In addition to various websites, we often also maintain Youtube channels and within the scope of smaller budgets, the question quickly arises as to where we get license-free and free music from. Well, “royalty-free music” or “royalty-free music” is quickly entered into Google and at first glance it looks like there are plenty of offers for which you don’t have to buy a license, but if you take a closer look, most of the works are free for private use only. There are also providers who offer their music not only for private use but also for commercial use free of charge. So the next video is guaranteed to be a success.
In this article, we look at what possibilities there are to get free royalty-free music and what to look out for. Please keep in mind that the rights of use, track numbers, prices, etc. of the providers may theoretically also change in the future. Therefore you always have to be familiar with the terms of use of the respective site when downloading. We assume no liability for our information and its correctness. If you find an error or think we have forgotten a great provider, you are welcome to leave a comment.
Provider for royalty-free music
To make sure that our research here does not sink into chaos, we will first take a look at some providers. In doing so, we focus our attention on whether the offers are really free of charge and also commercially usable.
- TERRASOUND – 50 songs free for private use only (source of music must be mentioned, Like on Facebook or subscription on Youtube required)
- musicfox – 32 songs for commercial and private use free of charge (source reference by link required)
- EVERMUSIC – 50 songs can be used privately free of charge (source of music must be mentioned, Like on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter)
- YouTube Audio Library – an incredible amount of music for commercial and private use (please note the terms of use)
- FRAMETRAXX – 61 songs for commercial and private use free of charge (source given by link, Like on Facebook or subscription on Youtube required)
- ENDETV – private use free of charge (please note the terms of use)
- HARTWIGMEDIA – private use free of charge (please note the terms of use)
- GMO Gemafreie Musik Online – 141 tracks free of charge for private and commercial use (please note the terms of use)
- Vimeo Music Store – Service unfortunately discontinued
- INCOMPETECH – 151 tracks free of charge for private and commercial use (please note the terms of use)
- Audionautix – Songs for commercial (commercial) and private use free of charge (Creative Commons License, link or reference required)
- SOUNDCLOUD – partly free of charge for private and commercial use (please note terms of use)
- CC Mixter – 3778 tracks commercially and privately usable free of charge (please note terms of use)
- FMA Free Music Archive – Tracks partly free of charge for private and commercial use (please note terms of use)
- OPSOUND – partly free of charge for private and commercial use (please note the terms of use – here you have to contact the respective artist)
Terrasound
Terrasound currently ranks number 1 in organic search results on Google. Unfortunately, this offer is only really interesting for private persons, because any commercial use requires a license. For private persons 50 songs are provided, which may be used in Youtube videos. The songs are instrumentals and of very good quality. If you have a company or are self-employed, you have to pay for the use.
- Price: 50 tracks for private persons free of charge
- selection: limited free of charge
- Overview: clearly arranged
In the Terrasound music catalogue you will not only find a much larger selection, but also the current prices. There are different licenses, which have different offers. In our test we looked at the Evolution Trailer, which is available in different price ranges depending on the license. License 1 starts with 65 € incl. VAT and goes up to license 4 with 750 € incl. VAT. At first sight you might think that the different license models are opaque, but as soon as you select a license by dropdown, it will be shown what it is needed for.
Musicfox
musicfox refreshes the eye and also offers free music for commercial purposes for which you don’t need a license. All you have to do is to provide a source reference in the form of a link. Although musicfox makes a great impression and the tracks are also qualitatively fun to listen to, one is still tied up to 32 songs and will have used them up quickly during busy shooting. The offer is of course not altruistic, because the music catalogue is advertised, which has a large selection, but costs money.
- Price: 32 tracks for private persons and companies free of charge
- selection: free of charge very limited
- Overview: very clearly arranged
You have to give musicfox credit for the fact that there are also affordable licenses here, where you don’t have to be a large corporation to be able to afford the expenses. The mini-license starts at 15 € and goes up to 695 € for the Superstar license. Whereby the Superstar license sounds huge, but is actually only used for national and international commercials. The selection is impressively large and the categorization is also very apt.
