Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I'm looking for any website or company that provides completely royalty free music for very cheap, without the need to mention the performer in the footage (that has a name that escapes me now). So far a friend recommended me footagefirm.com, where they have a few collections that you only have to pay shipping for, so each disc is about $9 and has about ten tracks. I bought three of them mostly to use in wedding videos, but they are nothing special, they're slightly better than elevator music, although a few of them are decent. They do have more collections but at over $100 per disc, so no thanks.

So can somebody recommend royalty free music at accessible prices? I've googled royalty free music and came up with a few but they're either too expensive or too lame.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Well you can try royaltyfreemusic.com but from what you describe, it just may not exist i.e. you want high quality music with no royalties for very cheap. Like many things, you get what you pay for.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

royaltyfreemusic.com charges $120 for a CD with "wedding music" and it's elevator music. If it was really good music I could justify paying that much, but this sounds like some guy made it with a fancy keyboard, or maybe with just a music software.

Has anybody tried to get licensing rights for any kind of song that you would have in your CD collection? Like if I wanted to get permission to use a James Ingram song or another ballad from a similar artist, what would I have to do, and how much would I have to pay to use it on a wedding video?

Also, has anybody used music composing software such as Sony Acid loops, where you don't need to know music to create it? I'm thinking that as an alternative because so far most of the royalty free music I've heard is too simple and boring, and terribly expensive.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I don't know what music they have but look for this to grow and become huge ..

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...sic-store.html

Cheers.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Check out the SmartSounds library ( smartsounds.com ). You can audition tracks online and their SonicFire PRo software is a great tool for editing, timing, and remixing their tracks. You can purchase tracks individually online and they are always having special deals from their CD collection ... like right now they have several "6-packs" of 6 disks of 10 tracks or so each for $99.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Thanks Allan and Steve, I'll listen to those later tonight after I'm done with my PJ20 CD :)

Alternatively, has anybody tried Acid Music Studio 8 with all those loop collections? Can you make decent songs with those loops if you are not a musician, or can you just make electronica? The software is about $70 and so are the loops, so it could pay off in the long run. However I never used it so I don't know if it takes too long to make a song, but if it's not too hard and you can do something nice then you can use it as much as you want and not worry about any copyright issues. Is anybody using this?

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

The problem with it is that they either have free songs that require crediting the artist, or they charge you $98 per song. I'm not going to charge my client $98 for using one of these songs, and surely I'm not going to sacrifice that amount from my money. If they want that store to be successful they have to do different licensing for different projects. $98 may be nothing in the production of a big budget movie, it may be small change in the production of a TV show, but it's a lot of money for a wedding videographer.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Actually it's smartsound.com and it's not bad, but I'm a little confused because the sample you can hear on each song lasts about 30 seconds. Is that just the sample or are those tracks just 30 seconds long? I would think not, but it doesn't clarify that anywhere.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Sebastian, all the SS tracks are different lengths, it's worthwhile doing their on line instructional programs so as to get a good grounding and not get a bad impression from the start. My experience tells me, one marketing problem I think they suffer slightly from is having 2 names .. Smartsound AND Sonicfire Pro .. SS is the library and SF pro is their program.

We use Sonicfire Pro 5, it's excellent with patented technology, SS use Hollywood studio musos and you can get your music in 8 track form to custom tailor it as required.

But all the online music companies started slow gradually ironing out the bugs and building their libraries. It was too much for some, even Sony had strife licensing some patented technology from Smartsound. Sony have now discontinued their libraries.

IMO Vimeo will also go through the hoops to get their loops.

Cheers.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Sorry for the typo in the name. As Allan said, the actual cuts you purchase are of varying lengths but the raw cut is only the starting point. They're kind of like loops in some respects. Loops are usually just one instrument - bass guitar, ride cymbal, etc - and last just a bar or two. You repeat them in the tracks to build up to length and prepare multiple tracks with the various instrumentation you're going to mix to assemble the final composition. In contrast, Smartsounds cuts are both longer than loops and fully instrumented but they're still designed to be raw material to be used with the SonicFire software to produce the final track rather than just being dropped into your project 'as-is.' When you drop the cut into the track in SonicFire, the length that it initially goes in at is just the starting point. Then you adjust it to the length you need it to be and as you do so, the software actually 're-composes' the cut according to coding built into the original clip so the resulting cut is musically sound. Each cut has a number of mixes coded into it so you can have, say, a cut that you've adjusted to a length of 1min, 37sec, 16frames start with 15 seconds of a full orchestral mix, then duck down in level and instrumentation to a mix appropriate to sit behind voice-over for 30 seconds, then come back up to full intensity but with brass emphasized for the next 22 seconds and a cymbal hit added at 12 seconds, 6 frames into that segment to coincide with an event on the screen, etc etc etc

