Hey, my name is Matt Johnson.
And today
I want to share with you my favorite music licensing sites for wedding films.
I made a video like this about five years ago,
but things have changed
and there are new websites to talk about the you may not know of.
So regardless of whether you are a seasoned pro
that feels like you've run out of songs to license,
so you're looking for a new site with new music,
or you are brand new to filming weddings and you're looking for the best bang
for your buck options to license music for your wedding films.
This video is going to have something for you.
Incidentally, for the sake of ethics, I want you to know
that this video is not paid or sponsored by any of these sites.
But I am an affiliate for pretty much all of them.
So if you do sign up for any of them using the links down in the video
description, I will get a commission and I would appreciate that.
Starting off then with my favorite music licensing website, you have music bed.
They are one of the longest running music licensing sites.
I've been using them since about 2011.
And what sets music bed apart?
And the reason they're my favorite is that they have a huge variety of music
that is all very high quality and unlike some of the other sites
that we're going to be talking about in a little bit.
Music that excels with not only having great
instrumental music, but also great lyrical music.
So if you need some great songs and music, that is my first choice.
But I am going to warn you now that you are going to have to pay for it,
because music that is the most expensive music licensing site on the list.
They offer subscriptions based on how you want to use their music.
But for wedding films
at the time of making this video, music vid costs about 1100 dollars per year,
but I think they are completely worth it for the quality of songs that they offer.
Next, we have a brand new site to talk about that
I have not talked about before, and that site is Track Club.
Now, track club is really interesting because if you've watched my old music
licensing video, you will know that one of my favorite sites to license music
from used to be marmoset music,
which still exists and still offers great music.
But the reason that marmoset is not my go to site for music
licensing anymore is that they never offered a subscription
like these other sites in this video where you pay a monthly fee and download
an unlimited amount of music, instead of having to pay approximately
$100 per track to license a song for a wedding film.
That said, all of that has now changed because Marmoset recently
created a brand new website called Track Club.
And Track Club
is where you can find a ton of the songs that are available on marmoset.
Buchannon license an unlimited amount of those songs with a monthly subscription.
So if you need unlimited downloads of music,
Marmoset is finally on the subscription train with track club.
And there are two big reasons why I love and recommend Track Club.
The first is that marmoset and thereby Track Club have always had
one of the most unique music libraries with very interesting sounding musicians.
Maybe it's because they're in Portland, so they're separated from the Nashville
sounding music that a lot of artists fall into.
Or maybe it's just that Portland is kind of weird in the best possible way.
Regardless, Track Club has some very interesting music.
So if you're looking for great songs that sound different from anywhere else,
you have to check out Track Club.
In addition, there is one other absolutely mindblowing feature
the track club offers that I'm going to have to do another
entire video about to dove deeper into it because it's so cool.
But what you need to know is that track club has a feature called Mix Lab.
And with Mix Lab, you can take almost all of the songs
that you license from track club and remix them in your web browser.
It's super cool and I can't wait to dove into that in the future.
Moving on then,
the last thing that I will say
about Track Club is they have very competitive pricing.
And so if you want to license music for your wedding films,
they have dramatically undercut music bad and currently
cost $465 per year for a business plan
at the time of making this video, which is really impressive.
So I definitely recommend checking track club out.
Next, we need to talk about some budget friendly options.
Starting off
with one of the cheapest options by far, which is sound straight music.
At the time of making this video, sound, stripe cost $240 per year.
But their biggest differentiator is that they also offer
one of the cheapest monthly subscription options for wedding filmmakers.
This means that if you need to license some songs for a project
but you aren't a wedding filmmaker full time,
so you may not have more videos to edit for a few months.
You can pay for one month of sound stripe, then cancel your subscription,
then resubscribe a few months later, whenever you need more music,
which is a great way to save money.
And to be clear, because a
lot of people commented this question the last time I made a video like this
with any of the music licensing sites in this video,
do not worry if you cancel your subscription
because any of the songs you've already licensed from these sites
and you've already used them in a video, the license for those songs
is valid in perpetuity, meaning that even if you cancel your subscription,
your license is still legal and valid and your video is protected
from copyright claims on YouTube, etc..
Back to sounds right then.
Not only do
they offer the best bang for your buck, but they have a great selection of songs
to license.
And if you're just getting started, you are going to love their selection.
The only kind of sound stripe is that they do not have the widest
variety of lyrical tracks to choose from.
And so after you've licensed tracks on them for a year or two,
you may find yourself looking for a greater variety of music.
Lastly, in regards to Sound Stripe, one extra benefit they offer
is that if you sign up for their pro plan, which you would need to use anyways
for music licensing, for wedding films, they also give you access to thousands
of sound effects for you to use in your videos, which is really awesome.
And they also have a pro plus plan that includes stock footage too.
If you want to check that out.
Up next, you have art list.
Art list is similar to sound stripe in that they offer a great bang for your buck
with a plan that only costs $200 per year for unlimited music downloads.
That also includes sound effects, but where art lists differs from a sound
stripe.
