The Los Angeles-based Spectra Creative Agency represents a wide array of composer clients for media scoring, as well as a catalog of music available for licensing.
Led by owner and creative agent Arbel Bedak (he/him), Spectra places a strong focus on diversity in their composer roster and related projects, such as the Atlanta-based composer EmmoLei Sankofa (Hulu’s The Other Black Girl), Tangelene Bolton (Netflix’s Warrior Nun, Comedy Central’s Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens), Brad Oberhofer (Netflix’s The Andy Warhol Diaries, FX/Hulu’s American Horror Stories), and the Vancouver-based composing duo Caleb and Brian Chan (Dreamworks’ Pinecone & Pony, Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans Return).
Arbel’s own background is in contemporary music composition, which he studied at UC Davis. After working in score licensing after college, Arbel became an agent at Evolution Music Partners and later served as Vice President of Sync A&R/Creative at Decca Publishing (Universal Music Group) until 2020. In early 2021, Arbel took a leap and founded Spectra.
“Something I’ve been very passionate about is trying to further diversity initiatives and trying to get more underrepresented and marginalized voices into the scoring space,” Arbel says. “So I started looking at some exciting up and coming talent.”
Using DISCO Early & Often
Arbel was an early adopter of DISCO. As one of the first US-based users in 2017, Arbel was immediately drawn to the platform because of its streamlined cataloging abilities. “I love cataloging,” Arbel says. “I love having a good system for everything. So I really dove into that. I was like, ‘I love what this is doing. It’s actually doing a lot of stuff that I kind of had thought about previously.”
Arbel had previously been using multiple file-sharing services — Box, Dropbox, Hightail — to do his work, all the while wishing those separate services could be combined into one platform. “Early in my career, I taught myself FileMaker Pro and built a huge database for tagging music,” Arbel says. “I’d had thoughts, like, ‘How can we create a space around the business of what we’re doing without having to do so much uploading and downloading? A system that can house and deliver music that’s specifically built for metadata tagging? And not have to use so many different systems to tag music, house it somewhere, and deliver it to people?’”
“I used three or four different systems to do each of those things,” Arbel continues. “It was just like, how can we start putting all this stuff in one place and have people on both ends using the same system?’ Maybe that’s unique to how we work with music, but it needs a unique system.”
Using DISCO To Manage Composers’ Highlights Reels
Because Spectra is an agency representing both composers and its own catalog for sync, Arbel uses it to pitch in multiple ways.
“The way that I’m using DISCO is a bit different,” Arbel says. “I use it to create my clients’ reels to pitch. I kind of house both sides of the business — sync reps and composers — in it. I catalog everything and make nice pitches.”
Embedding DISCO Playlists
Any time Arbel updates one of his composers’ reels in DISCO, the changes are automatically reflected on their profile playlist embedded on the Spectra website, which also has their bio and credits list of projects they’ve worked on.
Showcasing Clients With Artist Pages
Another key DISCO feature Arbel uses is Artist Pages. “When Pages launched, I jumped on it the next day,” Arbel says. “I was like, oh my god, now I can make all these reels look so pretty. And I know all my clients love how they look. It’s just such a nice presentation.”
Plus, if Arbel’s clients get their own DISCO on the new Artist plan, it allows for an even simpler workflow. “I’ve been encouraging their signing up, because it’s affordable,” Arbel says. “I think it’s the most affordable option they have, because it has unlimited tracks. Then it’s just going to make things so much more seamless with delivery.”
Staying Ultra-Organized With DISCO
Arbel is big on staying organized, which is what led him to be one of the first US-based DISCO users while at Decca Publishing and to use DISCO when he started Spectra in 2021.To that end, he has myriad organization tips for fellow creative agents. “Let’s say someone’s just getting started on their DISCO — take a moment to really look at what’s available,” he says. “You have channels, you have folders, you have sub-folders, and then you have playlists. Spend time thinking about how you want to categorize. For me, I have channels for different parts of my business, and then I have subfolders under that.
“I have the agency roster, and I have a folder for each client,” Arbel continues. “Within that, I have sub folders for their reels versus their projects. I try not to have anything free floating. Any time I upload music, it gets uploaded into a playlist of some sort. It’s nice, because I have everyone’s stuff in a particular folder.”
Arbel also notes how it may not always be easy for composers to actively stay on top of every file and folder, particularly when they’re in the midst of a project. Not only does DISCO make it easier for artists to organize with less effort, they can quickly locate tracks and playlists via the mobile app.
“I’m not the only one always sending something out to people,” Arbel says. “My clients are always out there meeting directors and producers or someone at an event, and they might ask to see some of the artist’s music. The DISCO links that I send will always be formatted nicely, and now my clients will have the ability to do that themselves — and quickly, too.”
Looking Into The Future
Looking ahead, Arbel is excited to more closely collaborate on playlists with his clients. “Right now, it’s a lot of them sending me stuff, and then my assistant will format it with metadata and make the [highlight] reel look pretty. And I’ll give feedback.”
Arbel is also excited to use the recently launched Nesting feature, which is a great way to organize related tracks in DISCO, like the main vocal version of a track and its instrumentals and stems. Nesting allows you to group track versions and keep things organized.
“Just from an organizational standpoint, to have the instrumental nested in there, [and] being able to keep them nested in the main track — being able to have them in one place and know what they go with is really great.”
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