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

So basically the tracks are the length that you hear in the sample on their website, but then you have to use their software to extend the same thing, only changing some things so it doesn't sound like a loop? The songs seem to be higher quality -musically speaking- than the ones I got in those Footage Firm discs, but still paying $30 for a song and then having to spend more time working on it doesn't seem like what I need. Besides, their songs are so short that if I have to repeat those over and over, even with variations in instruments, it would still be too repetitive. If I have to work on creating something I'd rather do it with Sony Acid, where I would have more freedom, but still it seems like I would spend too much time with it. I just would like to find royalty free versions of nice love songs that are about 4-5 minutes long and not $100 per song like some places.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Okay, so you have a love song that runs 3:32. But when you edit the scene that you'll you want to use it with, the strongest images with the cuts in the perfect places for the pacing and mood you want to obtain results in a scene that is 00:02:47:24. What do you do now? Recut the picture? Cut off the song short of its end? What? The advantage of the smartsound system is you can work the Hollywood way, where music is composed to picture after picture lock.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I see your point, but the Hollywood way is a real life band, or a composer working from a large collection of loops that spends his whole day working on that. I'm not saying that smartsound.com is not useful, but it's not what I'm looking for right now. I would prefer to spend my time editing video and doing marketing rather than re-editing canned music.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

That's my point. You've edited your video and when you look at the timeline the segment runs 00:03:37:15. You've selected My Love Song as the smartsounds clip you want to use. When you drop it into the timeline, you tell SonicFire, either the standalone software or the add-in for your video editor, that you want it to run 00:03:37:15. (It speaks timecode.) The software automatically adjusts it to the length you've specified AND simultaneously rearranges the phrases within the song so it has a musically proper beginning, middle, and end within exactly that duration. No further editing required unless you want to remix. Took me longer to type this reply than it does to do it.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Oh OK, now it makes more sense. I might give it a try.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Sebastian, yep it's great, but look up and run the tutorials .. some folk wade straight into it and blerk!

With the increasing competition I don't think it'll be long before SS start up some new features, like you choose the music, they finish your soundtrack .. and then you let them do everything while you go off to the beach. Can't be all bad :)

Cheers.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I saw the tutorial they posted on YouTube, and it's a pretty neat system, but their selection, at least for wedding videographers, is not that great. I downloaded the software, which has the Express Track module for free, and from there you can search their library and it downloads previews. I searched for two words, one at a time, "love" and "romantic". For both the results were not that many, and the songs were far from what I would like to put on a wedding video, at least most of them. Some seem straight out of a porn movie. Others are better but still none are the typical love song you see in a wedding video when you search on YouTube, or on videographer's websites.

Searching their express track web version there seem to be a little more content, but still it's not that many, especially when you count only the multi-layer songs to do mood mapping. Still I might buy a song or two at some point since apparently you can use the Express Track to adjust the length and mood mapping and export it from there to a file. I wouldn't use it if I had to buy the software.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Keep your eye open for SmartSound's deals. Every once in a while they offer the software for free.if you buy a couple of CDs at the same time.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I have picked up Wedding Music from Studio 1 Productions. I think it is very good and the price is great, only $29.95 for the disk. They have other styles of music too, which sounds good on line.

For me the price is right and it sounds great.
Here is their URL Royalty Free Music -MusicElements from Studio 1 Productions
Rob

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Thanks, Rob. They have some interesting stuff but the wedding volume is mostly classical stuff that you would use as a wedding DJ, such as Ave Maria, Here Comes The Bride, etc, but not of much use for a romantic video or intro video.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

You might want to look into triplescoopmusic.com. Good selection of real musicians, real songs, and reasonable pricing. You can purchase just the songs you want to use instead of buying a whole CD of mostly "elevator" style music with just one or two good tracks on it.

