Just a quick audiojungle author survey.

Up until June this year, I’d been working as a full-time freelance graphic designer for many years, but recently decided to give it a shot and follow my true passion, music – selling my music across the internet (via AJ and a few others).

Seems to be working out well so far as I’m able to sustain a living from it, but I’m still apprehensive to use this term ‘pro’, as I feel I’m definitely still learning and it always conjures up images in my mind of dudes hanging out in big, luxurious recording studios playing with kit that costs more than a house!

I am not a full-time composer yet, but I have been free-lancing for 5 years… I have written cues for TV shows, commercials, audio post, etc. AJ is a great avenue to stay “in practice” between jobs and learn more about recording, composition, and mixing.

I am a full-time musician though, and divide my time between lessons, gigs, and a part-time Church music director job. Around here we call it “the hustle”... Always busy, and happy to be playing music!

Great responses so far. In terms of categorizing what a professional composer/producer would be I think anybody who is able to make a full time living recording and producing music would be considered a professional. In terms of your success and experience I don’t think you necessarily need to compare yourself to the big names in the industry as whether or not you are a pro or not.

A few thoughts to some of you:

Jhunger: I’d give yourself a little more credit that “somewhere between hobbyist and semi-pro” . You are only the 12th ranked audiojungle author! Not bad IMO .

MartijndeBont: Keep doing what your doing and I’m sure you will get there. I have been following your stuff since I started AudioJungle earlier this year and have always thought you were one of the best orchestral mockup guys here. Best of luck to you.

AlumoAudio: Glad you switched over to music. You have great stuff and I am a fan.

I’m not an AudioJungle author but I am a musician. My last studio gig was recording some guitar for what I thought at the time was just an idea for a song… come to find out, the song was then given to American Idol winner James Durbin. Long story short I got screwed, haven’t seen a single dime and the guitar in the song is what I wrote that day in West Palm Beach.

So after being screwed by a few guys in the music industry I decided to focus on my career in product development and digital marketing. I still play music with a group of guys in LeHigh but it’s nothing too serious at the moment. I’m actually trying to learn how to record better. I’ve been a studio musician and really don’t have a lot of time operating the hardware and software that is needed to have that professional sound.

Hopefully, one of these days I will devote more time into being an engineer but for now I just do it has a hobby, to let my mind go free after a hard days work.

I consider myself as semi-pro, however I devote much time to music creation and work under three different music projects. But I still can’t live on the money I earn from music

illuminations said
Jhunger: I’d give yourself a little more credit that “somewhere between hobbyist and semi-pro” . You are only the 12th ranked audiojungle author! Not bad IMO .

Hey, thanks, illuminations! I won’t deny AudioJungle has been very good to me and I couldn’t be more thrilled (and thankful!) so far. Mainly what I meant is that I have only just (in the last few years) really gone past dabbling with recording and composing with a marketplace in mind. Because of stock sales I’ve been able to accumulate some decent equipment, but I’m still very green at actually being able to use said equipment to the best possible effect, obviously software but even down to choosing correct mics, placement, acoustics, etc., I’m still learning basically by trial and error. I know some musicians but very few people “in the business,” and the lion’s share of my work hours are at my day job, so I don’t have mentors and colleagues who are musicians and producers to work with on a daily basis.

I think there are a lot of people here in the same situation as me, with a passion for music but as a side note to an unrelated profession. On the other hand many authors on AudioJungle are in some way producing music for a living, hitting the streets and connecting with talented and accomplished people, learning their equipment back and forth, working day in and day out with other musicians and producers, etc., and also making some very stunning tracks. That’s what I consider is the difference between pro and hobbyist, AJ sales nonwithstanding.

I make music since 1996. I did soundtrack for handful of PC games and now I am more into library music. Music is my job and I live from it so I would say I am a pro.

AJ is pleasant surplus income considering aside few logos – all tracks I have uploaded are old and not too good for todays standards and still – they made 700 dollars in one year.

I’m a full-time undergraduate student going on to study a Masters degree in Music Production next year. After this time, I will work my way in to becoming a professional full-time composer for media (hopefully I’ll be able to produce awesome mixes of my work by then). So for now I’d say I’m an amateur, who really badly wants to be a pro when the time is right I don’t want to say I’m a semi-pro, but I’m definitely not just a hobbyist, I guess I’m somewhere in-between.

illuminations said
MartijndeBont: Keep doing what your doing and I’m sure you will get there. I have been following your stuff since I started AudioJungle earlier this year and have always thought you were one of the best orchestral mockup guys here. Best of luck to you.

Thanks mate!

illuminations said
AlumoAudio: Glad you switched over to music. You have great stuff and I am a fan.

Thanks so much dude! Really appreciated. Funnily enough, just realised I’ve had a track in my upload queue for the last few days called ‘Illuminations’. I must have sub-consciously absorbed your profile name!