Free Music and Sound Effects for Your Videos

It is nearly impossible to create a quality video without great sound effects and music. However, unless you’re working at a professional studio, you probably don’t have a massive library of sounds to choose from. Instead of trying to create your own sound effects and music, why not download them for free? We’ve assembled a list of some of the best places to find free sound effects and music.

Remember to carefully read the licensing regulations for each download. Some can only be used for educational or personal purposes. Others can be used in commercial projects with the stipulation that the composer gets credit for his work.

Music Resources

Opsound http://opsound.org/ is a massive resource of free music and sound donated by musicians. While you cannot currently search for a song on the site, you can browse by artist, genre or tag. Opsound encourages users to remix and repost music.

While the music on Incomptech http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ is completely free, the website’s owner encourages users to make a $5 donation for downloads. Incomptech is nicely organized, so you should have no trouble finding the exact music you want.

With over a half million free songs, SoundClick http://www.soundclick.com/business/license_list.cfm should be one of the first places you look for your background music. This website offers both free and commercial licenses, so make sure you sort by license type if you want free music.

Sound Effects

Absolute Sound Effects http://www.grsites.com/sounds/ is a no-frills site with almost 2,000 free sound effects sorted into more than 30 categories.

Partners in Rhyme http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml has a nice collection of free and inexpensive sound effects useful for almost any situation. The website also has a very useful search option.

The absolute best way to find sound effects on the Internet is through FindSounds. http://www.findsounds.com/index.html FindSounds is a search engine that searches the Internet exclusively for sound clips. If you want to use the sound effects you find through this engine in a commercial project, it is important to find its licensing restrictions on the site it came from.

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