Where do you find legal music for your videos?
Posted on Tuesday November 23, 2010 by Daniel Foster
Tagged as:
♫♪ Jingle bells, Jing bells... ♪♫
Adding music to your video can get viewers in just the right mood. But it can also get you in hot water with your legal department or get your video banned from YouTube.
Fortunately, there's a growing number of royalty-free and creative commons music sites. You won't get the rights to "We Are the Champions" but you also won't wind up singing "I'm a loser, baby."
For the December episode of The Forge (
add to calendar), we want to share some of the screencasting community's favorite sites for inexpensive, legal music soundtracks. We need your help to build that list!
If you have a favorite source for music for your videos, please share it at our Google Moderator page or vote up others' contributions.
Comments (10)
amazon.com
or
noisetrade.com/
Posted by John | November 24, 2010 2:23 PM
Posted on November 24, 2010 14:23
I've purchased some collections from Digital Juice. They can be a little expensive and their Juicer app is a pain, but the tracks are decent.
Other collections of royalty free music can be found on Amazon (as previously mentioned) and even eBay. Just make sure you get a decent preview of the different tracks so you can make sure they fit your style.
I also find the collection by Kevin Macleod to be a great source.
Posted by Scott Skibell | November 24, 2010 10:40 PM
Posted on November 24, 2010 22:40
Here I wrote a post about some sources. German language, but the sites are english:
http://screencastblog.net/2010/06/kostenlose-oder-gunstige-musik/
Posted by Waldemar Pross | November 25, 2010 5:49 AM
Posted on November 25, 2010 05:49
I have always found what I am looking for at www.jamendo.com Easy to search, listen and even download entire albums (even if I just want to listen to them). A great source for creative commons licensed music!
Posted by Matthew Niederberger | November 29, 2010 10:39 AM
Posted on November 29, 2010 10:39
Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com) is a community of free, legal and unlimited music published under Creative Commons licenses. They claim 272,000+ tracks. Some of it is really great. I've never used it for business purposes. They seem to have expanded on their licensing to specifically address business use, but I think it's worth a look and a careful check of the various CC licenses in use for the music you'd like to use.
Posted by Michelle A. Hoyle | November 29, 2010 10:41 AM
Posted on November 29, 2010 10:41
http://audiojungle.net/
Audio Jungle (and their related to envato.com) are great. Lots of samples, loops, etc.. to use, and licenses are generally cheap. Nice interface as well.
Posted by Logan Gray | November 29, 2010 7:38 PM
Posted on November 29, 2010 19:38
I've used:
- ccMixter (http://ccmixter.org/)
- freeplaymusic (http://www.freeplaymusic.com/) - some limits, be sure to read the use agreement
Both have great tracks to use for a wide variety of needs.
Posted by Kevin Boutelle | November 30, 2010 4:24 PM
Posted on November 30, 2010 16:24
Sonicfire application in conjunction with its SmartSound library. Not free, but excellent. The ability to instantly custom-cut a track to the exact length I need is worth the price of admission in itself...
Posted by Daniel Park | December 1, 2010 3:29 PM
Posted on December 1, 2010 15:29
I didn't see anyone mention BeatPick.com!
BeatPick is fantastic. Like Jamendo, Creative Commons, licenses vary. The site just asks that you share back a link so the artist can see what you did with their work.
I also like SoundCloud. Didn't see that listed.
If you're interested in creating high quality tunes and willing to pay for "industry standard" quality, also check out SoundSnap.com, which also has some fantastic sound effects for videos in a variety of formats.
Posted by Jessica Donaldson | December 3, 2010 8:59 AM
Posted on December 3, 2010 08:59
Stock20 is a great site. Great music and lots of types and lenghts! If you use this link Stock20 will know I sent you there. It used to mean a free piece of music for both you and I, but I'm not sure it still does. I just tried it again and it went to their "create an account" page.
http://www.stock20.com/gvr.php?rc=65xl2nv18266asd5v2x
Posted by Ralph | December 7, 2010 9:21 PM
Posted on December 7, 2010 21:21