Videos can be found online everywhere these days. The giants like YouTube and Facebook get billions of video views per day. The ideology that, people love watching rather than reading the content that you want to put out to the world is something which is driving this whole crowd. Personally, the technology videos on Kickstarter always grabs my attention and in fact I find them quite engaging and convincing. Did you know? It is estimated that between 60% to 80% of the people buy products right after watching a video about it. Adding background music to videos is of high importance in the process of creating exceptional video content. As a vlogger, myself, I believe a background is important to keep the viewers’ attention focused. It also keeps the mood balanced, thereby, making the video interesting. When I edit videos for YouTube I do a lot of experiments with the background music before I finally settle for one. There are couple of sites online where you can download background music for videos free. Here is a list of top 11 sites to download background music for videos.
Sites to Download Background Music for Videos
Starting off the list with my personal favourite and less cluttered, the YouTube Audio Library. For professionals, the list of sound tracks may seem limited but this is a perfect place to get background music for videos for amateurs and even professionals who would like to keep it simple. Since you might have a Google account, you just need to login and select the tracks you would like to download. It’s as simple as that.
The music tracks are organized within two tabs; Free Music and Sound Effects. The free music tabs are usually long music tracks and the sound effects will be short and something like; sound of water flowing, closing the doors etc. Almost all the music listed are free for downloading but, the ones with Creative Commons Attribute logo should only be used by providing a link back, as a video description, to the creators as a courtesy.
If you are looking for some professional quality background music for videos, then GerryMusic is the perfect site for you. The site has both royalty free and paid music tracks. The tracks are arranged based on genre; Corporate, Inspiring Motivation, Cinematic, Electronic etc.
The licensing is classified as Standard Licensing (Online use only) is $18/track. Broadcast License which is $49/track can be used for up to 1 million broadcast audience. For up to 10 million audience $96/track and for unlimited broadcast audience the licensing fee is $280/track. The entire track can be previewed before buying, unlike a 15-30 sec sample track, which is a plus point.
The Incompetech specializes in providing you with best quality background music for videos. The site offers a wide verity of music tracks arranged based on different genres. The great feature about this platform is the advanced search. Unlike search using genre or music title, you can search using feel, tempo, or length. There is also custom Google search to narrow down your search to something specific.
You can use the music tracks to power up your videos free of cost by giving proper license attribution. If you don’t want to use the attribution then you can purchase the music for $30/track, 2 pieces $25 and 3 or more at $20.
Free Music Archive or FMA is one of the top providers for background music for videos. The FMA has ton of music at your disposal. Unlike other players in the market, FMA has a community of music curators to back the platform with fresh and new content.
While most of the tracks are free to use, some can only be used as per the license description. The tracks are classified as No Derivatives, Non-Commercial, Share Alike, Attribution etc. The website was registered on late 2011 and there are 6800+ contributions so far.
Loaded with more than 65000 tracks, the Internet Archives Netlabels is not only a platform for free music but also have more to offer. The media types available for download are collections, audio, image, data, texts, movies and more.
The thing which surprised me is the availability of ‘street sounds’ from different countries. For example, if your video needs a background sound as if the location is one of the Chinese railway station, you will get those recordings as well. This will make your video look more realistic and genuine.
While most of the tracks are free under creative commons license, the audio quality is something which I am not that impressed with. The 64KBPS music files are thing of past.
If you are looking for remix tracks, then digccmixer community by TuneTrack is a great platform. The site also features regular tracks, arranged as per genre. Under Creative Commons license, the tracks are free to use, share and download. If you want to use it for commercial purpose, then you can license royalty free music.
What makes this platform stand out from the rest is the community of people who support remix culture. Under this, there are a ton of remix tracks available to download. Using the collaboration platform, you can make your own contributions or work along with people who has similar interests.
There are more than 3000 tracks you can browse through and if licensing is considered, the TuneTrack has set of packages starting from $44.
When the Opsound site loaded for the first time, it looked as if it lacked potential, at least for me, but as I took a closer look I must say, this is a hidden gem when it comes to finding background music for videos. The music is listed as per genre and tagged as new, radio, tags, genres and artists.
At Opsound, the community loves creating and publishing music under creative commons license. Like FMA, all the tracks listed are free to use by giving proper attribution.
Jamendo also is a great platform to search for background music. They are one of the top provider of royalty free music for use in advertisements. The highlight of Jamendo is the Composition service. Give your requirements, the platform will find and assign the composition work to artists who will create new tracks as per your requirement and finally deliver it you.
The personal licensing starts at $4.99/project. This is perfect for YouTube videos.
IMATunes is a platform which offers audio on demand services. There are albums, paid tracks and free tracks listed as per genre. You can download, use and share it as per creative commons license.
The commercial License 59 Euro, Private License 29 Euro. The licensing differs if you are planning to use the tracks in TV, radio, cinema or online.
