Free Audio for Commercial Use

Music is forever - or so they say. But, there’s definitely some truth in this statement. While some forms of art are lost and forgotten, music is something that has been accompanying people for thousands of years without losing its momentum.

Tutorial videos can sound awkward without a background track, same goes for promo videos, game menus, etc. I wouldn’t say that music is critical, but it certainly adds up to the overall impression.

If you are in search of a pretty tune for your video or maybe even an app or a game, we are going to enlist some websites with free audio for commercial use in this article. The kind of websites you will most definitely bookmark.

Please be mindful that there are different types of licences for music tracks. Each website on the list has a section explaining their license policy. Some songs are distributed under the royalty free kind of license while others are protected by more strict types of licensing. So, if you do not want a task force unit to be smashing your office windows for copyright infringement, study the licence info thoroughly :)

• ccMixter

  http://dig.ccmixter.org/

  

  This website should be the one to visit first if you are looking for quality free music for your videos, vlogs, etc. Tag search is pretty awesome out here, it contains a vast amount of tags grouped into three main categories: genres, instrument and style. Under each category, there are about a couple of dozens of tags to browse.

  Another great feature is the music player that keeps working on any site page without interruption. You pick a song, click play, and off you go surf the site.

• The Free Music Archive

  http://freemusicarchive.org/

  

  The FMA is a huge music archive, and it is also a platform where artists can meet curators like radio stations, music festivals, etc. The home page offers to sort music by genre or check out local chats. This is great and all, but we, the lovers of free stuff, know why we are here :) You can sort all the tracks by their license type. For this, simply type in any search request in this field:

  

  and click GO. Alongside the search results, a great set of filters is going to appear on the left side of the screen. I couldn’t find any other way to make it appear, but no one is judging the website usability as long as this feature works, right? :)

  As far as licenses are concerned, we are particularly interested in this check box:

  

  If you are still confused about the crazy amount of license types there, the FMA website has a special section that explains each license. Don’t expect to find anything brief there :)

• Bensound

  http://www.bensound.com/

  

  A nice collection of royalty free music. The idea behind this website is as follows: you can either download a song and credit the author, or, alternatively, you can buy their Pro License. The license gets you tracks in wav, and you won’t need to credit anyone.

  You can search tracks by title, apply tags - nothing extraordinary here. Everything works as expected, couldn't find anything to complain about :)

• https://archive.org

  

  A great place of free stuff. Not only music, but other useful content, too. Like, vidoes, texts, images, etc.

  This website is a huge archive of structured and carefully tagged goodies. But, you are also welcome to contribute your own files. This library has been created by thousands of people that have uploaded their creations here.

  Since we are particularly interested in music, well, let me just say that you will not be disappointed. Choose the right tags and enjoy!

  The audio section on this website refers to audio files of any kind, audio books and radio podcasts included.

• SampleSwap

  http://sampleswap.org/

  

  This website is actually a project for those who are interested in creating electronic music. Mostly, one can find there various loops for mixing tracks. But, the service also features a collection of ready tracks free for commercial use. If you feel like spicing up your project with electronic music (like house, dubstep, downtempo, etc.), you should visit this website.

Conclusion

We got you the hottest royalty free audio resources - it’s time you checked them out yourself. May all the right tunes come your way!

This article was written based on our own technical writing experience. If you need to create online documentation, you may also like ClickHelp - the best software documentation tool for web developers.

Good luck with your online documentation!