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Disclaimer: Prices are subject to change.
Sound plays a crucial role in setting the tone of a video or film, while also helping to retain audience attention. Prior to the advent of microphones that could record audio, films were silent, and words were displayed on screen between each scene; however, even silent films were accompanied by music, such as an orchestra or piano. This background music helps drive the narrative and lets the viewer know how to feel or what to expect in any given scene. A dramatic fight scene is often accompanied by fast-paced music, whereas a love scene may feature swelling string instruments or soft piano to match the mood. Therefore, choosing the correct piece of audio to fit your scene is essential to successfully and powerfully delivering a message.
The worst thing you can do as a filmmaker is spend time and effort gathering and recording footage, only for it to fall flat due to poor audio choices in post-production. Luckily, there is a plethora of royalty free music solutions to choose from. By utilizing these services, you can ensure that the audio in your film or video is high quality and available to use for commercial purposes.
Artlist.io
One of my favorite royalty free music providers is Artlist.io. This company is a leader in the royalty-free music space, due to their large library of quality content from various independent artists. For unlimited commercial use, their service costs $199 annually. If you only wish to use the music for monetizing social media videos, you can pay for a personal subscription at $120 a year.
Epidemic Sound
Epidemic Sounds offers access to 35,000 full length songs and over 90,000 sound effects. Their streamlined website lets you search by a multitude of filters to narrow down the perfect track for your needs. A personal subscription covering social media channels costs $108 a year and a commercial subscription costs $228, with all rights included.
Soundstripe
Soundstripe is another great subscription-based choice to source royalty-free audio. Their library contains over 7,000 unique tracks, with new music added each week. A personal subscription costs $119 a year and a Pro subscription, which covers commercial use, costs $239 yearly.
Premium Beat
Premium Beat is Shutterstock’s foray into royalty-free music. It is often said, you get what you pay for. This saying holds true regarding Premium Beat’s highly curated collection of music. For a monthly rate of $64.95 you only get access to 5 songs per month, so this option may not be for everyone due to the elevated cost; however, this service is unique in that it offers the ability to purchase individual songs, with standard licenses costing $49 per song and premium licenses costing $199 each.
Storyblocks
Because this subscription service offers stock video within both their basic and unlimited packages – in addition to a large music library – Storyblocks is an all-in-one solution for your content creation needs The basic tier grants access to music and HD footage, while the unlimited tier features additional sound effects, 4K video footage, and motion graphic templates. So, if your project requires any additional media assets on top of audio, Storyblocks will act as a one-stop shop. Per year, the basic tier costs $180 and the unlimited tier costs $260.
Audiio
Audiio is the perfect choice for those seeking flexibility, as they offer both subscription and lifetime purchase options for access to their music library. Lifetime access to Audiio’s music library is $299, unlimited access to their sound effects catalog is $199, and a yearly subscription with access to music and sound effects costs $199. Their site features over 5,000 tracks and their team adds 50-100 songs each week.
