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Ask HN: Where Can I Get Some Free / Royalty-Free Music Tracks

17 points by jlgosse ↗ HN
Hey guys,

I'm writing a couple of games using XNA. One is a personal project, and one is for school. Where can I pick up some decent background music which I could include in my game? Note that I'm probably going to distribute through XBOX Live and maybe the Windows Marketplace for $1-$5 if I ever get around to completing them both.

Preferably looking for a electronic/techno/ambient style of music.

Thanks

12 comments

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dstik
you might be able to find something you like at http://www.youlicense.com/ they have a lot of bands and if you can't find something you like for free you'll still definitely get a good licensing deal.
stevejohnson
There are a lot of musicians who advertise themselves on iDevGames in the Classifieds section of the forum (http://idevgames.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=4). A lot of them will work for free, or under very reasonable terms, because they want to experiment with games or they're just feeling generous. And they really are responsive. I've worked with a couple.
marcusestes
If you find a track licensed under Creative Commons, be sure that it's not licensed Non-commercial. It's bar far the most common CC provision.

Also try Rumblefish's music licensing store: http://musiclicensingstore.com/

aw3c2
Whatever you end up with, make sure to double check it's legality. People like to put copyrighted music on free music websites.

I too recommend archive.org and jamendo.com. Also check out http://www.freesound.org/

petesalty
shameless plug: You're welcome to use any of the music from my 2008 album, it's all CC - providing you can find anything worth using, I make no guarantees :) Just let me know if you're interested.

http://snugglytako.rpmchallenge.com/

anshulk
thesixtyone has a CC section with a very good collection. Here is their CC electronic section: http://www.thesixtyone.com/cc/electronic/ There are some other relevant genres too.
jlgosse
Wow, I'm actually going to use this site as a source of music for myself as well. Good find.
erikwiffin
http://musopen.com/ is a pretty decent archive of classical music. Not quite what you're looking for, but a useful resource if others are interested