Sources of Free Downloadable Instrumental Music that's Okay for Commercial Broadcast?

April 6, 2010 5:14 PM

Can you recommend sources for downloadable instrumental music that is free and legally can be used for commercial on-the-air use?

My mother works in a hospital's marketing department and, as part of her job, puts together radio commercials for the hospital. She's seeking downloadable instrumental music that is free, music which it would be legally acceptable to use in commercial broadcast on a radio station (used as background music under the vocals). Any ideas/tips/URLs?

I'm going to point her to the Creative Commons site's search engine (it essentially is a portal site for the Creative Commons searches on eight different engines) and also suggest a Google search for ("public domain" "instrumental music"), but pointing her to a more specialized, directly on-point site (as opposed to search engine results) would be much better.

Also, free and downloadable is highly preferable, due to timing concerns, but if there's some central archive or purchasable CD/DVD ... something clip-arty or stock-footagey, like a clip art CD or a 'Getty Images', but for background music ... that isn't too expensive, a heads-up as to that would be useful for future use.

Finally, since I'm going to tell her to come check out the answers here ... hi, Mom!

posted by WCityMike to media & arts (2 answers total)

When I want "free with no restrictons" I generally head over to Wikimedia Commons. They have sound files there, which I didn't know. You have to fish around a little but this category on guitar licks has some nice sounding instrumental bits. There are a ton of pieces here, but they're CC licensed which might be problematic for what your mom is trying to do. There are also a LOT of files in the "music by instrument" category. I was particularly partial to the organ sounds but ymmv. Be sure to show her how to convert ogg files so that she can work with them if she doesn't know how already.
posted by jessamyn at 5:56 PM on April 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

This site has always been my choice for quick movie music and sounds. Not free, but remarkably cheap considering the professional quality of the music. And you can download the clips as soon as you pay.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:06 PM on April 6, 2010