How to Choose the Perfect Music for Your Explainer Video
By Space Coast Daily // October 23, 2021
When creating an explainer video, there are so many things to think about – the messages, the graphics, the length – that it can be easy to forget about the music. But music is a crucial component of any video, from the one explaining the startup to the Hollywood blockbuster.
Music will bring your video to life and can also help combat the reduced attention span marketers now face. The perfect music will reinforce the tone of your brand and give your video a professional and refined touch.
It would be great to introduce your brand, service or product to the world alongside your favorite Beatles track, but unfortunately, using commercial music is very expensive. Big brands license artist songs fairly regularly for their ads and videos, but for a small or medium-sized business, it’s not a profitable decision. To put it in perspective, the cost of licensing a track can easily reach that of a small house!
Instead of putting your heart into using a song you heard on Spotify, think about using a royalty-free track instead. If you choose wisely, the results could be better than licensing a track, and you will have unlimited use of that song in the future, in case you want to make a follow-up video.
How does royalty-free music work?
Typically, when a musician’s song is used, the company using his work will be required to pay a royalty for the use of that piece. This happens for all kinds of commercial music use: nightclubs have to pay royalties for playing music, just as the larger radio stations have to pay royalties for all the tracks they play. Royalties are processed by organizations like PRS and distributed to copyright holders.
As we mentioned earlier, brands sometimes pay artists money upfront to use their music in an ad seen by millions of people, rather than paying royalties for each use. If you use a piece of music from a commercial source, you may be asked to pay for its use in the same way. The initial cost of licensing music in this way can be prohibitive for a small project.
Royalty-free tracks solve the problem of measuring how many people listen to the song, how many times the video is played, and how much is owed to the artist. You also don’t have to pay huge up-front fees or ask an agent to set the deal. Video producers simply pay a one-time fee for a track they like, and once the payment is made, the person/brand / producer who bought it can use it however they want.
Royalty-free music is a much cheaper way to get a good quality soundtrack for your video.
Is music royalty free… free?
The price of royalty-free music varies a lot. On rare occasions, you might get lucky and find a track that is free to download, but it is not common. The general rule of thumb is: the cheaper the track, the shorter it is. Cheaper tracks are also likely to come with some conditions attached, for example, the track may not be licensed for use in for-profit businesses or for distribution on YouTube.
If you need several different songs for different clients or need to purchase a library to ensure you have a decent selection for each project, some companies sell packages that contain a variety of different styles and genres.
Buying in bulk can be a more cost-effective way of sourcing a variety of different tracks so that you can try out different styles and find something that fits. But to help you further, we recommend you to use the Artlist Discount Code which gives you 2 months free to use various music at Artlist. Hope this article helps.
