Hey there, how’s it going? Today I wanted to share some tricks I use to make finding music in the toolbox easier, as well as some external websites and artists that you can get music from for your games.
I’m mainly making this as I have seen a couple posts asking where to find music, as well as struggling to do so myself (especially when using other engines like godot, where afaik you don’t really have any built-in libraries for music/sfx like you do here).
In this tutorial I’ll go over:
- Getting the best results from the toolbox
- What external music you can use
- Common resources for music
- “Royalty Free” artists I happened to listen to
- Contributions
Before getting started I’d like to clarify that believe it or not, shockingly, I’m not saul goodman, and nothing here should be taken as legal advice. A good chunk of the info present here was found on the creative commons website, the unity forums, and reddit, so this is as valid and accurate of a reference as a powerpoint presentation you’d make for school would be.
You are the sole responsible of looking into the details and licensing if you are planning to use the music from the external websites I share here. I’m just offering a brief compilation I put together based on information I gathered online as I needed music myself, so if something is innacurate, feel free to let me know.
Getting the best results with the Toolbox
The toolbox isn’t as bad as some people say, for the most part you can find all the music you need as long as the genre isn’t too rare and you know what to look for. The downside is that this is a fairly slow process as you need to manually check hundreds of tracks hoping to find one that fits your game (as well as the downside of not having the artists you already know).
For this section i’m going to share what I do to filter as many irrelevant audios as I can, which should hoperfully make the process easier.
Roblox by default provides us with 2 libraries, APM and Mostercat. You can also use audios uploaded by others, but 99% of those are stolen or were made private in a recent update, so for this tutorial i’m going to limit myself to the APM library.
Let’s get started by opening the audio section of the toolbox, we’ll be greeted with a bunch of tracks and sound effects uploaded by roblox.
Let’s open the settings and make sure “Include unverified creators” in unchecked as we don’t want it right now. Now let’s set the audio length to something over 1 minute long to ensure what we get is mostly music.
Couldn’t we just use the music section? Yep, but someone at Roblox forgot to let us search audios by name while excluding sound effects, so we’ll just use the length as a workarround (you can just look for them by genre, but I find looking for them by name more accurate).
Instead of writing something specific, which will either return no results or give you the same track everyone else used, I prefer typing a word related with the theme I want a song for (aka: a mood), for this example I used the word “code”, as I was aiming for a sci-fi/electronic mood for the music.
Suggestion: Expand the toolbox window so you can see the genres and duration of the audio, this helps filtering them quicker (if you want electronic, ignore everything that isn’t electronic).
I liked this track called “Night Code”, so i’m going to stick with it.
But what if we like the music we found, but we either want more like it or we feel like it doesn’t fully fit our game? What I do in these cases instead of moving on with the next audio in the results, is looking into the album of the track, so let’s do just that.
But as you might have seen, it seems like roblox forgot to make albums work too, so instead it just returned random results. What we’ll have to do instead is to open our browser and look for the album ourselves.
In my case, I found one of the random results roblox threw at me more interesting than what I originally picked, so i’m going to look up the album of “Sunset Chill” instead, which is “Inside Tracks - LoFi Chill”.
And there we go, it’s not the APM website but it’ll work. All we have to do now is to pick one of the tracks we like and check if it’s available in the toolbox.
I found a track I liked called “Glowing Light” in the album, so i’m going to look just for that.
And just like that, I found a track that I think will fit my game. Not all words you type will bring relevant results, but you should get something relevant after a couple tries and scrolling a bit.
This is the easiest way I personally found to look for songs, but keep in mind APM doesn’t have that many variety in it’s genres, so if you want a specific subgenre like retrowave and typing the mood doesn’t work, try typing the genre itself and looking for albums, and if that doesn’t work either you might want to just look for it elsewhere (which is what the rest of the post is for).
Using External, “Royalty Free” Music
Let’s assume the Toolbox didn’t work for you, or that you like making games in multiple engines/platforms and you don’t have a music library in your other ones. For both of these cases what you can do is look for “royalty free” music online and upload the audio yourself now that they are free.
And yes, I know that technically speaking you could just steal a random MP3 off the internet, put it into your game, and if it isn’t popular and you aren’t unlucky probably no one will ever notice (that’s what a big chunk of roblox games do, even with things like clothing).
But the point of this resource is helping you do things the right way to avoid hurting the artists, and to avoid a DMCA later down the road. So let’s look into what music we are actually allowed to use.
To get a better understanding of that, let’s look at a couple definitions as I initially got confused by these myself when looking for music (if you don’t care you can skip to the websites, but I suggest sticking if you wanna be safe with what music you pick):
Right before I get someone mad at me for getting the definitions wrong, i’m going to leave the source for each definition below each title (for things that were unclear, I took the safest assumption), if something is innaccurate, feel free to provide an appropiate source.
