Every game needs music. For some developers, game music is just as important as their characters, game sounds, story line or UI. But equipment can be expensive, and recording is a tricky process. It takes time, talent and a budget to create an original soundtrack for a mobile game.
And then there are developers that view music as an afterthought. It’s something that can be thrown together just before the game hits the app stores.
In the end, it’s the opinion of the player that counts. A great soundtrack, original or otherwise, can help create the type of player engagement that leads to long-term retention. Therefore, it’s worth putting together the best soundtrack you can, whether you have the interest or not.
Luckily, there are a large number of online resources offering free music for games. This list ranks the best sources of free music for your game’s soundtrack. You can put together the next soundtrack for your game right here. Just browse the list and find the tracks you like. All the sites included on this list offer royalty-free music you can use in your next mobile game.
Update: Because of many requests from game developers around the world, we added an extra site that lists the 16 Best Websites Featuring Free Game Sounds for Developers – if you are looking for short-playing sound effects like button click sounds or explosion sounds, this site is for you.
List of Free Game Music Sites
Here’s a quick overview of the list in case you’re in a rush.
digccMixterPlayOnLoopBensoundFreeSFXTwin MusicomZapSplatIncompetechMusOpenBandcampNetLabelsOurMusicBoxPurple PlanetMark SparlingSteven O’BrienBeardmontAmaradillo.ccPartnersInRhymeIndieGameMusicFreeSoundtrackMusicNote: we have collected more free resources for game developers at the end of this site. Make sure to check these out as well!
How to Play Free Game Music in Felgo
Now that you’ve found all these amazing free game music for your new game, you may be wondering how to use them. With Felgo, you can add game music or sound effects to your game in seconds.
For background music that will always play during your game, you can use our BackgroundMusic element. It supports ogg and mp3 format and it streams the music to the game, saving on resources. On top of that, the music will pause if you ever get a phone call or some other game interruption.
For shorter sounds such as sound effects or UI sounds you can use the SoundEffectVPlay element. This element works best with low latency sounds and sounds that need to begin immediately after their play function has been called.
Here is a quick example of how both of these sound elements can be used:
import Felgo 3.0import QtQuick 2.0GameWindow {Scene {StyledButton {anchors.centerIn: parenttext:"Sound Effect"onClicked: popSound.play()}SoundEffectVPlay {id: popSoundsource: "https:}BackgroundMusic {source: "https:volume: 0.5}}}
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Free Music for Games: The Ranked List
This is a great site that connects musicians with game developers and other creators. Recording artists upload their material; so the site always has new music. They even have a specific search function for finding video game music, with almost 2000 free songs.
PlayOnLoop offers professional sounding music loops for use in games and films, with a number of different download options. It also has a part of it’s site dedicated to game music. The game music section is then organised into 8 bit, 16 bit and sample based music so you can find the best fitting tracks for your game.
Bensound is an awesome site for finding free game music. Not only is the music high in quality, but the website is great too. You can easily browse according to genre, making it simple to find exactly what you want.
FreeSFX is no longer just for sound effects, you can now find full music tracks here too. FreeSFX have used a large selection of genres to categorize their music so it’s simple to find something that matches your game.
Twin Musicom has a diverse selection of music, ranging from Jazz to Chiptune, and it’s all free to use under a Creative Commons License. The layout of this site is great for demoing different tracks quickly. This is the site to visit if you need a song for your soundtrack right now.
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ZapSplat offers an easy-to-browse library of royalty free music that you’re free to download and use instantly. They cater to a large array of genres and produce high quality original material. They also host a selection of free sound effects for you to use.
Incompetech is one of the best known sites for royalty free music, and while not all the music here is free to download, it’s still worth checking out. Incompetech boasts one of the largest collections on this list, so you’re bound to find something you like.
MusOpen is slightly different to other entries on this list. This online library is a non-profit organization that wants to preserve classical music, but also make it more accessible to the public. All the music on MusOpen can be used in your game so check it out if you’re looking for something a little different.
While bandcamp isn’t strictly for finding royalty free music, there are a lot of artists that are happy to have their music used in commercial projects. The best thing to do is browse their free section and when you find something you like, get in touch with the recording artist. This is the best place on the list to find original music for your game.
Netlabels is a part of the Internet Archive and is described as being a catalogue of virtual record labels. A large portion of the music here is available to use with a Creative Commons License. This is a large collection of music and it might take some digging to find something you like. Try browsing by topic to improve your results.
OurMusicBox boasts thousands of tracks for you to download. They’re all organized according to tempo, key and genre to make browsing easier. One of the cool features of this site is the ability to sort the tracks by popularity and age. This makes it easy to find tracks that haven’t been used in too many other places.
Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn run Purple Planet where they offer their own compositions to developers. They’ve put together a large body of work and have a track for every occasion.As well as normal music, they also offer a range of ambient background sounds.
Mark Sparling has composed for a number of games and has made 70 of his tracks available for free download. He’s also in a band that covers classic video game music so make sure you check his site out just for that.
Steven O’Brien is a composer for film, TV and games. He’s available for hire but he’s also made a large selection of his work available for free. Steven has focused on a number of different instruments resulting in an eclectic mix of music. It’s all great quality so have fun browsing!
Beardmont’s music is inspired by 80s movies and video games and it’s all available under a Creative Commons License. He has a lot of electronic music for you to check out and it’s simple to download with SoudCloud. He’s also available to do work on full games if you enjoy his work.
While Armadillo.cc doesn’t have the largest collection at the moment, they send out new material every week. It’s definitely worth signing up for their newsletter if browsing for music isn’t your thing.
PartnersInRhyme offers a nice selection of free royalty free music loops you can use in your game. It’s easy to browse and the collection includes ambient loops of everyday sounds like shops. They also offer free sound effects and paid collections.
IndieGameMusic doesn’t exactly have an emphasis on free music but you can find it if you’re willing to look. This site does attract some heavyweight composers though. In fact, you can use it to get in touch with Grammy nominated composers and get an original piece composed for as little as $15.
You’ll have to check for permission to use the tracks on FreeSoundtrackMusic but it does have some cool browsing options. You can browse for music by color, lead instrument or emotion. If you’re not the best at picking songs, this might make things a lot easier for you.
Thanks for Reading!
So there you have the best sites for free game music. If you stumble across any more sites like these, make sure to comment and let us know. You can like or share this article using the buttons on the left. If you enjoyed reading, then please let a friend know too!
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