(skip to bottom 3rd to get list of sites w/stock music + sounds)
There's no one right way to account for the music in your podcasts and screencasts.
If you're in junior high and showing off your Windows 7 3-D cube effects, then definitely just blast Eminem and let your 3-D mountain ice cave space moon do the talking. You're all about understatement.
(Sidebar: desktop effect videos are a hypnotic YouTube genre. They're like krumping, but instead of dance moves, effects-heads call and response with gaudy flame wallpaper explosions and neon blue lightning bolts.).
But let's assume we're making a podcast or screencast with human beings talking. Sometimes before the talking and between the talking, we would like some music. Sometimes we would like music during the talking.
Make your own music?
Making your own music/ sound effects is a viable option for a lot of folks. As with designing your own logo, or making your own WordPress theme... it really depends on the skills/time you have.
And i've seen lots of people make great bits of music on their own without being musicians. But it's also possible to be a totally great musician who should not make his/her own soundtrack. Especially if the genre of music you need is different from the one you're used to writing.
Real talk: If you produce your own soundtracks, you're probably not reading this post.
You're here because you need to find music somebody else created, and you need to not worry about licensing.
Just show me the sites
It's not like I'm Dr. Scorsese over here, but even if you don't buy a sound from these sites, they can still be really valuable. Just like Amazon.com can serve as a helpful resource w/out purchase, these sites help you think about mood, space, and context just by browsing around.
- audiojungle.net
Anybody familiar w/Themeforest or WooThemes will feel at home here. You can browse by genre or keyword (hard with something as subjective as sound). Audiojungle also lets you preview sound without having to visit that song's permalink, which saves a few clicks. The feel is modern and as with all sites in the Envato family, they make a good effort to create community resources like forums, interactive blog, and rich profile pages for the artists who make the music.
Prices are great, usually $8-$14.
My main complaint is that the descriptions of the songs weren't that helpful, which made me have to click and play through almost every song in a genre to y/n it. (This can be made a lot better... keep reading!)
- Neosounds
This site is amazing. At first I was turned off by the slightly bland look. But the functionality is very cutting edge, and the content is very sophisticated, too. Looks can be deceiving on this site.
Prices are basically $29.95 for a full track, with lower price points for loops or subsections of a song.
By far the best thing about this site is how helpful the descriptions are. They are great at capturing what a song is like (yes I tested it), saving you lots of unnecessary listens.
I also liked the floating player (Flash, sorry). It stays with you in window, even when you're paging through results. "Thank you." --my wrists
And I repeat: if you know what you're looking for, they cover a lot of genres.
- dig.ccmixter.org
This is a Creative Commons focused site. All the music is free as in cost. And there is lots that is available for commercial use. Real talk: It was very hard to search. I could not get advanced search to work for me. I was clicking a lot.
Descriptions weren't helpful and the player often felt in the way.
That said, I think it's worth a mention. There were some good artists on the site, and I could see a determined, broke project being really helped out by this site.
Have fun checking these sites out. Music and sound design can make a big difference in your podcasts and screencasts.
