Where To Get the Best Royalty-Free Music Without Paying A Cent
Anime music videos require incredible imagery, great transitions, and a captivating storyline. They also require the perfect track to fit your unique creative flow. Which is why it’s all the more painful when you think you’ve found the one, only to find that it’s not safe to use online!
Now with a broken heart, you’re left searching for a tune that you can use on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc… and you’re struggling. We know, it’s seriously rough.
To help out, we’ve curated a list of our top ten sites in 2021 to find copyright and royalty-free music for download, without opening your wallet. We want to see new and existing creators in the anime scene succeed, regardless of how much cash they’ve got — we want to help you find that new perfect track! So, let’s get started!
We’ve curated a list of our top ten sites in 2021 to find copyright and royalty-free music for download, without opening your wallet.
Important gotchas!
Before you start looking through our curated list of sources for copyright-free music, there are some general guidelines that you should definitely keep at the back of your mind! We’ll list them here for you.
Free licensing needs to be checked
Be sure to check the licensing of songs you find, even if it’s from one of the sites we’ve listed below. The site’s licensing explains how you can use a track, and just because it’s listed on a Creative Commons license doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.
Always check the licensing for each track! Hit us up if you’re ever unsure where to look, we’d love to help out.
Credit musicians and/or platforms
Make sure to credit artists in the description if you need to. This is one of the most common ways creators get tripped up when posting royalty-free music in their videos. Many artists will let you use their stuff as long as you give them a shout-out in the description. Similarly, platforms can require that you credit their site in order to use their royalty free music. Just make sure not to miss the asks or you might get hit!
Leave credit where credit is due!
Have fun
Have fun selecting songs for your content! We genuinely believe it’s one of the best parts of creating anime music videos, and great soundtracks have you standing out from the pack.
10 best royalty-free music download sites — without the price tag, 2021
1. Bensound
Bensound is a Mecca for free downloads and a diverse collection of music without copyright issues. You can download and use the royalty-free tracks from this site for online videos as long as you give the artist and platform credit in the description.
If you want to step it up a notch, there’s also an option for a subscription-based pricing plan — perfect for copyright-free music, free and paid.
2. YouTube
You read that right. There is a way to find royalty-free music downloads through YouTube without having to pay for them! The two biggest ways are through YouTube’s Audio Library itself, or through channels which curate royalty free music for you.
To get to YouTube’s Audio Library, you’ll need an account first and foremost. Then you just navigate to YouTube Studio, select Audio Library, and browse the free music or sound effects! You can also “star” your favorites as you browse, which is great for those of us who like to save songs as we go until we find that perfect track.
There are also various channels (which you can subscribe to!) that have sourced songs that can be used on your socials.
One of our favorite channels on YouTube is Royalty Free Music — No Copyright Music. Just make sure to read the captions to see who you need to give credit to and you’re good to go!
3. Purple Planet
A lesser-known royalty-free music download site, Purple Planet is an excellent option as it has unlimited free downloads (for non-commercial stuff, of course). While we know it’s not that important, it also has a really cool web design that’s quite literal to its name, haha!
4. Free Stock Music
On Free Stock Music you can download MP3, WAV & AIFF tracks copyright-free. You can search a bunch of different filters, including genre, moods, lengths, and tempos. It’s got a pretty decent library of music, and it’s free to sign up!
5. Epidemic Sound
While Epidemic Sound isn’t strictly free, if you’re desperate for the perfect royalty-free song or sound effect, you can nab a 30-day free trial. The genre list is enormous (our favorite is “Action & Adventure”), and over 35,000 copyright-free tracks are available.
6. WFMU’s Free Music Archive
The New York radio station WFMU runs its own site, Free Music Archive, dedicated to creators’ copyright and royalty-free tracks. Now, you won’t find Beyonce or Kid Laroi hidden in this list, but there is plenty to choose from to complete your next video.
7. SoundCloud
Arguably the king of copyright-free music, SoundCloud is popular with up-and-coming musicians and DJs. You’ll absolutely find some hidden gems here. Even better, there is a way to download tracks for your next project without the price tag or copyright.
Just create an account with SoundCloud, execute your search request, select “Tracks”, and filter down to your desired copyright needs. We usually intend to crop a song a bit for our edits, so we like to select “To modify commercially”.
8. NCS
Standing for “No Copyright Sounds”, NCS is an excellent resource for sourcing music as a content creator. Their slogan is clean and clear “Music without limitations”. Exactly what we’re all looking for!
They also have a very sleek and modern design that we are huge fans of alongside a UI that is clearly built for creators with category, text, mood, and instrumental/vocal search functionality. They’re high on our list of recommendations!
9. StreamBeats
Built for Twitch streamers and YouTubers, StreamBeats hosts music that they have submitted and verified with YouTube individually that they are safe and able to be monetized.
Currently, the music is organized and hosted within Google Drive, so you won’t get the fancy search that a lot of other platforms have built out. However, they still have a ton of good beats so we believe it’s worth mentioning if you’re running low on tunes!
10. Audionautix
We like this platform because it shows how individual artists can share their music with creators, willingly and on their own!
All music provided through Audionautix is composed and produced by Jason Shaw, and it’s available for use as long as you provide credit. We also like the search function where you can pick the genre you’re looking for, then the mood (things like “chill,” “suspenseful,” or “frantic”), lock in the tempo you’re after, and it’ll find the perfect copyright-free song for you.
Creating killer content is hard work. With some help, you’ll be rolling out the coolest anime videos, complete with the most epic royalty-free music download possible.
We’re passionate about anime and creators and want to empower you to make the best content you can without worrying about all the licensing and copyright issues. Copyright-free music sites make life easier for creators, and it’s our hope that the tools we’ve provided here will help ease many of the pain points!
If you’re looking to expand your knowledge in the anime music video scene or want to become a creator yourself, we’ve got all the resources you need and heaps of support from other passionate people. Join us today at SUGOI!
Have a favorite go-to site for free and royalty free music that we’ve missed? Let us know!
