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If you are involved in the production of film or video material, you’ll know what royalty-free music is, and you’ll undoubtedly be eternally grateful that it exists. For those of you who are less aware of what royalty-free music is, or indeed what are its many great uses, let us educate you.
When you are putting together any form of video content, you’ll know you need a musical accompaniment backing up your project. This could come in the form of incidental music, soundtrack, or SFX (sound effects), and sourcing this can cause difficulty.
You might think that one can just take whatever mainstream music is out there and use it without permission. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Perhaps you’ll happily look to legally secure a license for a great song that was a massive hit.
If so, be ready to blow your entire budget for that one track. You should also prepare for the very real possibility that even though you might be willing and able to finance the license needed, the artist who owns the rights to that song just isn’t digging your production.
As for attempting to use non-copyrighted music, well, that’s something of a misnomer. Yes, some music is indeed without copyright, but that’s usually because the copyright that was in place has expired. This typically relates to music that is at least 75 years old and therefore very unlikely to be relevant for modern usage. On top of this, the quality of the recordings themselves may be sub-standard.
What is Royalty-Free Music?
Royalty-Free music is a source of musical output offered by providers who supply a large amount of content to those who subscribe to their service. The music is produced by a wide array of singers, musicians, bands, and DJs and covers a wide range of niches and styles and therefore offers directors, editors, and producers a great deal of material for an inexpensive outlay.
This is a far more practical option when sound tracking your production than attempting to use copyright-protected music, and the royalty-free music market has become hugely popular in recent years.
Those who use the service are exposed to many options when it comes to scoring their projects, which helps them find precisely the right tracks and samples for specific elements of their films or videos.
Indeed, using royalty-free music over the choice of a hit song you heard playing that you liked makes more sense from a creative perspective. Just because a track sounds good doesn’t mean it will fit a specific scene or be the right mood you are trying to convey.
By using a purpose-built service, such as royalty-free music, makes your decision-making more focused and professional.
Not only is this service helping to revolutionize the process from the perspective of the individuals who use it, but it’s also proving a great benefit to those in the music industry who have seen their livelihoods severely affected by a number of factors.
The internet age has dramatically reduced the income musicians and bands can make from the sale of physical stock (records, CDs, etc..). Add to this the fact that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a drastic reduction in money they would have made from concerts and gigs.
Artists that align themselves to a royalty-free music provider can earn a solid income from doing so. They also stand that chance of securing a great deal of exposure when their music is used on projects that could go viral on social media or within films that may end up in front of large audiences.
So, Who Is the Best Provider In the Market?
There are now dozens of good-quality royalty-free music providers, some of which are known for the variety of their work and others because of the quality of the production and sound files.
One provider is, however, far and away ahead of the competition. Artlist is known even by those who may not even be aware of what royalty-free music is and what purpose it serves, such is the reputation of the brand.
Artlist offers a library that is expansive and uses an intuitive interface. The service provided is well priced, and their customer service is in a league of its own. Even a cursory glance at reviews of the service they provide in any number of relevant forums and sites shows just how well received they are as an organization.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that they cover the lion’s share of the market and are constantly evolving and working out new ways to improve their service.
There is a simplicity to the Artlist service that makes it a joy to use. Firstly, when it comes to pricing, that’s as simple as can be. There are three options. Music, SFX, or both. Each is reasonably priced and offers a wealth of services that will cover all your likely needs.
The universal license offered means that you are protected from any issues. In other words, if you want to a track for commercial use, no problem. If your subscription runs out or you cancel it, the content you have downloaded is yours forever. Simple.
The Artlist’s massive catalog of content is well filtered, and finding what you are looking for isn’t a chore, and that can’t be said of the competition. You can split your search against many criteria, be that based on the genre of music or indeed the type of use you need the music for.
New music is added daily, and therefore those who need to score lots of projects will always have additional material to check out. The tracks range from anything from seconds up to as long as 15 minutes, which makes matching the music to your videos an effortless task.
