Temp Track

What Is a Temp Track?

A temp track is existing music temporarily placed against picture during editing to guide pacing, mood and structure before the final score or brand music is composed. Editors and directors cut scenes to the temp, which is why composers are often asked to write something that feels similar.

Temp Track in Practice

Temp tracks are useful and dangerous in equal measure: after weeks of editing, everyone falls in love with the placeholder, a trap the industry calls temp love. The most famous case is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Kubrick temped the film with classical works including Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube, commissioned an original score from Alex North, then quietly kept the temp music in the finished film. North only discovered his score had been dropped when he attended the premiere. In advertising the same dynamic plays out weekly: agencies temp a cut with a famous song they cannot afford to license, then brief composers to match its feel without copying it.

Famous Example

Kubrick keeping his classical temp music in 2001: A Space Odyssey over Alex North’s finished score.