The most popular YouTube channels alone post almost a quarter of a million videos in a week’s time. There is truly an astounding amount of content to be consumed available for free on YouTube alone.
When you are creating a YouTube channel, there are a number of important factors that will determine whether or not your channel becomes popular. The music you choose to accompany your videos is absolutely essential. Let’s take a look at why you should avoid using free stock music for YouTube.
Your Choices Are Limited
The music that you choose to accompany your YouTube video is all-important. When you use free stock music for YouTube, you are choosing from a very limited catalog. That means that you will likely end up using poor quality tracks and repeating the same music throughout different videos.
If your music is not compelling and does not support your message, you will likely lose subscribers very quickly. By limiting your choices through using free music you are likely doing yourself and your channel a disservice.
There’s Risk of Legal Issues
There are typically two different kinds of free music. You might find music that is in the public domain or you might find free music that is released with a Creative Commons license. When you use Music that’s in the public domain, it is generally safe and low risk to use.
On the other hand, creative Commons music could come with some legal risk. If you are monetizing your channel, it’s possible that you could run into issues using this music for commercial purposes. You are also trusting the creator that they actually do have the rights to that music which could be untrue.
If the original creator found you to be using their music and decided to pursue a legal claim, there is not any process that is protecting you. Not only could you get in legal trouble, but your YouTube channel could be penalized in a harsh and distracted manner.
Free Music Can Be Boring
As an exercise, play the same video with different types of music overlaid. It can be remarkable how much the music can affect the way that the viewer receives the video. It is extremely important that you choose your music carefully and that the audience can connect with it.
That being said, it is hard to find music that is free that is also interesting. You’ll find that a lot of public domain music is quite old. Maybe this makes sense for the topic of your channel, but most likely it will seem out of place.
You’ll Spend Hours Sifting Through Junk
While there is some free music out there that probably suits your channel just fine, good luck finding it. You’ll likely spend hours if not days sifting through music that you have no interest in to find one suitable song.
It’s important to understand that the cost of things is not just in their dollar value. If you are using free music to save money, consider how much your time is worth. If you are spending many hours every time you’re selecting a song, how much is that costing you in your own time?
Instead, you could obtain an affordable subscription, and sift through a clean, curated selection of royalty-free music.
Also, what if you commissioned custom scoring for your YouTube videos that were exactly what you were looking for? It would cost you very little time and you could get precisely the music that supports your content.
The Music Tends to Be Sub-Par
In reality, there is often a reason that free things are free. There might be some diamonds in the rough when you were looking through free music libraries, but most likely you will find that free music is subpar.
There are always corners you can cut in the business and sometimes that makes sense. When your business is running a YouTube channel, however the last corner you want to cut is by using subpar music in your channel just to save a couple of bucks. This will end up costing you more than you might realize.
You’ll Be Going It Alone
Maybe you have had luck using free music on your YouTube channels. If anything ever goes wrong, however, you will not have any customer support to back up the process.
On the other hand, when you have a subscription to a royalty-free stock library, you are benefiting from the work of highly creative people. Playlists and keywords have already been created in advance to help make your browsing experience more efficient and more enjoyable.
Crappy Music Will Lose You Subscribers
There are a lot of different YouTube channels competing for the attention of your potential subscribers. This means that you have to do everything possible to make your channel attractive to viewers. It is essential that you create a base of people who regularly watch the new video you upload.
There are likely a number of other channels that focus on the same topic as your channel. When you use subpar music, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage against your competition.
Music has a strong effect on people’s emotions, mood, and general state of being. It is therefore important to use high-quality music that supports the vibe you are trying to create. When you use music that suits your purpose, it will pay you back many times over and loyal followers.
Free Stock Music For YouTube: It’s Not Worth It
It might be tempting to use free stock music for YouTube in order to save money when starting a channel. However, there are a number of compelling reasons why doing so is a mistake and could lead to you losing subscribers and having fewer views.
Is it time for you to up your music game on your YouTube channel? If so take a look at our extensive catalogs.