What do you need to create the perfect YouTube content? The answer, of course, is a good YouTube soundtrack! But what does good even mean? After all, not all royalty-free music is created equal, so how can you be sure that your soundtrack will compliment your video to perfection? In this guide on a royalty-free music download, we’ll discuss some of the best options available online and how to use them in the most effective way possible.
Choose the Right Genre
When it comes to choosing music, you want to choose something that suits your channel and vibe. There are plenty of different genres to consider, including rock, electronic, rap/hip-hop, acoustic and more. Even if you’re unsure what type of music you like best yet (the world is your oyster), there are ways to figure out which genre will work best for your channel.
For example, you could listen to many songs in one particular genre while vlogging or creating other content on your channel. As long as they have rights-cleared for commercial use, see how well they work. Or, look through other channels in your niche and try to find common threads between their music selections. Once you know which artists seem popular among other channels in your space, you can search their catalogs to find similar tracks.
Choosing the Right Instrumental
Without a doubt, choosing a soundtrack is a huge part of your video’s production value. The wrong instrumental can be distracting or even turn off viewers from watching your content. On the other hand, the right instrumental can help viewers keep their attention on you—or forget they’re listening to music at all.
A few questions to ask yourself when choosing a soundtrack: Is there a balance between short and long-term entertainment? Does it compliment my brand? Does it accurately portray my personality? Will people be able to listen without getting distracted by thoughts like I should call my dad back or how many calories are in an Oreo cookie? You get the idea.
Use these questions as general guidelines; if they don’t apply directly to your brand, feel free to throw out everything but question three (it doesn’t matter how catchy something is if nobody listens). These rules will serve as good starting points in most cases.
Choose the Right Length
If you’re building a brand from scratch or you’re not sure whether your channel will take off, it’s a good idea to download free royalty-free music. Most of these sites allow you to download as much as you want and use them however you want. Therefore, it is essential to choose a length that suits your content. For instance, if you have a vlogging channel where all your videos are less than 3 minutes long, choosing 10-second loops might be better than 30-second clips.
Keep in mind that shorter audio files may end up sounding like background noise (and even distracting) on longer videos; on the other hand, if someone watches all 60 seconds of one clip, they can hear it loop around again. It’s up to you!
Tips on Finding Great Royalty Free Music for Videos
When it comes to picking music for your videos, free and royalty-free music tracks can be a great alternative to regular songs that cost money. However, these tracks often come with legal restrictions you need to keep in mind when choosing them. Here are some tips on how to find great royalty-free music for videos.
1. Find royalty-free music available under Creative Commons licenses, which makes content more easily accessible by releasing it under different types of licenses. For videos, only one of these licenses will make sure no copyright issues will arise during usage. By searching through our website, you can easily find specific music based on genre, name of songwriter/artist/album/etc., length of track, duration required by your video, and more.
2. Choose free music from our site that can be used in videos, podcasts, etc. While some of these tracks come with legal limitations on use, they make it easy to narrow down your search based on genre, length of track, mood/theme of the track, etc. There are plenty of premium content available if you’re willing to pay a small fee. Some premium content is released under Creative Commons licenses as well, so check details before using it in your video)
3. Use remixing services that provide access to an online library full of pre-existing remixes people have created based on popular songs or artists. You can use these for personal or commercial purposes without worrying about copyright issues.