The Best Stock Music & SFX for YouTube
Video marketing and vlogging are great ways to get your message across. With the popularity of video content and the 1 billion hours of YouTube videos watched every day worldwide, it’s no surprise that YouTube is one of the most prominent social media sites. If you want your videos to make an impact, you’ll need to make use of YouTube royalty free music and sound effects to set yourself apart.
We’ve made it easy for you to hop onto some of the best websites for downloading music and SFX without having to go trawling the web for them yourself. Find quality stock and royalty free music to take your video from decent to killing it.
1. Motion Array
Motion Array is one of the most comprehensive royalty free music and SFX libraries on the web. With 130,000 (and counting!) downloads available, you can find anything from SFX to logo reveal tracks, and full-length royalty free tunes.
The only problem you may have here is downloading too many! Easily search by genre and or audio category. You’ll find a great mix of paid and free options, so check them out for your next project.
2. YouTube Audio Library
Who knew you could find YouTube royalty free music on YouTube itself? If you didn’t know already, there’s a large library of music and sound effects that you can browse and download for free. Search music by genre, mood, instrument, or attribution, and SFX by category.
3. FreeSound
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a sound that isn’t downloadable from this site. Simply type what you’re looking for into the search bar, and you’ll be able to preview all the sounds that come up and download for free once you’ve chosen one. You can also browse by tag or geotag. If you want further confirmation that they are YouTube friendly, here it is.
4. Audio Micro
This stock audio library features tracks that you can download to use in your projects. The site also has many sound effects, ranging from famous movie ones to new and unique offerings. Many are paid, some are free, but all are worth having.
5. Icons8
You’re free to download whatever music you wish from this site, but you’ll be required to include a link back to them in your project. Icons8’s collection of music files are searchable by genre, mood, or theme. If you can’t (or don’t want to) attribute them with a link, you can buy a license for any track.
6. ZapSplat
ZapSplat is dedicated to promoting and supporting indie sound-makers and communities. Here you’ll find a focus on networking and promotion in the community. Artists are invited to upload a selection of their work and once their library is available online, they have access to the rest of the members’ creative works to download.
7. Soundsnap
Soundsnap is a high-quality, subscription SFX download website. Although many of the sites on this list are free, this one is worth a look through if you’re downloading files regularly.
8. Soundeffects+
Soundeffects+ has a smaller collection than some on this list, but they have some nice offerings of SFX and royalty free music. You can use their files in any commercial or non-commercial production as per their licensing agreement.
9. StockMusic.net
With decent sized libraries of both music and sound effects, there are literally hundreds of search options to help you find exactly what you want. You can download low-quality demo files for free, and high-quality tracks at a price.
10. Free-Stock-Music
The name says it all. The musical compositions on this site are free for you to use as long as credit is given. Search by category, tempo, mood, length, license, or keyword.
Conclusion
Sound design is just as important as the visuals in a video. If you’re producing videos for YouTube, you need to have ears on them, as well as eyes. The selection of sites in this list offer great quality, safe for YouTube royalty free music, and SFX that are guaranteed to add some pizzazz to your project.
Catch you on YouTube!
