You just completed your video and you sense something is missing? You need some music to help express yourself, delivery your message or just create an intro or an outro? You’re looking for royalty free music for your YouTube videos.
The question is, what music can you use legally? How much will you have to pay? Isn’t all royalty free music, well FREE? Let’s jump into how to get free royalty free music for your YouTube videos.
How To Get Royalty Free Music For YouTube Videos?
One of the best royalty free music options for beginners is YouTube’s own Audio Library. YouTube has hundreds of free audio resources for your DIY videos and beyond. Below is the link to YouTube’s Audio Library along with some other free resources:
Royalty Free Music Websites Offering Free Music
| YouTube |
|---|
| Incompetech |
| Teknoaxe |
| Free Stock Music |
| dig cc mixter |
| Bensound |
| Free Music Archive |
| Sound Cloud |
The websites I’ve provided above all offer free music downloads for video as of the time of the writing of this article in 2020.
Selecting music for your YouTube video can be a little tricky. You don’t want to have YouTube pull your video or suspend your channel. Its
best to understand how all this works. Let’s dive a little deeper.
There are many websites on the web that provide royalty free music for YouTube Videos. There are some websites that allow you to download without attribution (giving credit to the creator/author). There are others that require attribution but are free to download. While others require a download or subscription fee first before downloading their work. Its also important to know that many of these sites look at what type of project you’ll be using their music for. Some are open to commercial use of their work and others may not. While some are okay with using their music on a YouTube video and others are not. So, you’ll need to do some homework as each website is a little unique.
See notation below from the Bensound website you will see when you download music:
However, most of these sites have a common thread. So, no worries!
The Search for Music
So, it’s time to search for music for your video. The first thing a novice to the field of videos should do is to consider taking the royalty free music route. You can try some of the free music to get your feet wet while maneuvering the process. If your budget is tight, then free royalty free music is the direction to take.
You can easily Google for a list of choices for royalty free music by searching for example “Royalty Free Music for Videos”. I would suggest checking out at least three sites, for starters, then listen to the category of music samples that possibly fulfills the idea you have in mind. Look for a tab that indicates Royalty Free Music to click. Typically, the tabs are at the top of the screen. However, on some of the sites you may have to type the wording “Royalty Free Music” for your specific search. There you will find selections of music such as JAZZ, POP, MOTIVATING and so on to begin your search.
Second, the selection of music should be titled indicating the category of your focus and perhaps an image as well further giving you some idea what the feel of the music conveys. Now with some websites you will notice that there are time limits for every piece of music available. However, other sites will require you to click on the arrow to play the music so you are able to see the time limit. So, based on the length of your video clip where you want to add music, you may be able to find a selection that fulfills your need.
However, keep in mind that if the piece of music you want is not quite long enough, you can copy the track back to back or even perhaps edit the music track to fit your needs. Just be sure to check into what is permissible by each site on the use of the music track you have chosen.
Free Creative Common Licensing: Check requirements on each track you are considering to be sure your video does not get flagged. A Free Creative Common License allows you to download royalty free music as long as you credit the source.
Download Your Tunes & Upload to Your Video
Third, once you are ready to make your selection of the royalty free music, click on the download button. Your selection should download onto your computer. You should be able to locate the selection in your music file. This is such a great option for budget minded beginners.
Finally, you are now able to upload your selection into your editing software to apply to your video. We can show you how to do this within a future article or video as this topic is outside of the scope of this article.
If you like, you can go ahead and register with the website(s) to become a member or create your account. You will then be prepared for any future needs to download music. Please keep in mind that it is never a good idea to use music without having obtained permission. If there is music you must use that’s not free, pay the license fee. You don’t want to endanger your business and be on the wrong side of the law by using someone’s work without permission.
Make sure you properly credit the source of your music track(s) in the description field of your video. This is the norm to provide the proper reference in your credits, especially for free royalty free music.
Registering with a music site will allow you to purchase a license to use on future music downloads. This isn’t a bad idea if you think you’ll need more than a handful of tunes for your videos.
Subscription Services
Some professionals will recommend going the paid route in order to open your options of choice. However, there could be some limitations for use for some sites, such as being based on how many views you receive on your video. If your viewership should go over a specific limit you may have to pay more for use of the license. There are also sites that offer subscriptions on a monthly or annual basis. These can offer you access to hundreds if not thousands of choices without paying for each music track.
Artlist is one such site that offers subscribers thousands of selections of music for film and video. Artlist.io offers no restrictions of use including publicly or commercially and no limits on use. What is really awesome about this site is if your subscription should expire after a year, you can continue to use the music track(s) you have selected for your project. “Once you download a song with a subscription it’s licensed to use forever – period.” Bensound and numerous other websites offer this type of service.
I’m sure you’ve noticed while watching other YouTube channels, hearing the same music from time to time. In most cases the music is royalty free. YouTube does provide their own limited list of free music. This also means you will have to use the music exclusively on YouTube. So keep in mind that since their list is limited, many of the music tracts have been selected by countless others so, enough said.
If you’re looking for a low cost option that you probably won’t hear on every corner of the web, think outside of the box and search through the royalty free music offered by various sites and make selections that most would not consider. It could be quirky or the unexpected. Delving deeper into the list of choices can offer you some unique music that many would not take the time to search out. Just clicking on the first couple of pages and listening to the selections will prove what I’m sharing with you. Odds are … some of those songs at the top of list may sound familiar.
Free Music Archive.org and Sound Cloud – Both allow you to search their archive. But, be cautious and read everything to be sure you will be safe using your selection. A lot of music is uploaded and could be mislabeled as free so, search it out.
Options Based on Usage
Now some royalty free music sites will provide options of use. At the time of writing this article, SoundCloud provides ”commercial use”, that allows you to use the music tracks as is. However, those who might want to edit a music track can select “modify commercially”. Once on SoundCloud you can search by Royalty Free then select Tracks on the left. You can then go in and review the music you might want to download. You will find the mentioned options listed below pulled from the SoundCloud site:
Related Questions
Do you have to pay for royalty free music?
Royalty free music does not imply that the music is free of cost, only free of royalties. You may have to pay for the music once and then you can use it multiple times. There are some music sites where free royalty free music is available for you to use without payment. You just need to be sure to credit the source of the music in your video.
Now you can choose to pay a subscription fee with some music sites that will allow you unlimited access to hundreds if not thousands of music selections to meet your needs.
Can I use royalty free music for commercial use?
Free royalty free music can be utilized for commercial use, you just need to watch the attribution requirements. Specific music sites may have limitations and /or requirements for use such as taking out a subscription. It is recommended to review the requirements and seek out answers for clarity for each site.
What does royalty free music mean?
The term “royalty free music” refers to the licensing held by a piece of music that permits the purchaser to pay only once for the use of that music for as long as the buyer wishes. Royalty free music means that the music is free of royalty (or fees) and not necessarily free to use.
Can I use YouTube audio library for commercial use?
The music in this new YouTube Audio Library can be downloaded, remixed and used for free forever. The tracks, which are available as 320 Kbps MP3 files, YouTube says, can be used for “any creative purpose”.