What’s Royalty Free?
Source
You might have noticed I kept using this term when referring to free to use music between quotation marks, but in reality it doesn’t really mean what you might think it means.
Royalty free just means you don’t have to pay a regular fee per usage of the music, that doesn’t imply it’s free, and even if it is, depending on the track’s license (if it has one) you might still not be allowed to use it.
With this I’m not saying Royalty Free music can’t be used, but i’m simply implying that you need to look for a license or ask the author unless otherwise stated regardless of if the track says it’s royalty free or not (as a side note, i’m still going to use the term royalty free in the rest of the post to refer to free music as it sounds fancy and I feel like it).
What’s Copyright Free?
Source
Copyright free on the other hand, does mean the music is free of any copyright, and thus, can be used even commercially, right? As far as I looked up online, yes and no.
Copyright free implies that, but from my understanding the term is commonly missused as just permission to use a track in a youtube video, a stream, or only in free games, and since those words alone are more like a promise than a legally binding thing, without a license I don’t think they mean much.
So much like with royalty free, we should always look for a license, even if it’s stated the content is copyright free (if this is stated and you don’t see a license in a youtube video, the artist usually has the licence in their bandcamp/soundcloud upload, so check there).
Cool, so what’s a license?
Source
When someone creates something, they own the copyright to it, and they are the only ones allowed to use it. Licenses, specifically creative commons which is the one i’m going to be referencing for this post, is a way for those creators to share their work with other people, usually under certain conditions (you can use other licenses, I’ll give you a website to quickly look at their conditions, but CC is the one I personally find the easiest to look for).
Each license holds it’s own set of conditons such as attribution, non-commercial use, redistribution under the same license, no redistribution, etc. And this is pretty much where I wanted to get to with this gigantic wall of text most of you probably skipped. You need to comply with those conditions
Which license should I look for?
On top of any condition you believe you are unable to comply with, what you should try to avoid are non-commercial licenses, usually containing the words “NC” if they are creative commons licenses (example: CC BY-NC 3.0).
Why? What does commercial mean?
Source
A game counts as commercial the moment it generates any kind of revenue, regardless of if it’s creator does so purposely or not. This can go from a paid access game, to a game with microtransactions, to a game with paid dlcs (based on the lack of clarification about this online, I’ll assume it doesn’t matter if the dlc uses kevin mcleod music and the NC music is only in the free game, it’s paid content, it’s commercial).
This would not affect free games if it wasn’t for the fact that premium payouts can’t be turned off, which has been already requested in this feature request. And even though it’s unclear to me whether opting to not devex what the game earns would prevent the game from being considered commercial, that’s a thin line I’d rather not walk on.
What’s CC0?
Source
From what I understood CC0 is what copyright free is actually intended to mean, when an artist includes a CC0 license it means they intended to give up the rights to their work to dedicate it to the public domain (I have seen people question online regarding wether works under this license are actually under the public domain or not, but i’m no lawyer, so i’m not going to bother diving into that).
With that in mind, even though CC0 requires no attribution, please still give creators proper credit if you use their work regardless of if you are required to do it or not. It’s both disrespectful to not do so, and it encourages them to not allow you to use their work again in the future.
For a brief summary for those who skipped:
- Copyright free isn’t always actually copyright free, neither is royalty free.
- To ensure you are safe when you look for music, look for a license.
- Want something that’s actually copyright free? CC0 is what you are looking for.
- As far as I understood, you can’t use non-commercial licenses in Roblox, doesn’t matter if your game’s free, so if the license is creative commons and has the word NC, don’t use the track.
- At doubt, contact the artist, or a lawyer, not some random devforum post.
Now that this long and very likely innacurate wall of text is done, and now that we have a rough understanding of what we have to look for when trying to find “copyright free” music, let’s actually look at some sources I found for it.
Common Resources For Music
TDLRLegal:
As sketchy as the name of the website sounds, this is a pretty useful tool for getting a brief resume of what conditions each license has. CC itself offers a resume themselves, but some other licenses don’t (if your game is really big maybe don’t be silly and read the full license, but for normal people this is the most accessible option).
Website: https://tldrlegal.com/
Incompetech:
I think this is by far the most popular one, so I’d be surprised if someone here didn’t hear about it. It’s Kevin MacLeod’s official website, and even though it’s a bit overused, it contains thousands of quality royalty free tracks, so if you look hard enough you’ll find one you didn’t hear before.
All the website requires you to do is to give proper attribution, if you can’t do so, you gotta buy a license.
Website: Free downloads - Royalty Free Music
OpenGameArt:
Another popular one if you make games off-platform, OGA offers thousands of user uploaded game assets with a wide range of licenses, including royalty free music and sound effects (that last time I checked, all licenses allowed for commercial use, but don’t trust me on that one).