Evermusic
Evermusic is unfortunately also for private use. You are quite free with your own Facebook page, website and YouTube channel, but as a commercial user there is no royalty-free music here. So if you want to allow Youtube the advertising and earn money with it, then the free selection of Evermusic is out of question. The website is very simple, but also quite clear. At the end of the page it is explained without long searching exactly what you are allowed to use the tracks for and what you have to buy a license for.
- Price: 50 tracks for private persons free of charge
- selection: restricted free of charge
- Overview: clearly arranged
But during our test session we found that the music is exceptionally good and has a lot of atmosphere. If you want to spend some money for quality, you can find all tracks in the Soundnavigator and buy the appropriate license. The cost of the license in the example track “Before The Storm” was between 35 and 750 € (depending on the license model).
YouTube Audio Library
At YouTube you have the possibility to use a wide variety of music for your own videos for quite some time. You are not restricted to private use, but can also use the music for commercial videos. If you expect unprofessional tracks now, you will be amazed. In the powerful sound collection of YouTube you can not only include the music of unknown artists in your videos, but even access currently popular tracks.
- Price: unbelievable choice for license-free use for commercial and private projects
- selection: gigantic
- Overview: extremely clear
To find out which hits you can use, simply click on the “Music Guidelines” tab and you will see what you need to pay attention to. Some works are excluded from use, but many good pieces can be used freely, as long as the author can show ads in the video. In any case, there is a thumbs up for this. The sound collection on YouTube is constantly expanding, so the powerful video portal is a really hot source for new tracks and royalty-free music.
Frametraxx
Frametraxx starts with 61 free songs. This royalty-free music is for commercial and private use. All you have to do is link to the source and post a Like on Facebook or subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you want to say thank you especially, you can also make a donation with Paypal. But be careful everywhere where you can’t set a link. Here the music platform asks for contact and you will receive an offer for – according to FRAMETRAXX – favourable conditions. The music on this page in our audio samples also offers a professional quality and is worth a look.
- Price: 61 tracks free for commercial and private use
- selection: free of charge good
- Overview: excellent
For those who regularly need fresh tracks for their own YouTube channel, Frametraxx offers a YouTube flat. Unfortunately, you cannot see the price for this and have to send a request. Those who use the whole selection but do not need a flatrate can book trackpacks here. These are monthly subscriptions with costs, which give you the possibility to download a certain volume of tracks for free every month. The cheapest package is 49 € per month and gives you 30 soundtracks per year. Excluded is the use for cinema and TV. If you need a little bit more, you can book the biggest package, which costs 100 € per month and gives you 100 free songs per year. The subscriptions have a contract period of 12 months. In the references you can see that even large corporations use the versatile offer of Frametraxx.
EndTV
EndeTV takes some getting used to at first, as a bright green attacks the eye according to our perception, but if you take a closer look at the site you will soon realize that it is very clear. We found great instrumentals with vocals dripping with atmosphere in our listening samples, we really liked the royalty-free music.
- Price: many tracks for private persons free of charge
- selection: free of charge enormous
- Overview: very clearly arranged
At EndeTV there are even many tracks that are exclusively available only from this provider. If you go to prices in the footer, you will get all information about which license causes which costs. At this point we find the many license models a bit confusing, but still described in detail. Another good thing is that with the many possibilities of use, for example company-internal videos or the use for clubs are clearly cheaper than a normal license.
HartwigMedia
At HartwigMedia there is not only an extremely appealing website, but also plenty of royalty-free music for free private use. If you want to use the works commercially in commercial projects, you won’t get killed with a financial club here, but get a cheap license for relatively little money. The online license for commercial use starts at only 1 €. However, the mechanical reproduction is also limited to 5000 units.
- Price: many tracks for private persons free of charge
- selection: free of charge enormous
- Overview: very clear and pleasant
Nevertheless, not only the great web design makes you want more, but also the tracks can be seen and above all heard. We especially liked the Earth Edition – Rivers. The selection is gigantic, but well structured. Due to the many filter keywords you can quickly find the right direction without sinking into the flood of music.
GMO Royalty Free Music Online
GMO Gemafreie Musik Online offers with 141 free tracks a convincing selection. The site is rather discreet in design, but convinces with mood-loaded tracks that really put you in a good mood.
