Veteran music producer/composer Rich Meitin has launched Worldbeat Music and Sound. The New York-headquartered company will allow American agencies to tap into international composers via the Internet. Prior to launching Worldbeat, Meitin was co-founder of the now defunct bicoastal music shop Ripchord Music & Sound Design.
Since Ripchord’s closing a year and a half ago, Meitin has been pondering what the music industry needs and putting elements in place for his now newly launched venture. "I imagined myself once again as a music director at an agency, rustling through company reels and seeing that many of the reels sounded interchangeable and thought this creates a significant opportunity to be different and unexpected," said Meitin.
Meitin was a music producer for four years at Lintas, New York (now Ammirati Puris Lintas), before opening Ripchord with partner Jimmy Ryan in ’92. During Ripchord’s six years, Meitin and Ryan created music and sound design for such clients as Chevrolet, Diet Coke, Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, Mennen and IBM.
Throughout his music career Meitin has always maintained that focusing on music conception rather than only composition was crucial in finding the best talent for a particular job. Now Meitin has taken that theory a step further by tapping into the international music scene with the help of the Internet. "The Internet has matured to the point where you can get video and music back and forth very quickly and very cheaply, and for me that was a clue for tying into composers from all over the world," said Meitin.
Finding the right kind of technology that was affordable and available for Meitin’s launch was no easy task. He spent nearly a year testing out different audio/visual compression schemes to find the one that could transmit film over the Internet with no degeneration in the accuracy of the film, but that could also offer perfect CD quality sound on the audio side. In addition, Meitin wrote a simple handbook that helps both agencies and composers understand how to use the technology, while Worldbeat will facilitate the transmission of film and music across borders.
"All finals can be tweaked, overdubbed and mixed in New York, where we will have complete control over split music tracks and MIDI files, just as with a domestic project," said Meitin.
Over the years Meitin has formed many lasting relationships with overseas composers and music producers, giving him the contacts he needed for the project. To put the Worldbeat reel together, Meitin did a worldwide talent search, including the U.S., and created a compilation composer reel showcasing different genres of music and sound design, including hard rock, opera and tribal beats.
Meitin said he is currently in possession of 30 reels, including those of French composer Kevin David, South African composer Rene Veldesman, and composer Rafael May from Australia. Meitin plans to negotiate exclusive U.S. representation for some of the composers. "The point is to put the right person on the job," asserted Meitin. "We’re going to try and step away from the typical Anglo-American advertising execution that’s on every project. It’s not just about having authentic, ethnic music; it’s about putting a twist on all kinds of music," said Meitin.
Meitin hopes to eventually create a large cultural exchange of music with Worldbeat at its center. He is also interested in putting music to foreign spots, but will focus on American agencies for now. At press time, Meitin was in the process of looking for a sales rep.
