Royalty Free Music Library : How to Recognize Quality  

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Royalty Free Music Library : How to Recognize Quality  

Article by Tng

Due to copyright law, it is illegal to use a piece of music in a commercial production without securing the rights from the creator. Fortunately for media producers and musicians/composers alike, most people are aware of these legal limitations. Also fortunately, many websites offer royalty free music to download with the rights to use this music commercially, resulting in compensated creators, and producers who can breathe easily when releasing their product.

Recognizing that one needs royalty free music, however, is only the first step. The next step is figuring out where to find great tracks. Hundreds of companies and websites offer royalty free music. Being able to recognize the following qualities in a royalty free music library will make your decision of where to license music much more efficient and less confusing. The four main attributes of a quality royalty free music library are category structure, musical quality, pricing, and edits.

Category Structure:

Finding the “right” music for a media production is not an easy task, especially because often a user does not know exactly what they need. So, a music library must have not only strict categories for royalty free Instrumental music, World, Rock, Electronica, Orchestral, and Soundtrack etc. plus all the subcategories for each of these genres, but also categories based on descriptive words. In addition to music genres, a quality music library will organize tracks based on mood (energetic, mellow, etc.) and instrument (guitar, piano, etc). Do not go with a library that only lists genre or you will be wasting tons of time. You might need a “mellow” but “uplifting” pop rock track and do not need to ruin the afternoon clicking through hundreds of heavy metal tracks irrelevant to your needs.

Musical Quality:

Royalty free music libraries are notorious for having “muzak” type tracks in their offerings. These are tracks that are cheesy, too digital sounding, lack original and fresh melodies, and are just plain boring pieces of music. Many composers only write music for royalty free libraries, which is an admirable undertaking, but in the effort they lose all inspiration and churn out bad music. Seek libraries that host inspired tracks, fresh emotive music, music made by musicians with passion. As a human being, you will know this superior type of music when you hear it. If 1 out of every 5 tracks on a site is bad and full of elevator quality royalty free Christmas music, then go somewhere else. Related to this, make sure the library you choose does not accept uploads from all users, for such sites have loads of amateur poorly recorded, uninspired, and badly produced music

Pricing:

In the world of royalty free music, cheap is not necessarily good. Like computers, cars, power tools, etc. quality of production music is often more important than price. Music is an incredibly important part of media productions and the right track can make a production sing, while a poor track can destroy it. Some sites offer tracks with “micro” payments such as – per track. These sites tend to host musical garbage and many professional musicians and composers will not sell through them because they realize their music is of a higher value. Today, somewhere between and is a fair price for a professionally produced, inspired piece of excellent royalty free classical music. If you are paying anything less, then either you have found a fantastic deal, or you may be purchasing the license to use something that 1,000 other people have already used.

Edits:

A well planned library not only offers royalty free music tracks, but also offers 1 minute, 30 second, 15 second, and 5 second edits of that track called an “edit set.” By offering different length versions of a track, a library gives their uses the most flexibility in dropping the music into their project. Often, too, each of these edits will be royalty free music loops, which are seamlessly loopable audio clips that can be stretched out in time to fit a particular scene. If a library only offers full-length tracks, then they and their contributors and not taking the time to optimally prepare the music for your use. Find instead,a site that offers full tracks, edits of varying lengths, and music loops.

By recognizing a quality royalty free music library through its organization, musicality, pricing, and edit offerings you will save both time and money. You deserve this, your productions deserve this, and your audience deserves this.

About the Author

Adam A. Johnson is a composer and sound designer who owns and operates the SFXsource.com Sound Effects and Royalty Free Music Library and music services company Architect of Sound™

Using music in a commercial production means that you need to either buy the rights to the music or find a website where you can download royalty free music. Besides finding a whole piece of music, with a specific length, royalty free music loops are sometimes a better option. For example if you have a loop of royalty free classical music, you can decide the length of your commercial and then cut the loop to the fit the right size.

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