How To Get Free Music and Sound Effects
You’re on a mission to deliver ground-breaking wisdom or remarkable stories to the world. You’ve recorded and edited the voice track. Now you’re ready to get creative. Maybe not as creative as the producers of ‘This American Life’ (please, no), but you understand that you need some tools to help build interest and tension. Two of the most used tools in audio production are music and sound effects.
Wise use of music and sound effects helps capture and keep listener attention. It’s challenging for listeners to stay focused on one continuous voice, or even a conversation. But, done well, music and sound effects pull listeners into your story by intriguing them and prodding their imaginations to fill in mental images. Bits of music can also create transitions and allow parts of your story to breathe.
But you can’t just download your favorite song performed by your favorite pop star, or record sound effects from movies you stream on your computer. That’s illegal. Using someone else's audio requires a license. That’s how artists get paid for their work. But licenses can be expensive, especially if you share your recordings online and they become wildly successful. Fingers crossed! Licensing royalties are often paid on a per-album, or in this case, a per-download basis. But there are free options available to you.
The first option is to create your own music or use music a friend is willing to let you include for free in your recording. Of course, you will give that friend the proper in-show and online credit, including a link to their website. With this option, you know for sure that you have legal permissions. But, you can also look online.
CreativeCommons.org. Their mission is to help creators of all kinds share their work. According to their website, “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges.” You can search for and download music and sound effects, as well as images. Everything you need to know about licensing is on their FAQ page. Although the content is technically free (be sure to read the restrictions for commercial applications), you should donate. Twenty-five or thirty bucks a year should be enough if you only download a few files.
Watch out for websites that claim to offer “free” music. For example, MixKit.co claims “a free gallery of awesome stock video clips, music tracks, sound effects and video templates.” Last time I looked, they had “62 free music sound effects.” But they are only available in an .mp3 format. You might remember from reading “5 Podcast Mistakes to Avoid” that .mp3 files are compressed, and that they get compressed again when you save the file. So, unless you want that harsh compressed file sound when the music part of your episode plays, you’ll need to download .wav files. At MixKit you have to subscribe to Envato Elements in order to download .wav files. Subscription rates begin at $16.50 per month.
There are hundreds, maybe hundreds of thousands, of websites that offer “free” music and sound effects. But you’ll need to read the fine print carefully, and be happy with an .mp3 file to get truly free audio files.
Obtaining free music and sound effects is definitely possible. However, if can be quite time-consuming and frustrating to search online for the files that match your creative impulses. Why not spend that time experimenting with making your own recordings? You’d be surprised at the music tracks and sound effects you can create using your microphone, recorder/computer, and the instruments you have available in your home: drinking glasses, lids from cooking pots, wrapping paper, spoons, wooden tables, a sink full of water, wind chimes, the washing machine…
You might find that you can tap, crinkle, clink, and sploosh your way to creating sound effects and, by using an in-ear metronome and layering tracks in your editing softward, make some interesting music of your own.
You are more talented than you think you are!