- Price: 141 tracks free for commercial and private use
- selection: free of charge very good
- Overview: clearly arranged
If you need a special data format like .wav or if you don’t have the possibility to name the site as source, there is no way around a license even with GMO. The licenses range from 29-1500 Euro.
Vimeo Music Store
The Vimeo Music Store was a really good contact point for music.Unfortunately the service has been discontinued since November 2016, so we won’t waste any more words here. By the way, Vimeo links to other partners, so we left the link here.
Except..;
Incompetech
Incompetech offers a lot of free music under the Creative Commons license. Now don’t panic about this license, there are no costs here. The music on Incompetech is composed by the publisher himself, Kevin MacLeod. With 151 different tracks he probably spent quite some time on it.
- Price: 151 tracks free of charge for commercial and private use
- selection: free of charge very good
- Overview: clearly arranged
For use, the source must be named, among other things. If you do not want to do this, you can buy a license at an affordable price.
Audionautix
Audionautix is very fair with its terms of use. One can use the works here not only privately but also commercially. You don’t even have to set a link, it is enough to mention the source by name. Positive is not only the license, but also the large selection.
- Price: Tracks free for commercial and private use
- selection: free of charge very good
- Overview: very clearly arranged
What we found annoying is that you don’t get a song list to browse through, but first have to decide on a music genre to get tracks displayed. Otherwise the site gets a lot of praise from us. Also the quality of the tracks is very good. The creator of the site invites you to make a small donation, so that a little coffee for his team will go down and you get a good karma in return, that sounds like a fair deal.
Sound cloud
Soundcloud should probably be familiar to everyone. Here you will not only get something on your ears when browsing privately. There are tracks that are also commercially available for free. If you know how to do it, you will quickly find royalty-free music (Creative Common License).
- Price: very good selection for use in commercial and private projects
- About a choice: huge
- Overview: very clearly arranged
There are different ways to music. On the one hand there are playlists that offer such music, but you can also search for it using a filter. To do so, go to the Soundcloud page and press search. As filter criterion you enter “to use commercially”. Now you have a great selection of tracks. We are thrilled with Soundcloud!
CC mixer
CC Mixter has with 3778 tracks a large selection of free music, you can also use it commercially. However, although the selection is large, the quality in our audio samples is sometimes not intoxicating.
- Price: Tracks free for commercial and private use
- selection: very large
- Overview: clearly arranged
But you have to give CC Mixter credit for the fact that it sometimes has some interesting instrumentals that go away from the mainstream and sound special, so they can be interesting for small intermediate passages in the video.
FMA Free Music Archive
At first glance, the FMA website with its Free Music Archive appears very retro, but offers an enormous selection of music. But you have to be careful, because not every music can be used in videos on YouTube. So that you don’t lose the overview frustrated and see what is royalty-free music, there is a FAQ. (In the Licensing 101 Cheat Sheet – what a tongue twister – the usage is explained exactly)
- Price: 61 tracks free for commercial and private use
- Selection: free good
- Overview: excellent
We were surprised by the good quality of the works. You can definitely come here more often.
Opsound
Also Opsound puts his works under the Creative Commons License. Although the terms of use say that a commercial use is not excluded, especially for low-budget projects, you should contact the artist.
- Price: Tracks partly free for commercial and private use
- Selection: relatively large
- Overview: very confusing
Even though we like the tracks very much and many unknown but great artists offer their works for use, we find it rather counterproductive to contact them beforehand in the workflow. Apart from the simple design, the site is really fun. The navigation until you get to the music could definitely be improved in terms of usability. The one or other song we found rather as noise, but tastes are different, as we know.
Summary
If you run a Youtube channel as a private person and now think, “Yeah all videos are free for me! Most providers who make music available only to private individuals license-free music rule out monetization. This means that if the channel is designed to make money with Youtube at some point, then you should keep your hands off these tracks. If you don’t pursue such goals, you’re really quite free with the huge selection.
If you’re not sure if you want to start off with the channel as a source of money one day, you should just take tracks that you can use commercially. There is enough choice here as well. But also for commercial use there are plenty of sources on the internet. You just have to take enough time to browse the websites and listen to the royalty-free music.
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