How to choose music for your videos
One of the things we get asked the most about is music. Where do we get it and what kind of music can you use in your videos?
In this Film Stuff episode, we mentioned a few places people get music. There's much more to say though, and we both thought you might like to know more about what distinguishes expensive music from cheap music.
At the bottom tier is the free stuff you find when you google "free music for film." There's hundreds of royalty free music libraries. We're talking about sites like Kevin Macleod's Incompetech, Dan O'Connor's DanoSongs, and Purple Planet. There's also independent artists that give away their music for credit on SoundCloud and the stuff batch licensed in the YouTube Music Library. There's nothing wrong with this stuff. We use it all the time.
A lot of the time though, you can tell it was composed on a computer. Some of it has a sort of MIDI, 8-bit quality to it. It's hard to explain the computer-y sound. In musical terms, you might say the release phases are too sharp, or maybe there are a bunch of flams that make it sound like the sections aren't totally phase locked. Or maybe there's no variance between one note and the next and you can tell that instrument isn't a person playing an instrument but is just a sample that's been pitch adjusted. Maybe it's not even the instrumentation but the mix that makes everything sound too perfect, too much like it was recorded in a booth instead of in a real space with walls and air that let the sound breathe.
That's just one of the reasons why people move up into mid-tier music. Mid-tier music has a lot more variety of genres and styles, and it's often got songs by better composers and musicians. The mixing is better. They usually come as pay-per-use Marketplaces like Audio Jungle, Musicbed, Lickd, and Cuesongs as well as recurring subscriptions like Audioblocks or Digital Juice. We use these kinds of sites a bunch too. They're great.
Unfortunately, because they're sites specifically aimed at using music for film, they also tend to be fairly generic. Lots of them are un-memorable on purpose, to be inoffensive in corporate promotions, product demos, and television commercials. When you get into the world of narrative film, you often need something that's more emotive, more catchy, and personalized to your film. That's where top-tier music comes in.
The most expensive music is either a popular, often mainstream song (not necessarily modern; Happy Birthday to You was written in the late 1800s and was copyrighted until about 2 years ago) that's been licensed for film use, or a custom score that's been created specifically for your film.
That's the good stuff, right there: a custom score. Unfortunately it's a bit of a dying art.
No matter which tier you're working with, the only thing that changes is your options. A music library in and of itself might give you better song options, but it won't help you pick the perfect song. It doesn't change your taste in music, or help you come up with interesting combinations, or the perfect progression to carry your emotions. Which is why we're telling you all about them.
Often we find a lot of other filmmakers and YouTubers don't want to talk about where they find their music. They treat it like an industry secret. We don't think it is. Having the tool alone isn't what makes you able to use it. You can buy a sweet pair of Air Jordans, but owning those shoes won't make you a better basketball player. Knowing how to pick music is not the same as knowing where to find it. We wish it was as easy to help you with the former as it was to help you with the latter.
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