One of the most common complaints on this forum is about Roblox’s audio library. Many are under the impression that there is little good music to be found. While there are serious issues with the search system for that audio library, those “in the know” are aware that Roblox has actually given us access to an amazing catalog of music, through their partnership with APM Music.
What is APM Music?
APM Music is one of, if not the, world’s largest commercial music libraries. There are over a million songs in the full APM catalog, and tracks available from APM are used in a wide range of movies, TV shows, and video games. SpongeBob Squarepants, Call of Duty, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, Westworld, Top Gun, Star Wars The Last Jedi, Dune; all of these titles use the APM Music Library, for some or all of their music needs.
As Roblox developers, are extremely fortunate to have access to the same music, purchased by Roblox for our use on the platform.
Why this tutorial helps you.
Roblox’s search system is bad. You cannot search by genre, mood, instrument, theme, etc. on the Roblox catalog. However, you can search by all of these catagories on the APM Music Website.
Searching on the APM Music website.
You can find the APM Music website here.
How do you know what music Roblox actually has the rights to?
Libraries.
APM Music’s full catalog is divided into a number of Libraries. These are sub-catalogs. I’m not fully clear on what the difference is between each library is, but there is an important factor to consider:
Roblox does not have the rights to every library.
Roblox has the rights to songs from the following libraries:
- KPM Music Main Series
- Justement Music
- Themes International
- Bruton TV Series
- JW Media Music
- Nightingale Music
- Sonoton Music
- Juice
- Jump Music
- Kosinus
- Soho
This is an incomplete list, but covers the bulk of music on the APM catalog (note that many of the other libraries are smaller). The music library is usually listed as “Artist” when searching in the Roblox catalog. You can use that to get a sense of what libraries might be missing from my list, either because I didn’t see them, or they are newly acquired.
When searching for music on the APM catalog, you can filter to only include these libraries.
As an aside, I usually don’t bother to filter based on libraries, especially if I need to find lots of songs for a playlist; as I said, Roblox has the rights to most of the music; but if you choose not to filter, keep in mind that some of the music you find won’t actually be available on Roblox. Roughly 20% in my experience.
Finding the right track: mood, instruments, and genre.
Where APM’s search engine really beats Roblox is the ability to filter your search based on factors like genre, mood, instruments, and more.
All of these can help you to refine exactly what you’re looking for in your music.
Understanding track variations
Many tracks on the APM music library are available in variations. If you’re looking at a variant track, you’ll see the type of variation in the title. Understanding what these variations mean can help you find music to fit your exact purpose.
Stings
These are short versions of a piece, only a few seconds long. Some places I’ve used stings include as achievement sounds, in menus as the sound effect when clicking the “Play” button, entering a new chapter, etc…
Underscore
An Underscore is effectively a less intense version of a song. It won’t have as prominent of a melody, and will generally have a softer tone. Underscores are perfect as background music; in fact, most of the time I’m looking for background music, I’ll exclusively consider underscore tracks.
A/B Versions and Alternates
The same song, but performed a different way; perhaps with different instruments, mood, or tempo.
30/60 Second Versions
These are 30/60 second versions of a song. They are less applicable to game development, and are primarily in the APM library for commercials and ads.
The important thing to consider with the shorter variants (like stings or 30/60s) is that if you find one you like, a longer version of the track will also be available. I’ll explain below how to find other (in this case longer) versions of the same song.
Finding related music.
If you find a song you like and want different versions, you can see all of those variations by mousing over the song in the APM search window, then clicking on the number.
If you find a song you like and want to find similar songs, a good option is finding that song’s album. To do this, play the song through the APM site, then click the album icon in the bottom left.
Songs from the same album will probably fit together well. This can help your game have a consistent soundtrack.
Finding the song you want on the Roblox catalog.
Once you find a song you like, it’s time to locate it on the Roblox music library. To do that, you’ll have to search the name of the song on the Creator Marketplace.
This can, at times, be a tedious process. Note in my screenshot how I searched the exact name of the song I wanted, and I got a lot of unrelated results before finding my match. This wasn’t even on the first page of results!
On the bright side, there were only 4 pages to search through, and I didn’t have to listen to each track; I just had to look for a name that matched.
Even if there are a few pages to search through, I know Roblox has this library, so the song should be there somewhere.
While this system isn’t perfect (and Roblox can definitely improve searching on their end), I hope everyone can see how this improves the process for finding good music on the Roblox catalog.
Important Considerations
If you can’t find a piece of music on the Roblox audio library, we can only assume Roblox does not own the rights to it. Even if Roblox otherwise has the library, having not seen the details of the contract with APM, don’t assume Roblox has the rights to music you find on the APM library. Only use music uploaded by Roblox; don’t download the song yourself and upload it.
