Music for podcasts

What you get

Most series need an intro and outro theme: the signature that opens and closes every episode. On top of that I often write musical framing, such as short transitions between chapters and underscore for the moments where the tension needs to carry.

Everything is written for your series. You receive the stems separately, so your editor can adjust lengths without the music cutting off unnaturally.

How I work

I start from the tone of the story, not from a genre. For a true crime series about a con man I kept the score tight and dark: analogue synths, few notes, plenty of space. The tension lives mostly in what you do not hear. An interview podcast works the other way around. There the theme can be warm and inviting.

My background is drumming, and you can hear it. Rhythm and texture come first, melody serves them. My work grows out of that combination: the physicality of percussion and the cinematic quality of analogue synthesizers.

Why original rather than stock

Stock music is cheap and sounds like it. You also get no exclusivity. A theme of your own belongs to you, fits your edit to the second and grows with the series when it gets a second season.

The podcast De Ware Jacob, for which I wrote the themes and musical framing, won the international INMA Award for Best Use of Audio and passed two million downloads.

Process and timeline

You send me a short description of the series, a sample episode or rough cut, and references of things you like. I come back with one or two directions. Once you pick one, I develop it into the final themes.

For an intro and outro theme, allow one to two weeks. A continuous score for a whole series takes longer and moves with your editing schedule.