Is it because they're based around the world in Israel?
I find that they have a wider selection of songs, and especially
if you're looking for songs from weddings, from other cultures around the world.
Our list is one of my go to recommendations.
Where Art List struggles though, is that similar to Sound Stripe,
they don't have a huge selection of lyrical songs.
There are tons of instrumentals, but they aren't quite there with lyrical.
Regardless, Art List is a great value, but
keep in mind that you have to pay for an art list subscription yearly.
They don't offer a monthly subscription option like sound stripe.
Moving on, we ain't done yet.
The next site that you need to be aware of,
which I have never talked about before, but you need to be aware of,
especially if you around the world in the UK.
Hello, Philip Blue and James Mathews, another UK filmmaker.
Friends. This next site is Music Vine.
My favorite feature of music Vine is the search ability with their biggest strength
being that they realize
that traditional music genres like rock music or country music
are not the best way to search for music that you need in a film.
So instead, music Vine lets you search by the type of video
that you are creating, and it will show you music that fits that.
It's really cool.
And what's great is that music.
Vine recently added Wedding
as a style of music that you can choose with a lot of great song options there.
Even better if you film weddings from other cultures.
You can search for songs by culture or local.
So you can find Middle Eastern music or Indian music or Latin whatever.
You need to find music quickly.
As far as pricing for music vein goes, they do offer a pro lite subscription
for about $240 per year.
That includes unlimited downloads
for wedding films, which is a pretty solid deal.
Second to last on this list.
Emma Stone, you have epidemic.
Sound Epidemic has been around for quite a while
and was one of the first music licensing sites to really embrace YouTube,
which is why you've probably seen other YouTubers promote it
and why it's on this list at $220 per year epidemic will give you a good selection
of tracks and sound effects and like sounds right.
They offer an option where you can pay for a subscription one month at a time,
but they do cost $50 per month for this option,
which is quite a bit more expensive than sound stripe.
One big plus of epidemic is they also offer
a one month trial option with no strings attached.
So you can
literally sign up for a month, license some tracks, and then cancel your trial.
And those licenses will still be valid.
It's a great way to test out their library as far as weaknesses go for epidemic.
And the main reason that I would try that one month free trial before you sign up
their library is significantly lacking
in lyrical songs, more so than others that I've listened to.
So if you are wanting more
than just instrumental tracks, you are going to need to really dig for them
and you will likely run out of lyrical options pretty fast.
Last but not least, now we have one more music
licensing say to talk about and that is audio.
And you're probably thinking audio.
Matt Like sound no audio as in
aew di0 yeah, it's a weird spelling.
Regardless, audio is another music licensing website whose main claim to fame
is that they offer a lifetime music subscription for a one time payment.
Yes. At the time of making this video, you can pay audio $299
and you will get unlimited access to their entire music catalog,
which they are adding to daily for the rest of your life.
It's kind of a crazy deal, which is why they're on this list.
Their selection of music is pretty solid overall, but in this case,
it really always comes back to that magical price.
And so if you can find $300 of value there in their library,
it's totally worth signing up.
Wrapping up this music licensing guide.
Then there are two questions that I want to answer that you may be wondering.
First of all,
what about popular music like top 40 songs that are being played on the radio?
Is there a way to license music like that?
And the answer is yes.
There are sites that offer that as well.
And I have
another entire video talking about sites that you can use to license top 40 music
from a link to that video in the corner and down in the video description.
And the last question you're probably wondering that I need to answer
is which of these sites should you sign up for?
There are a ton of different music licensing options out there,
but how do you decide on which one to spend your money on?
Well, if you're just getting started, that's pretty easy.
I would start off with sound straight because you can sign up for their service
one month at a time and dip your toes into music licensing with them
without spending a lot of money.
Then after Sound Stripe, I would consider signing up
for art list music, fine audio or epidemic sound.
These sites all range from 200 to $300 per year, but all of them
are going to give you a much wider variety of music to choose from.
Then, if you're feeling like you've exhausted these music libraries,
or if you're wanting a wider variety of lyrical songs to choose from,
or if you've been filming weddings for a long time and you're
looking for the best of the best possible music tracks.
In that case, I would definitely look at track club and music bed
as I said at the start, music that has been around for quite a while
and they have a huge variety of songs, which is why I love and recommend them.
But I'm betting that you probably do not know about track club
and you've probably not used them yet.
So if you're looking for new and unique songs
that you cannot find anywhere else, check out Track Club.
It's really cool with that.
As I said at the beginning, all of these sites are linked
down in the description at the bottom if you want to check them out.
And if I missed any sites, are there any other music licensing sites
that I should talk about in the future?
Please leave me a comment below and let me know.
And lastly, if you're a wedding filmmaker like me, the entire video has been
about wedding filmmaking, music licensing, so I feel like it's pretty related.
I would love to help you out even more.
So I've put together a free guide called Level Up Your Wedding Films,
and this guy is going to walk you through
how to take your wedding films from good to great.
So if you want to check that out,
it's linked down in the description completely for free.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.