Intro Investigation: Where Do Youtubers Get Their Intro Music?

You’ve opened your own YouTube channel to stream your favorite games. Before you can start making videos, there is one important thing that you need to consider: your intro music. 

Intro songs create a catchy hook that grabs the viewer’s attention. The problem is, you can’t use any old intro and call it a day. 

YouTube is picky in regards to copyright. If you’re not careful, your entire video will get taken down. If they don’t take it down, they’ll at least mute it. 

So, where do you find the right music for your videos? Check out this guide to learn where to get started.

What Is Royalty-Free Music?

There is one way you can protect yourself from video termination. The answer is royalty-free intro music

What does royalty-free mean? They are tracks that are available for people to use freely without the fear of running into copyright trouble.

These tracks being free to use doesn’t mean that they are no longer copyrighted. In fact, most of the time, they are. 

The reason why they are free to use is that the original owner has given permission. 

When you’re looking for music, you might run into something called rights-managed. You can use rights-managed songs if you pay a fee. Please pay attention to the download link before you hit that big green button. 

Why Should You Go Royalty-Free?

So, why should you go royalty-free? You’ll avoid running into the YouTube content ID. 

The YouTube Content ID checks every video for copyright content and flags it if it notices anything. Now you might be thinking, “The bots have to scan thousands of videos every hour. There’s no way they’ll hit mine”! 

Oh, but they will. If you’re caught using copyright material too often, you’ll lose your entire account. 

Can’t You Just Use a Disclaimer? 

Many people think that if they use a disclaimer in their video description, they’ll be fine. They can’t be more wrong. 

Using a disclaimer doesn’t equal permission. YouTube will still flag your content and take it down. 

YouTube Free Music 

Now that you’re familiar with some of the rules regarding free intro music, it’s time to talk about where you can find the songs. Youtube Free Music is most likely the best place. 

Since you’re getting them through YouTube, you can trust that you won’t run into any copyright issues. They have a pretty massive library that you can choose from. 

The search function makes looking for songs pretty easy too. You can filter it by mood, duration, attribution, and instrument. 

The only problem with YouTube Free Music is that even though the library is massive, it doesn’t offer quite as much as other sites. There’s also a lot of people using this service. 

That means that it will be pretty hard for you to find a song that nobody has used before. 

Epidemic Sound 

If you can’t find anything unique on YouTube Free Music, there’s always Epidemic Sound. They have a huge library of royalty-free music that you can pull from. 

The easy search function makes it simple to find the songs you need when you need them. If you don’t need the vocals in a song, Epidemic Sound gives you the power to take it out. 

There is a lot of high-quality music that you can use. The issue is finding that high-quality. You’ll have to filter through tons of cheap-sounding tracks before you find something good. 

The search function works well, but one track can fall into several different categories. You also have to have a subscription to use this service. 

AudioJungle 

No matter what kind of music you need, you can most likely find it on AudioJungle. If you don’t want the pressure of committing to a subscription, this site might work a little better for you than Epidemic Sound. 

You’ll have to pay a dollar for each song that you download on AudioJungle. Once you pay the fee, that’s it. The license is yours. 

You’re now free to use the song in all your videos. Speaking of licensing, that’s where things get confusing with AudioJungle. 

There are so many different licenses that new users might become overwhelmed. The interface for this site also feels a little more outdated than other platforms. 

AudioBlocks

AudioBlocks has thousands of songs and sound effects that you can choose from. They have a neat feature that will allow you to narrow down your music search. 

There’s a bar you can slide that will tell the platform the exact length of the track you’re looking for.

We will tell you that the audio quality of the songs can be a hit or miss. Like with Epidemic Sound, you’ll have to commit to a subscription. 

Free Music Archive 

Free Music Archive has a huge selection of music you can choose from. It doesn’t work off a royalty-free basis, though. 

It’s a mixture of creative commons and the public domain. This gives you an insane amount of choice with a catch.

You can download almost any song you want, but you have to contact the artist directly to ask for permission to use it before you put it in a video. This puts a serious hold on your productivity.  

Grab Interesting Intro Music for Your Videos

No matter what kind of video you’re trying to make, you need some kind of intro music to gain a viewer’s attention. The problem is finding the right song. 

If you don’t pay attention to copyright rules, you’ll find your entire video muted. Royalty-free is the only way to go. 

Are you looking for more ways to gain user attention with your videos? Check out our blog daily for all the latest tips and tricks.