Top 5 sources of free music for drone videos

7 min read Nov 30^th 2022

Introduction to drone video music sources
YouTube Audio Library
Free Music Archive
SoundCloud
ccMixter
Bensound
Videvo (update Jul-22)
Summary

Introduction to drone video music sources

Music is an important aspect of any drone video. It can add emotion to the footage and make your video more engaging and emotive. This is why it's so important to find the perfect music for your drone videos. You want to find a track that doesn't distract from the visuals but, at the same time, adds emotion and depth to them.

As you might have experienced, finding quality background music for your videos can be a bit of a challenge. There are dozens of websites out there with thousands of tracks to choose from. Each website offers different search functionalities, licensing options, and music experience.

And, while there are some quality paid options like Premium Beat by Shutterstock or, my favourite, Soundstripe (use dicount code DRONEDESK to get 10% off), who doesn't love free stuff? It means you can offer better prices to your clients and it reduces the risk if your client changes their mind about a soundtrack!

I tested lots (and I mean lots) of free online music libraries and settled on my favourite 5 sites. All of the sites offer at least some free music tracks which you can use royalty free, even for commercial purposes. Some tracks do require attribution so please remember to read and comply with the licencing terms for every track you use.

Update July 2022 - I came across another service recently which I really wanted to add to this list because it looks excellent. I recommend you check it out - Videvo.

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1 YouTube Audio Library

The YouTube Audio Library is one of my favourite sources for royalty-free video soundtrack music and sound effects.

There are hundreds of tracks available and you can search and filter by genre, mood, instrument, duration and attribution (required or not) making it really quick and easy to narrow your search down to the type of music you're looking for.

There's even a sound effects library with all the random sounds that you'll never need 🙂

2 Free Music Archive

The Free Music Archive, at the time of writing, has over 126,000 tracks available. They offer a range of curated background music and sounds, even spoken word.

Almost all songs on Free Music Archive are copyright protected. However, each song has an additional license explaining how you can share or even reuse the song without infringing the copyright. Having said that, at least 1,500 tracks are public domain and licenced for commercial use. And there are thousands more under Creative Commons. Check the license guide.

The search facility isn't as detailed as YouTube with filters only for genre and licence type so you might spend a bit longer searching for the right track here.

3 SoundCloud

SoundCloud is a great option if you’re looking for background music for your video that sounds more like real music. A lot, but not all, of the music on here is licensed under Creative Commons, which means that you are free to use the tracks as long as you follow the licencing stipulated by the artist.

It's a bit tricky to use the search on SoundCloud:

Enter your search criteria in the top search box and hit enter
Once your search results appear, select "Tracks" on the left
Below that, click on "To listen to"
Select "To use commercially" or "To modify commercially" depending on what you intend to do with the track
Now you have a filtered list of tracks which in theory you can use, however, there's one more step

Now you have a filtered list of tracks which, in theory you can use. However, there's one more step! Once you find a track you want to use, depending on the licence, you'll see download link (you may need to click the "more" button).

4 ccMixter

Please note, ccMixter is not securly hosted (https). If you're at all concerned about privacy and security, we recommend you don't click on the links provided here.

ccMixter is a community site with contributions from thousands of artists around the world. It offers a large number of royalty free tracks for commercial use under Creative Commons - all you need to do is credit the artist.

At the time of writing, there are over 4,200 "free for commercial use" tracks available.

5 Bensound

Bensound is an artist-based website. It's home to hundreds of brilliant royalty-free tracks created and uploaded by artist Benjamin Tissot.

Ben's work has been featured all over the web in projects from animations, corporate videos, commercials to short films and documentaries.

Bensound has a great search functionality and carries a huge variety of music that will go perfectly with just about any drone video you produce. Attribution is required.

6 Videvo

Videvo has been around since 2012 and they offer thousands of free music tracks and sound effects which are ideal for your drone video edits. They're offered under varying licensing; Videvo Attribution License, Creative Commons 3.0, and Royalty Free. The free clips don't require registration to download which is great.

If you can't find anything suitable in the free options (unlikely), they also offer competitively-priced Premium subscription plans too - use discount code DD15 for 15% off.

All audio clips, including free ones, are offered at a professional editing quality and come with Royalty Free licensing. The audio libraries are conveniently organized under "moods", "instruments", and "genres", and also feature filters that will help you surface technical aspects, such as BPM.

Videvo is well worth a visit.

Summary

So there you have it, five of the very best free drone video audio track sites available today. Each of them offer slightly different feature sets and some are easier to use than others. Some have optional premium upgrades or add-ons.

One thing's for sure, if you're anything like me, you'll spend hours listening to way too many tracks trying to decide which is the best and which is going to suit your drone video imagery the best.

My recommendation would be to go with your first instinct - it's usually right - and build up a library of go-to tracks of various genres that you can re-use for multiple videos.

Here's the list of the sites for you once more:

Good luck and happy sound mixing!

Don't like any of the free options or just rather use a paid service? You can get 10% off a monthly or annual Soundstripe subscription here using discount code DRONEDESK.