(royalty) free music

Who doesn't need it? A soundtrack for a commercial, a soundbite here, a musical interlude to spice up a clip... When I just started out in this business, I would simply pick a nice tune from my extensive music collection, add it as a soundtrack and everyone was happy... I never imagined I had to pay copyrights for these 3 minute budget productions I was making. But then a client of mine was approached by a copyright organization about the music I used for a video I produced for them.

It just happened to be that I 'composed' it myself in Garageband but it was a warning nonetheless.

Lately I've pretty much exhausted all the Garageband tunes and was looking for something else. A friend and colleague of mine pointed me to this online library where you can find a lot of great tunes, many of which you can use for commercial purposes, as long as you credit the makers. With over 90.000 tunes available -and growing- there must be something for every clip and every mood. Some of them sound more professional than others but if you take the time to explore, this is a very worthwhile place for finding royalty free music for your videos.