Been happy with switching to using Triple Scoop for all our wedding productions.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

$60 per song is not excessive but still rather expensive. For a $1000 wedding you're giving away 6% just for one song. If it's a $2000 wedding maybe, but then for that price you'd probably be expected to use more than one song, and it can pile up quick. These services should really do their pricing according to who is going to use them, because $60 for an indie movie that is going to make a few million dollars is nothing, but for a $1000 it's a lot.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Can't you amortize that $60 over several weddings by using the song in more than one of them? Don't know anything about Triple Scoop's licenses but many buyout libraries allow to use the cut in as many productions as you want for the one-time license fee.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I've found some good tracks here audiojungle.net

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I would like to revise my opinion on smartsound.com. While searching for wedding music using their software doesn't bring great results, searching by category on their website does. At this page:

Royalty Free Romantic Music

there are some very good songs to use in wedding videos. The only complaint I have is that all of them seem to be just instrumental. I would love to see a nice typical ballad there, but still, I'll be using it often.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Sebastian,

I'm glad to see you were able to find what you were looking for. Here are some other places you might look for romantic songs with vocals.

This album has some stuff you might like:
Royalty Free Music Album - Pandemic

This page has all of our albums with vocals:
Royalty Free Music with Vocals / Lyrics

This song might work well:
Royalty Free Music Track - Stars Shine Bright - Brady Harris

Thanks to everyone for helping Sebastian figure out what a great tool Smart Sound Music is. We are constantly working to get the message out the way you guys have here. We just put up a new front page that we think might help. Let us know what you think.

Craig Griffiths
Internet Marketing Manager
SmartSound Software, Inc.
Craig@SmartSound.com

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Hey Craig, welcome to the forum :)

So .. do you like my ideas back in post 16?

Expanding on those, we mail you ALL the footage, you chop it together get it approved, you select the music, get that approved then you score it .. sounds good to me :)

Cheers.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Hi Sebastian,

Perhaps http://=http://www.JewelBeat.com]Jew...n music clips.. No need for credit, $0.99, over 35,000 track selection, license to your name. May fit your projects.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

The best I could find so far, in quality of music, is Audiosocket. It's the first royalty free music service that has a ton of music I would actually like to add to my private listening collection. Thousands of great tracks. I think they're still getting the pricing figured out for smaller videographers, but you can request an account and get access to their player, which has an amazing selection.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Another way is to buy a music rights licence, this will allow you to use any piece of music in your wedding video. You get a hologram sticker to put on the DVD cover which is the licence. It is very cheap, I have used them several times and it saves you trawling through countless Royalty Free music sites.. Will try to find a URL, it is on my other system at the moment.

Here we go, this is the URL

http://www.prsformusic.com/users/rec...cence(LM).aspx

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

That depends on what country you are in. There is no such service available in the US, for example.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Not sure about what is available in the US, hopefully it will make someone's music choice easier here in the UK

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

I just got 200 songs from Popular Music Library For Photographers And Videographers - Songfreedom.com for $400. That is cheap! Just sign up for the year program and get 50% off to total $400 and use the promo code DR

That is only $2 a song and license is perpetual and the tracks are top notch.

I also use KillerTracks.com but it cost $200 a track, but when working with corporate clients they will pay for it. The music is awesome and cheap when dealing with corporate clients.

See my video and tell me what you think of the song:

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Hi Guys

Smartsound is still the most convenient, especially when you need to slot an exact length track into a clip. I still find that the older disk libraries work better for me than the multitrack ones (and they are cheaper too) For weddings you can often get away with around 6 libraries and that covers most bridal preps and other areas when background music is needed.

Remember you can also use the same track for multiple weddings..it might sound boring to you since you have used the same track on the last 3 weddings but remember the brides are unlikely to have heard each other's tracks..I tend to gravitate between "Love Stories" and "Romance and Memories" more often than not!!!

Chris

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Another great site with tons of good music is jewelbeat.com Everything is just 1$ and it sound great.

Re: Royalty free music services to recommend?
 

Chris,

Thanks for the recommendation. We are interested in knowing why you like the older, single layer music better.

For Sebastian and everyone else we have been posting articles in our blog that we are hoping will help users find music for specific project types and genres. Here is the one for Wedding Videos:
Royalty Free Music for Wedding Videos - Royalty Free Music News

Other production types:
Production Types - Royalty Free Music News

And some for genres:
Musical Genre - Royalty Free Music News

Please let us know if you find this helpful, or if you have any other ideas that will make it easier for you to find the right SmartSound music for your project.

Craig Griffiths
Internet Marketing Manager
SmartSound Software, Inc.
Craig@SmartSound.com