Monday, July 22, 2013

Royalty Free Music


Need music for your next project that is Royalty Free and legal to use? Check out Kevin MacLeod’s music athttp://incompetech.com/

Kevin MacLeod provides music he has created for download, to listen to, or to use Royalty free… as in you do not have to pay!  For example, you can put the music on a video you’ve made for YouTube and not have to worry about copyright issues and YouTube pulling your video.  You can use it for a school project, a family video, a business video, a movie you’ve made, a website, basically just about any project you’re creating.  You can even edit the music, if you know how.  If you only need part of a piece of music it is perfectly acceptable to cut, splice, or loop the piece. 

A couple of notes on the site and music before you start though.  Just because it’s free does not mean you can use it without properly attributing the work.  In other words, if you use his music you must put credits on your production.  Fortunately, he makes it very simple. Visit the Music Licenses page on his website for an example of exactly how he would like the credit to appear.    http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/licenses/

Another nice feature of his site is that the site itself is no frills and super easy to use.  I’ll take ease of use over fancy bells and whistles any day.  There are three ways to search his music.  Just click on Royalty Free Music and you’ll go directly to a page with the different ways to search.  My personal favorite is View Collections.  Ok, I took the bells and whistles here and went for the search that has the music in categories and has album covers.

It’s also very easy to preview, or listen to, the music before you decide if want to download a piece.  Beside each piece are buttons for:  play, stop, fast forward, rewind, and download. So, you can listen to a piece before deciding if it’s one you want to download.

There is a wide variety of music to choose from, including Rock, Jazz, Celtic, Soundtracks, and much more.

I hope you enjoy the site and find some great music.
CP