once you select a track, it plays automatically. On the right, next to the song, you have three choices: you can download it as it is, share it with someone else via email, or customize it. This customize button is the real deal here. By clicking it, a menu opens with every stems from the track you selected. That way, you can “create” your version by lowering the volume of each instrument or muting some tracks. Don’t like vocals? Mute it.

Syncly Music has told me that a VST version is coming in the next few months. You will have the ability to keyframe instruments directly inside of Premiere Pro. I’m curious to see how it will work.

Indeed, if you are in a hurry and want a quick preview of some versions of the song, there are 3 “pre-built” versions of each song. These are located at the bottom of the interface under the “customize” button. You have the choice between full, underscore, and sparse version of the song.

Finally, next to this customize button is a slider for adjusting the tempo by plus or minus 15%. It allows you to speed up or slow down a song quickly.

Once you are done, all you have to do is click the download button, and your track is ready. The beautiful thing is it imports directly inside of Adobe Premiere Pro (and asks you where you want to save the file on your computer). Also, when you download a track, they automatically send you an email with a license for the record you just downloaded. So, you can use it professionally in any project you like.

Room for Improvements

Is Syncly Music perfect? Of course, it’s not.

During my trial, I wished that for preview purposes, the Syncly Music extension could synchronize with my video/playhead in the timeline without the need to do it manually. When I wanted to see if a track fitted my video, I needed to go to the beginning of my timeline, hit Play for my video in Premiere, and quickly hit Play in the Syncly extension. That’s annoying.

Also, I’d like to see the initial BPM next to each track, even if there is a waveform in the extension. It will make my life more comfortable if I’m searching for something slow, for example.

Pricing and Availability

Like most music providers these days, Syncly Music is based on a subscription plan. If you have limited music needs or want to try it out, the Basic Plan is free and allows you to download one track every month. You can use the soundtracks for personal projects and can’t use them for commercial/paid projects.

The Premium Plan is $25 per month or $240 per year. It allows you to download as much content as you need, and use the songs in any project you want.

Syncly Music is available right now on their website.

What do you think of this new approach at soundtracks licensing for filmmakers? Do you already have a licensing plan anywhere else? Did you try it out? Let us know in the comments below!