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Even More Inconvenient Truths About Production Music | 52 Cues Podcast, 2025 Week 18
In this week’s episode of the 52 Cues Podcast, Dave returns with five more inconvenient truths about working in the production music industry—lessons that go beyond DAWs, deadlines, and demos. From the reality that talent alone won’t guarantee success, to the importance of genuine relationships, to the sting (and inevitability) of rejection, Dave offers candid, heartfelt insight that resonates with composers at every stage.
How to Handle Discouragement
Whether getting rejected by a client, ghosted by a publisher, getting placements that pay pennies to the dollar, or never getting placements at all, this gig can be pretty brutal at times. So how do we deal with that? This week, I thought it would be an excellent idea to have another 52 Cue Family roundtable to discuss handling discouragement.
A huge thanks to Jesse Carrigan, Rolf Schild, Mark Justin, Michael Sinay, Kristopher Smith, Cory Lavine, and Ralph Martin for joining me on this episode!
Q&A LIVE
Join me for a special Q&A episode recorded live! I answer your questions about streaming royalties, loudness and mastering practices, sound design, referencing in Ozone, the artisan approach, ride cymbal programming, overcoming fear of submitting to libraries, and many more!
Mindfulness and Well-Being?
Add to that the fact that we work in a tough industry, and now we're talking about some serious mind games! Let's face it: all of us music folk thrive on praise and approval of our work. It's part of the "psychology of play" that makes us sit for hours in front of a computer screen making music that we hope might get picked up and heard.