User Guide
How to get the most out of our library.
Getting Started
The NC Music Library is a catalogue of original production music, composed and produced in-house by Neil Cartwright. You can browse by album; search the full library with filters; audition tracks and their submixes; save what you like to playlists; and download broadcast-quality WAV files when you're ready.
Pieces & Submixes
Pieces
A Piece is a fully produced, full-length track. Each Piece carries tags grouped in categories: Genre, Instruments, Mood, Usage, Tempo.
Submixes
A Submix is an alternate version of a Piece that may be a stripped-back arrangement, a shorter cut or an alternative ending. Submixes are listed beneath their parent Piece: click a Piece row to expand them.
Where Things Live
A Typical Workflow
- 1Open the Library: Click the Library tab in the navigation bar.
- 2Filter or search: Open a filter category in the black bar and select your tags. Alternatively, use the search icon to look up a track by title. Results update as you go.
- 3Audition: Click on any row. The player sits at the bottom of the screen and enables you to skip between tracks and jump to any point in the track.
- 4Save what you like: anything promising and it will be added to your Favourites playlist. Sign in to keep your favourites and build playlists of your own. Note that your favourites are only saved if you're logged in.
- 5Download: When you're ready, download the WAV by clicking . You'll need to be signed in and to confirm you hold a valid MCPS licence.
How Search Works
Every Piece is tagged across five categories, and the Library gives you three ways to search: tag filters, a title search, and a similarity search.
Three Ways to Search
The Five Filter Categories
Include & Exclude
Inside a category, click the main body of a tag to include it, or the narrow red strip on its right edge to exclude it. Everything you've selected appears as chips above the results; green for included, red for excluded. Clicking a chip removes it.
Green = included · Red = excluded. Tempo is include-only, and on smaller screens excludes are unavailable.
How Filters Combine
Returned tracks must satisfy each of the following four categories. Tracks are ordered by how strongly they match your selection.
| Free | Very Slow | Slow | Medium | Fast | Very Fast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No fixed tempo - often steady | 0–70 BPM | 60–100 BPM | 90–130 BPM | 120–160 BPM | 150+ BPM |
In practice, to get the best search results:
- Keep Genre and Instruments selections small and deliberate
- Be generous with Mood and Usage
- Use red tags sparingly to remove specific unwanted results
Greyed-Out Tags
As you select tags, options that aren't present in the returned tracks are greyed out so you don't chase empty results. Each category also caps how many tags you can usefully select. Once you reach the cap, the remaining options in that category are hidden until you reduce your selection.
Getting the Most From Search
A few habits that consistently surface better results.
Lead with Mood
Mood is usually the most discriminating filter for finding tracks for film. Pick the Mood first, then narrow with Genre or Instruments. Going the other way around tends to leave you with stylistically similar tracks that don't fit the scene.
Don't overselect Genre and Instruments
Every Genre or Instrument tag you add must match returned tracks, so two or three is usually plenty to keep the results useful.
Found a good track? Use similarity search
The icon on a Library row does a similarity search on the track. It's often the fastest route to find very similar music.
Check the Submixes
If a Piece is almost right but doesn't have the desired arrangement, expand its submixes for variations.
Favourite tracks or build a project playlist
Sign in and create a project playlist to collate tracks you like as you go. Or anything that's a maybe and view them in your Favourites playlist. In either case, you can A/B compare later without losing your place.
Can't find what you want?
Can't find exactly what you need? . We'd be happy to help you with your project.
Playlists
Playlists are personal shortlists you build as you audition. Save what catches your ear, reorder it, add track notes, and download them all as WAVs with a supporting cue sheet when you're ready.
Two Kinds of Playlist
Favourites
Click the on any piece to add it straight into your Favourites. It is the quickest way to flag the pieces you like while you browse.
Project Playlists
You can create your own custom playlists. For example, one per brief, scene, or client. Build up to 50 playlists and add tracks as you need.
Building a Playlist
Exporting & Downloading
Hover on a project playlist's title and open its menuFAQ
You don't have any playlists yet.