YouTube is already using, like Twitch, on Facebook, it’s only a matter of weeks. What are we talking about? Royalty-free music for streamers. As much as it makes our videos and streams colorful, we can only make this with legal music. Of course, there are some circumstances, when you start music in the stream, but with the music recognition algorithms, and with the development of the platforms, it’s a matter of time that some support will ban our stream, at least disable music.
You have two options. The first one is you are using fully legal (Public Domain, Royalty Free, Creative Commons) musics. On the second one, you subscribe to one of the music publishers or music creators’ channels, like Monstercat or Epidemic Sound.
How to play music on stream or add to videos?
Basically, none of the platforms allow to play and use of non-legal music. YouTube has the most developed system, for that. It instantly blocks those videos, whereas a little non-legal music is included. You can trick and try to add as much as 6-7 seconds of this music, pitch up the voice, etc., but the fact is given, it’s still unauthorized use.
Facebook and Twitch are going this same road, under the pressure of the biggest music publishers. Therefore you need to use legal music or purchase/rent the license from the origin.
Completely legal, so if the music is falling under the Public Domain Dedication/No Rights Reserved (CC0) or Royalty-Free license, you shouldn’t worry about anything, you can use them freely. You don’t need to name the creator of the music or the name (but probably strongly advised).
The other one is the free license, which you can use, which is under Creative Commons. This situation is a little more complicated than before, most of the time you should name the creator and the name of the music, in the description, with some links too. You can read more about the Creative Commons license.
If you decide, that the freely available kinds of music are not enough for you (the best ones are mostly overused) then you can subscribe to one of the publisher’s websites, then you can use it anywhere, in videos and streams. They will allow after you connect your account or specify your channel.
In the end, you can purchase the whole music license, where you obtain the music from the creator. This situation is especially worth doing for intros, or if you want to use it in bigger advertisement campaigns.
Best websites, where you can find royalty-free musics
There are many websites, where are available, free usable music, which is good, but there is one problem with these. Usually, these kinds of music are tritely and made with templates, and if you finally find a good one, then probably it’s in more than hundreds of videos. Enough if we only mention Alan Walker – Spectre, which is the hymn of the tutorials and unboxing videos.
We would like to share the individual’s music too, which is offered for streamers and video creators. If you are making music or you have a friend who’s into it, not to mention that you want to share it, then don’t keep it yourself. The submitted pieces of music will appear at the following.
Smaller, direct creators
Do you want to publish your music in this post? Then please, comment or write an email through the contact page.
Frequence – YouTube Channel
Right now, you have more than 300 choices from sounds, which you can use if you place the video link in your description. Mostly instrumental house and trap music you will find, but there are some with vocals too.
SoundCloud – Freely available music
Soundcloud is here for more than several years, and it is the biggest music platform, focusing on music creation, where everybody can share their composition. In recent years there were some ups and downs, but fortunately, raised more than $75M, and right now not in danger, but acquire more and more music makers. After a little search, we can find many individual hidden gems. If you open the music, it will appear its license too, then you will know if it’s usable. Many people include in the name of songs the “Creative Commons”, “Royalty-Free” or just simply the “Free” indicator, so you can search for that too.
Here is some of them HelpTechYou found:
- https://soundcloud.com/argofox/jesse-warren-miles-above-you
- https://soundcloud.com/ikson/waves-free-download-1
- https://soundcloud.com/scottholmesmusic/epic-cinematic-free-creative-commons-license-at-scottholmesmusiccom
- https://soundcloud.com/makai-symphony/dragon-castle
- https://soundcloud.com/user-983799952/sets/creative-commons
NoCopyrightSounds
Here you will find most of the legally available sounds. Many music, from many categories, we surely assort from the repertoire, only job we have is to mark the creator in our video description. You can download the music from directly the website, with good quality.
Unminus
A collection website describes itself as like Unsplash from royalty-free pictures. More than hundreds of soundtracks, which you can use without a label of the origin (but again it’s strongly advised). Especially instrumental music, and background music of videos, will be there on the site.
Artlist
The kinds of music that you will find here, most used by Nike, Netflix, and Google, so you should find your favorite melody too. Along with soundtracks, there are some sound effects too. Besides of the free, legal music you can subscribe to the Artlist service, then the whole music library will be available and you can use them without credit.
Jamendo
This website is about legal pieces of music too, from many categories, and you can sort more than 240.000 soundtracks. There is a subscription too.
Free Stock Music
The website contains more than 2000 music. The brand has been present on the market for a long time, we can search by category or mood too.
Beatpick
Beatpick is on the market a long time ago. The more than 30.000 soundtrack is from blues to punk, you will find many genres. Before uploading the video to YouTube or other video-sharing platforms, double-check if it’s not under copyright.
Free Music Archive
You can sort by genre, length, or by license too on this site. You will find mostly instrumental music too.
Additional sites
- https://legismusic.com/royalty-free-music/
- https://www.hooksounds.com/
- https://www.amazingmusictracks.com/
- http://dig.ccmixter.org/
- https://www.premiumbeat.com/
- https://www.soundstripe.com/
- https://selectmusiclibrary.com/
- https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/
- http://www.beatcan.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/teknoaxe
- https://audionautix.com/
Platform integrated music libraries
On YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, you will find, after upload, many royalty-free soundtracks, and you can add them easily to your video. YouTube also created a channel especially for this called Audio Library. On Facebook, Sounds Collection gives the same opportunity, with more than 7000 music and 1000 sound effects. Of course, these pieces are only available on the platform. So if you want to share a video with music from YouTube Audio Library, on Facebook, keep in mind, it probably will be blocked or removed.
Best music subscriptions for content creators
We already discussed one-two music subscriptions, because most of them contain Royalty-Free pieces of music too. But next, coming to some platforms, where after a few dollars subscription, you can use more premium soundtracks, without any concern and give a mark to the creator.
Monstercat Gold
Likely, you already knew about the Monstercat YouTube channel. The publishing company mainly for electronic soundtracks, and with the Gold subscription you can use all of them for free, but not limited to social media platforms.
Epidemic Sound
Epidemic Sound, as like Monstercat, it started with only one channel, by now more than 10 channel is available for many genres. Mainly pop, and background music. With the subscription, again, you can use freely the whole library.
Envato Elements
For this choice, we going into a new path from the standard music publishers. While the other ones are only for music, this platform is about everything, including photos, graphic elements, stock footage, and so on. Moreover, more than 50.000 soundtracks and 400.000 sound effects are downloadable from the website. If you are not only into music but to some effects to your videos, this should be a good choice.
Icons8
As the platform mentioned above, this one is more than a soundtrack website. You will find here icons, vectors, and photos too. Mainly background music is on the plate.
Share your soundtracks!
Did you make some soundtrack? There are one or two pieces, that you can share with the audience. Then contact me via email or Facebook chat, and let’s add to this article.
