One aspect of creating video content that’s often overlooked is finding the background music.
Many experts predicted that 2017-2018 would be the “age of video marketing on social media” and the data is showing that they were overwhelmingly correct. Video has erupted onto the scene with brands and businesses creating more video than ever before — with no signs of slowing down.
Consumers are loving it, too! HubSpot, for example, found that 43 percent of people want to see more video content from marketers. And that 51.9 percent of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
But one aspect of creating video content that’s often overlooked is finding the background music.
We’ve scoured the internet to find some of the best places to find high-quality background music for video .
Let’s dive in!
12 fantastic places to find background music for video
As many of you might have experienced, finding quality background music for video can be a huge challenge.
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 13 of our favorites.
Here’s a nifty infographic summarizing our findings with details, links and best-practices for creating engaging videos below.
1. 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 one simple license that you can use across all platforms.
Pricing: Licensing starting at $0.99 and Subscriptions starting at $12/month
2. YouTube Audio Library
Licensing: Free (public domain) and 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 and Creative Commons
3. 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
4. AudioBlocks
Licensing: Royalty free
Why we love it: AudioBlocks is our go-to source for music and sound effects on the Buffer Podcast as well as a variety of videos we’ve created for social media. Along with your AudioBlocks subscription, you’ll get access to unlimited downloads of hundreds of thousands of tracks, loops, sound effects and collections. One of my favorite features of their search functionality is the ability to use a slide bar to specify the exact length of a track I’m looking for — quite useful for specific timing in videos!
Price range: Unlimited downloads start at $99/year
5. Free Music Archive
Licensing: Public domain and Creative Commons
Why we love it: Free Music Archive (directed by WFMU) is one of the most prolific websites online for discovering a range of curated background music and sounds for all types of content. They even offer a “Spoken Word” genre! All MP3 tracks on FMA are pre-cleared and legal to use in a variety of situations that would otherwise be restricted by copyright laws. FMA offers more than 1,500 public domain tracks (licensed for commercial use) as well as thousands more under Creative Commons giving marketers and creators a plethora of options.
Price range: Free
6. Jamendo
Licensing: Royalty free
Why we love it: We love Jamendo here at Buffer because of their awesome music selection as well as their dedication to giving back to their artists. Jamendo is also one of the few background music resources that allows marketers to pick and choose music based on what they might be using it for. Looking for a song for a killer Facebook video? Great, they’ve got that! Curious about what might work well on YouTube? No problem! They even have a special program for business chains who need a great radio station for each of their stores.
Price range: Standard licensing starts at $49
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7. SoundCloud
Licensing: Creative Commons
Why we love it: If you’re looking for an awesome selection of background music for video that sounds more like real music, then SoundCloud is a perfect option for you. Most if not all of the music on SoundCloud is licensed under Creative Commons, which means that you are free to use the tracks as long as you follow the guidelines established by the artist (more on licensing below!) It does take a bit of savviness and work upfront to utilize the search feature, but once you get the hang of it you’ll find that there is a ton of great music from artists all over the world.
Price range: Free
8. Freeplay Music
Licensing: Creative Commons
Why we love it: Though Freeplay Music is one of the more pricey options out there in terms of background music services, their website is top notch and there are some serious gems to be found. Plus, if you’re using it for personal use only on YouTube, you’ll be able to access nearly all of their tracks for free. For businesses with a wide variety of music needs such as a video, advertisement, presentation, movie, video game or even “YouTube kitty cat fashion show,” it’s a perfect place to grab-and-go great music.
9. IncompeTech
Licensing: Royalty free
Why we love it: IncompeTech is an awesome artist-run website with free music in just about every genre you can think of. What we mean by “artist-run” is that all of the tracks you’ll find on IncompeTech are created and uploaded by Kevin MacLeod. With proper attribution, users can download and use his music on a variety of project completely free. And if you’d like to use a few of his tracks without attribution there’s an option for that as well!
Price range: Free (with attribution) or starting at $20 per piece (no attribution)
10. 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
11. 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)
12. 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
Quick overview of how music licensing works
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 Commons licensing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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Austin Visuals is a full-service 3D, 2D, Motion Graphics, Live Video, E-learning, Digital Publication studio. We’ve been creating digital magic nationwide for a decade. We work with companies of all sizes from startup to standout. Call us for a free consultation. 512-591-8024 [email protected]
