12 Music Sites for Creators

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Best Music Sites and Resources

generally human music resources.

Quick overview of how music licensing works

Cats on Record - Background Music for Video [Infographic]

One of the trickiest parts of downloading and using background music is understanding (from a legal standpoint) where, when, and how businesses and brands can use specific tracks.

Getting to know the various types of copyright laws and Creative Commonslicensing details will give you full confidence when using background music for video. It’ll also help your brand or business avoid any legal issues down the line.

Youtube Audio Library

The YouTube Audio Library

The YouTube Audio Library provides free music for videos you create. Some of the music is licensed under Creative Commons and requires attribution, but much of it does not. Click on the particular audio track you’re interested in to get the full details.

Licensing: Free (public domain) & Creative Commons

Why we love it: We’ve used a ton of the free songs available in YouTube’s massive audio library. Their search functionality allows you to sort by genre, instrument, duration, attribution, and even mood. But I love going with the “popularity” filter which allows me to quickly view which songs are most downloaded by users. To access YouTube Audio Library, simply click on the link above, or from your YouTube account, go to Creator Studio > Create > Audio Library.

Price range: Public domain & Creative Commons

The YouTube Audio Library also provides a huge database of free sound effects to use in your videos, from typing sounds to growling monsters.

Partners in Rhyme

Epidemic Sound

Licensing: Royalty free

Why we love it: Epidemic Sound is one of our favorite places to find high-quality background music for video. Their easy-to-use search functionality and music offerings are some of the best in the business making it super easy to quickly find just the right music for your video. Music licensing can be a bit tricky, but Epidemic Sound bundles all of the legal rights you’ll need into on simple license that you can use across all platforms.

Pricing: Licensing starting at $0.99 and Subscriptions starting at $12/month

Audio Jungle

AudioJungle

Licensing: Royalty Free

Why we love it: If you’ve ever searched online for a WordPress theme, chances are you’ve stumbled across ThemeForest under Envato Market at one time or another. Envato Market has more than 3 million digital products created by a global community of contributors. It’s huge! So it’s no surprise that you can also find top-of-the-line background music for video here as well. AudioJungle offers creators more than 586,000 tracks from pop to heavy metal to music kits and sound effects. No matter what style of music you’re looking for, you’ll find it on AudioJungle.

Price range: Tracks starting at $1

Bensound

Licensing: Royalty free

Why we love it: Another artist-based website, Bensound is home to hundreds of fantastic tracks created and uploaded by artist Benjamin Tissot. Ben’s work has been featured all over the web in projects from animations, corporate videos, commercials to short films and documentaries. We love Bensound for its super easy-to-use search functionality and music that goes perfectly with your traditional business-style videos.

Price range: Free (with attribution) or 1-year unlimited downloads for $129

Amazon Music

Licensing: Royalty free

Why we love it: Did you know that Amazon has more than 56 thousand free tunes and sound tracks that you can easily incorporate in your video backgrounds? Amazon does a great job of keeping their tracks are easily organized by genre thus making it very easy for you to get a specific tune. The only small drawback when it comes to Amazon Music is the limited capability of their search function in finding just the right track for your video.

Price range: Free or premium tracks start at $0.99

(According to the Amazon Music Terms of Use, “[you] may use the Services only for your personal, non-commercial purposes”. Thanks, Cathy Goodwin, for pointing this out!)

ccMixter

Licensing: Creative Commons

Why we love it: In talking to several marketers while putting together this article, ccMixter was one of the most consistent websites mentioned for finding fantastic background music. Unlike Bensound and IncompeTech which are run by single artists, ccMixter is a community site taking contributions from thousands of artists. It offers several (set the Filter to “free for commercial use”) royalty free tracks for commercial use under Creative Commons.

Price range: Free (with attribution)

BeatPick

Licensing: Creative Commons

Why we love it: One of the most powerful music search engines online, BeatPick gives users the ability to filter by genre, mood, vocal, instrument, keywords, and much more. We’ve found several killer tracks on BeatPick that we’ve used in a variety of online video projects. Once you find some background music that you like, you can either add it to your “Beatlist” for later, or, click on “License Song” to find out the cost of the license.

