5 Incredible Sources For Music In Your Video Production
BEAUTIFUL COMPOSITION, GORGEOUS CINEMATOGRAPHY, A PERFECT STORY. THESE ARE ALL NOTHING IF THE AUDIO QUALITY IS POOR AND MADE EVEN WORSE BY THE WRONG CHOICE IN MUSIC. NOTHING WILL DISTRACT AN AUDIENCE MORE FROM YOUR KEY MESSAGING THAN THIS.
Music has been used since the beginning of film history. Yes, even during the Silent Film Era, theatres would have live musicians or an old record phonograph play music to accompany the film.
Some of the most memorable music in the past 100 years has made a cultural impact because of its tie-in with motion picture. From the instrumental scores of John Williams (Jaws, Star Wars) to the pop-song soundtracks from films such as the Graduate or Garden State, music sets the emotional backdrop for the audience.
So how does this relate to video production at Cineflair? When we go to produce a video for our clients, we don’t just think about the image alone but how the audio will add to the key message and emotion of our client’s topic.
Music choice is something we like to consider at the beginning of a production as it can take time to find the best music for a piece. Taking care in pre-production to find a song with our client’s input always helps to ensure the goals for the video are achieved.
Although it would be great to have an original score or popular song, it’s not always practical for time and budget due to many factors such as licensing fees. Thankfully, there are some great resources out there for filmmakers to add just the right music for the piece they are creating.
Below are a few of our favourite music sources that offer affordable licenses for corporate video productions. Browse by genre, mood, and artist and you can narrow down what sort of music you are looking for.
1. Musicbed
Musicbed is a full-service licensing platform that provides a highly-curated selection of songs to filmmakers for use in media projects.
Making Music More Accessible from Musicbed on Vimeo.
2. Marmoset
They offer both a large library of pre-recorded music for filmmakers to license and can offer original composition for your project on a quote basis.
Marmoset Reel // 2016 from marmoset on Vimeo.
3. Art-List
Similar to Musicbed and Marmoset in quality and abundance of music selection, Art-List.io is unique in that it allows filmmakers to pay for an annual subscription to cover all licensing for as much music you may want,making the process simple to choose any music you want for one flat rate.
Art-list - Inspiring Music For Your Films from Art-list.io on Vimeo.
4. Premium Beat
Offers a curated library of royalty free music at very well priced licensing fees. Premium Beat offers tracks that are easily looped so a section of a song can be extended or repeated entirely with ease.
Premium Beat also has a really great blog that goes beyond music and gives great information on all areas of video production.
Lastly there is composer Kevin MacLeod's collection of royalty-free music that he offers for free under a creative commons license. All that he asks in return is an attribution on your project and you may use his music without any fees, or pay an non-attribution fee.
There are many more music licensing services coming to market everyday. Let us know in the comments which are some of your favourites.