How a Royalty Free Music Library Can Help Your Web Audio

A royalty free music library can be that extra special ingredient you can use to spice up bland voice tracks. Such music is typically instrumental in nature (no vocals), and is available in a wide variety of music styles.

What is royalty free music?

Also known as "buy out production music", "a stock music library" and "a production music library", this music is typically designed to be used underneath a voice track in commercials, multimedia projects and other presentations.

On the internet you might use royalty free music under your voice in your marketing messages, as musical accompaniment to your site, or as a background track under a Flash presentation.

Royalty free background music clips are 'buy out' purchases which means you only need to pay once and can use the music clips as many times in your productions as you wish.

Why you can't use tracks from your favorite CD's

You cannot legally use music from any of your favorite musical artists without paying a license fee to the record company that produced the recording. Any time you hear a recognizable song being used in a "public" setting such as on the radio, on TV, at a fashion show, or on the internet, the artist and/or record company is receiving a royalty of payment for that privilege.

If you're hoping to use music on your web site, you'll probably want to avoid paying those high licensing fees. You'll also want to avoid getting sued by any record companies or artists for using their music without permission.

Music from a royalty free music library lets you avoid any legal hassles for one low cost.

How Much Royalty Free Music Costs

The price you pay for royalty free music depends on what you're buying and where you buy it.

For a short sound "loop" you might only pay $5 US. For a single music track, you might invest up to $30 US. For a complete music library, royalty free music is available for $97 US to several hundreds of dollars.

Recommended Sources for Royalty Free Music

You can always search the internet for "royalty free music" or "music library royalty free" and get several hundred listings to choose from. Here are some of the more reliable and cost-effective sources I've found and personally used:

Front and Back Music

Most of the music you hear on WebAudioAdvisor.com comes from Front and Back Music.

FrontandBackMusic.com features 63 "lead in" music tracks and 63 matching "lead out" music tracks within six categories: Fast, High Tech, Medium Corporate, Suspense, Rock Lead Guitar, and Soft Acoustic. You can hear some samples on the main page, but have to purchase in order to get all the tracks.

Along with the music tracks, you receive easy-to-use mixing software (Windows-based). With the software, you can easily mix together a "lead in" music track with your voice track and with a "lead out" music track to create a complete, professional recording. The software also has an option to save your final mix in a format compatible for uploading to AudioGenerator.com!

Overall Impression: Good selection of music and cool mixing software make this a great solution for spicing up bland voice tracks. HIGHLY recommended.

Price: $97 (one time fee)

Website: www.frontandbackmusic.com

Crank City Music

CrankCity.com features both individual MP3 tracks and complete royalty free music library collections in 30 different categories. Individual MP3 tracks are only available in full-length versions. CD collections offer alternate versions and various track lengths.

In addition to traditional categories like "Rock and Blues", "Action and Sports", and "Techno and Dance", Crank City also features "Children's", "Show tunes", "Country" and "Military and Patriotic" music categories. Samples of all music is available on their site in both Low Resolution and High Resolution format.

Overall Impression: Widest variety of music styles available on any site so far. Unfortunate that individual tracks are only available in full-length versions.

Prices: Individual full-length MP3 tracks for $27.50 each. CD collections from $99 to $499.

Website: www.crankcity.com

Opuzz.com

Opuzz features over 200 different instrumental tracks in 10 sec, 30 sec, 60 sec, and 120 sec lengths, along with transitions, alternate mixes, and short tracks for "loops". Almost every track is available in at least nine (9) different lengths and mixes, giving you extreme flexibility for your audio productions.

You can listen to every music selection (and every length) on their site. However, I especially like that you can download the entire Opuzz music library so you can listen to samples all of their blues, classical, pop, rock, latin, house, electronic, and other music without having to be connected to the internet.

Overall Impression: Great variety of music with excellent variety of length and format. Very user friendly site. Reasonably priced selections.

Prices: Opuzz prices range from $4.99 for a 10 second track to $29.99 for a 120 second track, to $59 for a "bundle" of 50 loops. High quality MP3 and WAV formats.

Visit Opuzz and get 5 FREE music tracks with no obligation!

WickedWavs.com

WickedWavs features royalty free music, sounds & voice for multimedia. They feature short identity markers ("idents"), short music loops, longer music tracks, sound effects, soundscapes, and even voice cues ("Welcome!" "Music!" "News!" and more).

You can listen to every music selection (and every length) on their site using the big "Play" buttons next to each listing.

Overall Impression: Great variety of electronic and piano music with a wide variety of lengths. Very user friendly site. Reasonably priced selections.

Prices: WickedWavs prices range from $5.00 for "idents" to $15.00 for soundscapes. Voice cues cost $50.00. High quality MP3 files.

Website: www.wickedwavs.com

Royalty-Free.tv

Royalty-Free.tv is based in the UK and features production music to use in broadcasting, web or multimedia applications. You can search by genre, instrument, mood, or tempo, hear your selections, and download the MP3 you choose.

The site features over 1000 royalty free music tracks available instantly. All tracks are available for audition, using real-time audio streaming (Windows Media and Real formats). Final output is in MP3 format.

Overall Impression: Great variety of music with a wide variety of lengths. Many tracks available as short "stingers", slightly longer "commercial cuts", and even longer "main themes".

Prices: Royalty-Free.tv prices range from $17.50 for "Sting sets" to $22.50 for commercial cuts, to $29.50 for main themes. High quality MP3 files.

Website: www.royalty-free.tv