Downloading free music for videos

by Ron Buice
(Buford, GA.)

Visitor Question: Adding music to videos is a must even if just a short intro or exit, 5 min or 50 min. All the free sites are not completely free. Some say royalty free but you still have to pay to download. It can be very confusing and frustrating when you want to do a short video for youtube and they block it.

I am in the process of doing a video of my sister's son who recently passed. She lives a good distance from me so I wanted to post it on youtube.

Are there any completely free sites to get music when you are doing a short home video?

How about the pay sites such as donate or pay per song etc. or the "sign up" sites. If I'm doing a good video I don't mind paying a reasonable amount but, I don't want to get ripped off so do you have any recommendations?

Desktop Documentaries | Answer

Hi Ron,

Great question. Yes, there are some "free" music sites out there. Here are a few that we have used:

SoundCloud
ccMixter
Free Music Archive

Another great source for "free" clips, including music, concerts and movies is the Internet Archive found at archive.org.

With all the above, make sure you read the licensing stipulations for each piece of music. Many of the copyright owners use something called a Creative Commons license which will allow you to use their work for free as long as you give them a credit in your video.

Learn more about music rights for videos and documentaries.

If anyone else has ideas or suggestions, please leave a comment below. Good luck Ron!

Comments for Downloading free music for videos

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Jul 18, 2013

massive collection of music
by: James Williams

I just wanted to thank you again for posting the links for "Free Music" for production. I use "FreeMusicArchives.com" very regularly now and have found an entire plethora of music recordings, all free, and all common use and public domain licensed for video and film production. I found 2 music pieces that were used and applied to my promo/demo video on Alaska pollution that work perfectly! It is a chore sorting through the hundreds, or even thousands of recordings uploaded and posted at free music archives' website, but what a fantastic resource.

Jun 29, 2013

Thank You!
by: James Williams

As usual and always, you provided some extremely useful information. I was wondering how I would find usable music for my new and upcoming documentary project. I went in and created a free account for "FMA" (Free Music Archive). Already I am finding plenty of usable music to potentially include in the project, THANK YOU!

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