Be warned that since uploads here are user generated, much like here in roblox and all user generated content sites I wouldn’t be surprised if something was stolen (but as far as I looked up, it’s safe).
Website: Search Art | OpenGameArt.org
Itch io:
Huh??.mp3 Yep, itch io is mostly known as a platform for game distribution, but you can also find free game assets under a wide range of prices and licenses, including free soundtrack and sound effects for your games.
Just make sure to use the proper tags, and to look for the right license (usually under the show more menu).
Website: Top game assets tagged Music - itch.io
SoundCloud:
I think pretty much anyone who can’t afford spotify premium or doesn’t like it in general knows what soundcloud is, but I actually realized it could be used to look for royalty free music last minute while I was writing this post as the option is kinda hidden, so here’s an easy step-to-step on how to use it for that.
Step to step:
- Go to the website on desktop (if you are on phone just use it in the browser with the “show as desktop” setting on).
- Type something in the search bar, press enter, and select tracks in the sidebar in the left side.
- Click the “listen to” button that should now show up if you clicked on tracks, and select “to use commercially” (unsure what license “to modify commercially” is).
- And done, you should now only get tracks that are allowed for commercial use (still, check the license just in case).
Website: a results on SoundCloud - Listen to music (change “a” for what you actually want to look for)
Artists I happened to listen to
These are some of the artists I listen to myself who just happened to make royalty free music. I’m not going to offer a description for them like I did for the websites because i’m bad at describing music and genres with words, and I don’t want to be disrespectful to them by giving you a generic description.
All I’ll give are the licenses I saw (again, double check yourself), one or two of the many genres/subgenres they make, one track to serve as a preview, and their website.
Kubbi
Genre: Electronic/Chiptune
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 - A FEW TRACKS IN PROVIDED WEBSITE (Commercial use allowed, requires attribution, same licence required if redistributed)
Preview: Listen to Ember by Kubbi 🌲 in Ember playlist online for free on SoundCloud
Website: Stream Kubbi 🌲 music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud
Pasi Sivula (If you ever listened to classic roblox music, you listened to this guy)
Genre: Ambient/MIDI
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 - ALL TRACKS IN PROVIDED WEBSITE (Commercial use allowed, requires attribution, same licence required if redistributed)
Preview: Pasi Sivula - Tink (Missing You!) - YouTube
Website: https://www.listencopyleftonward.com/
Creo
Genre: Electronic
Licence: CC BY 3.0 - A FEW TRACKS IN PROVIDED WEBSITE (Commercial use allowed in some, requires attribution)
Preview: Adrenaline EP | Creo
Website: Music | Creo
flowerhead (specifically their project: somewhat good royalty free music)
Genre: Ambient/Electronic
Licence: CC BY 3.0 - ALL TRACKS IN PROVIDED WEBSITE (Commercial use allowed, requires attribution)
Preview: Synth Of Time | flowerhead | Somewhat Good Royalty Free Music
Website: https://somewhatgoodroyaltyfreemusic.bandcamp.com
iGottic
Genre: Ambient/Electronic
Licence: I couldn’t find one, but their post says they allow using their music both on and off platform (if unsure, reach them out and ask).
Preview: Stream Revenant Rebirth by iGottic | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
One of their multiple forum posts: Super Dope // Another free music EP to use in your games!
And that’s all the artists with royalty free music I happened to know, if you like any of what they make check out the rest of their music, wouldn’t follow them myself if I didn’t think what they make is good.
Contributions
To keep the post organized i’m going to quote all contributions left in the comments in this section.
Closing
Even though this post probably looks like it doesn’t offer anything meaningful and that it was written in 30 minutes, it took me around 8 hours even with me already knowing all the websites mentioned (except soundcloud for this purpose which was a last minute addition). The whole copyright/licenses section gave me anxiety because I am not good with legal stuff and I know I very likely didn’t get everything factual and right.
But I mainly pushed through and made the post anyways because recently I’ve been trying out godot, and finding audio as someone who has a budget of 0 there felt like a big pain in the back without a proper library like we have here and proper info (and it’s not like finding good and original audio here is always easy either) so I thought it’d be useful for all platforms in general to have a brief wall of text, even if not fully accurate, with a couple websites, and roughly explaining what to look for.
Half of the websites present here work as resources for game assets in general, and licenses apply the same way to those, so there’s that too.
By the way, this is not an encouragement to not comission artists, if you can afford it absolutely go for that, it’ll sound better and it’ll fit better with your game, but for those who that isn’t a viable option for, the resource is there.
If you have a correction, want me to add an artist/website to the list, or have any suggestion in general, feel free to comment it down below.