Price range: Price varies depending on track

Creative Commons

Creative Commons music resources

Creative Commons is a system that allows people who develop creative works to make them available to the public for free, so that other people can in turn use them to make their own creative works.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/129804764

Remember, you’re looking for audio tracks that have been cleared for commercial use in derivative works. Your best bet is to choose music and audio with either an attribution-only or a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) License.

Unless the audio is licensed as CC0, you need to provide attribution. That means you need a credits section in your video, or you need to include credit information in the text that accompanies your video on the video-sharing network (like YouTube) or social network (for example, in the text of your Facebook post). If you don’t want to provide credit, stick to CC0-licensed tracks.

Creative Commons

A Creative Commons is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. At the core of the Creative Commons license is the idea that every CC license ensures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. It’s a standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.

In the above websites, you’ll notice that many of the tracks are protected under various Creative Commons licenses. Artists typically upload their work and specify what users would need to provide (attribution-wise) in order to repurpose that work.

Check out the Creative Commons website for complete details on the various types of licenses.

Royalty Free

Royalty free music gives users the right to use copyrighted music without having to pay “royalties” for recurring use of the content. In other words, royalty free music allows the buyer to pay the music license only once and use the music for as long as he or she wants.

Royalty free often gets mistaken for “free” music, which is not the case in many situations. The author or artist who has composed the music decides what kind of license it will have, and therefore, the costs associated.

There are hundreds of websites out there with millions of songs to choose from. And each website offers different search functionalities, licensing options, and music experience.

We tested out more than 50 online music libraries and dwindled it down to those you see in the tabs here.

Questions to ask yourself when choosing audio for your videos

Now that you have plenty of resources to help you find music and sound effects for your video, it’s important to step back and think about exactly why you want to add audio to your video in the first place. Here are some key questions to ask yourself.

What do you want the audio to do?

Music and sound effects can be used to stir emotion and create excitement, while sound effects can act almost like unspoken dialogue in terms of telling the audio component of your video’s story.

That said, you don’t want to rely too heavily on your video’s audio track, since many people will watch your video without the sound turned on at all.

Those who do hear your audio track may well be put off if it is packed full of too many sound effects. Each sound or piece of music should have a purpose, rather than simply being added to fill a void.

Public Domain

Public Domain Music Sources

While Creative Commons gives you the broadest base of resources to search, it is not the only answer when looking for royalty free music and audio tracks for your social media video.

Another option is the public domain. In most cases, audio work moves into the public domain a certain number of years after the copyright holder dies. Once the work moves into the public domain, it is essentially public property and you can use it without attribution in your videos. Artists can also donate their work to the public domain.

Public domain refers to all works that are not protected by copyright and can be used without permission or without having to pay the original author/artist. Public domain essentially gives free use of the music in however a user sees fits.

Essentially, that means that content within the public domain can be copied, distributed, interpreted, and displayed in public for free as if they belong to everyone.

The rules relating to public domain vary by country, so make sure you understand the laws that apply to you and your business before you decide to use public domain music. When you’re ready, try searching these sites to see if you can find what you’re looking for. Keep in mind that these sites are not as regulated as the Creative Commons, so you’ll be taking them at their word that the music they provide is truly in the public domain. Performing your own due diligence is a wise idea when using these sites.

5. FreePD.com

This collection includes collected public domain music as well as more music and sounds from Kevin MacLeod, the composer behind Incompetech. The difference in MacLeod’s work here is that he has donated his work on this site to the public domain, so you don’t have to credit him in your video.

6. Musopen

Musopen is a collection of public domain music you can search by composer, performer, instrument, style, or century.

4 More CC Licensed Sites

Here are some sites where you can start your search for CC-licensed free music for videos. Each site contains a mixture of licenses, so check each track before using it in your video.

1. ccMixter

This site features original samples and a capella vocal tracks from musicians around the world, with a good sampling of free tracks for commercial use.

2. Free Music Archive

A royalty free music collection curated by the radio station WFMU, the Free Music Archive allows you to search by genre or by charts reflecting the site’s most popular music for the last week, month, or all time.

3. Incompetech

Incompetech offers thousands of musical sound effects and longer pieces of music by composer Kevin MacLeod, searchable by genre, feel, tempo, or length, or browsable in collections based on genre and mood.