This post may contain affiliate links. See our policy page for details.
Music is a key element of a great video, yet it often goes unnoticed. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, the music sets the tone or feeling of what you are seeing visually. I can’t stress enough how important music is and why, in a 20-30 minute video, you will RARELY not hear any kind of music playing in my videos.
I typically use anywhere from 7-10 music tracks per video. Genres ranging from Hip-Hop to House, to my favorite to use, Chamber music (think trombones. Can be funny, mysterious, serious sounds). However, you can’t just grab any music track and put it in a video due to copyrights. It’s best for you to search for royalty-free music to use in your videos.
Because I use so many tracks PER video, it is extremely important to me to have a WIDE variety of sites to select music from so I’m not reusing the same music over-and-over again.
What is Royalty-Free Music?
Like I said, you can’t just grab a song you like and put it in one of your videos. Especially if you are wanting to post the video online or make some type of money from it, you are going to need to follow copyright laws. A best practice for video content creators is use royalty-free music in their videos. Royalty-free is a type of license that you purchase where you only have to pay for the music license (or website subscription to use all music on the site) once and you do not need to pay the creator any ongoing royalties for using their music in your video.
Even with this type of music, there are different license options available for purchase – usually at different price points. So it’s still important to pay attention to the license you buy and make sure that you follow the requirements for using the music properly.
Is Royalty-Free Music the Same as Non-Copyrighted Music?
No. Royalty-free is a specific type of license to use the music in a certain way. But it is still copyrighted, and you do have to follow the license requirements for use. Non-copyrighted music is just music that is in the public domain.
Below is a list of my favorites royalty-free music sites and why I use each. To be fair, you really can’t go wrong with any of these, it’ll just be based upon what you like or not!
Best Places to Find Royalty-Free Music
My Top 2 Favorite Sites
Epidemic Sound – This is my go-to website when first searching for music. I’ve been using this site for a few years now and is very intuitive. Has amazing search features that let you get very specific with what you are looking for and also just browsing (if you don’t know what you want is great too. The songs load quite quick as well, major upside).
Artlist – This website is another great option for music. It seems that there aren’t as much tracks on here as other sites, however, what I love is that the music sounds more “full.” It’s kind of hard to describe but other sites tend to sound like the music was made FOR the site (to be put in videos) whereas these tracks on Artlist were made with more “passion” for lack of a better word. I could be wrong about this, however, that’s just the feeling I get while browsing the site. Excellent stuff here.
Other Great Royalty-Free Music Sites You May Like
Music Vine – Music Vine is like a love child of the two previous aforementioned. Good, intuitive user interface with high quality tracks. An excellent option here.
ccMixter – This company is all about collaborating with different artists as well as DJ’s and mixing together some really cool tracks that can then be purchased.
Audiio – Great selection with a lifetime subscription offer. Take advantage of that because, to me, music is priceless.
PremiumBeat – This site is also very popular because it’s owned by Shutterstock which is a popular website to buy royalty-free stock photography.
Filmstro – This is a cool site because not only can you search for a ton of music across many different genres, but you can also adjust the tracks yourself – such as slowing it down or adjusting the depth and power. Pretty cool features if you have time to dig into all of that and are wanting to really customize your tracks.
Soundstripe – This is another popular site that works with many artists and gives users the ability to like and follow certain artists and even make playlists.
Bensound – A little more generic, but still a good option for some video creators. This site offers a good range of music, and they do even have a free license version as long as you follow the requirements.
Pond5 – Boasting a collection of over 500,000 royalty-free tracks, this site claims to have the largest royalty-free music library in the world.
Great Music Takes a Video to Another Level!
Music is such an important part of a video because of the way it can make people feel. It takes the viewer to another place and elevates the video to a whole new level. So taking the time to find the right music shouldn’t be an afterthought, it really should be a part of the video creation process. So I recommend having access to a few of these music sites because it will give you more variety and ability to find great royalty-free music that you can use to amp up the quality and viewership of your videos.