11: Where to Find Music For Your Podcast
In this episode, we're talking about music. Specifically, the music you'll be using in your podcast and my recommended websites for purchasing your music, how to get your followers involved with the process so they become invested in the show before it even launches, some common misconceptions about how you can use someone else's music, and the type of license you'll need to purchase.
UPDATE: Opuzz is no longer in service. As of January 2022, the website I personally use (and recommend to my clients) is Melody Loops and it’s linked below.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 11 podcasting for coaches. In this episode, I'm going to talk about where you can purchase the music for your podcast. So the music is generally played at the beginning during your intro and at the end during your outro. I talked about both of those elements last week. So if you have not listened to that episode, yet, I highly recommend that you do so. And then people sometimes also choose to have music for a little transitional segment. So again, as mentioned in Episode 10, you can also have individual episode intros and outros. So if you do interviews, you may choose to have a separate little segments of the show where you spotlight what was talked about or provide more information. And it's best to have a little bit of music in between these pieces of the show. So what you would do is you would have your main show intro, then you would have your individual episode and trail, there would be a little clip of music, there are generally a couple of seconds, it can sometimes also be called a stinger as in like bees have singers. And then you launch into the actual interview portion of the show. Then you do the transitional music or the singer again. And then you have your individual episode outro where you reflect, tell people where they can learn more. And then you transition into your full formal outro. That's generally how podcast episodes are formatted. Again, that's not a rule by any means. You can format your show however you want. But that's a pretty standard format. Because the structure is really organized. It's easy to put together. And the listener knows exactly what to expect. So to start off with, I want to preface this by saying when you were looking for your music, try to find something that not only do you like of course, but that sets the tone for the theme of the show and fits your personality and whatever the topic is. So if you are somebody who is incredibly boisterous, full of live, super fun, you laugh all the time, you're very energetic when you talk. And that's going to be your personality during the show. And it matches with whatever you're talking about. You're just super excited and passionate about it and ready to rock, you kind of want your music to fit that as well. So you don't want to have this show where you were just super bubbly and happy. And you're very passionate and you're really super encouraging. But your intro music is very somber or slow melody or just super kind of romantic sounding. None of that is going to fit with the theme of your show and your personality. Another thing to consider whenever you're picking your music, people binge consume content. So you may have listeners who they're coming into your show for the first time, and you've already released 20 episodes. So they're going to start at the very beginning. And they're just going to plow right through those episodes, which means they're hearing that episode intro back to back to back. I'm sure if you have watched TV shows or listened to podcast long enough, you will have a show in mind specifically, where that theme song once you hear it for the 12th time, you just want to rip your eardrums out, because it's incredibly annoying. Please don't be that person. Please don't have an episode intro that is really, really, really fast paced or has really high pitch tones. Anything that is going to become incredibly annoying once you hear it several times, because you listen to the intro while you're picking it out and creating it. And then maybe for the first few episodes, because you're really excited that you have a podcast. But eventually trust me, you're just gonna stop listening to your shows once they're released. And you don't have to listen to that whenever you piece it together to create your actual episode. I honestly for my very first podcast, I went about two years, I think without listening to my intro, and when I heard it again, I was like, oh god, this is terrible. I need to change this right now. So keep in mind not to be annoying when you're picking out your music to start with a great way to ensure that it's not annoying. And to get your current audience involved in the process and really invested in this podcast is to find a couple of different songs that you like, and then crowdsource it, you know, go to your audience and say, Hey, I'm considering these songs for my new podcast. Which one do you prefer? Here's the poll, let me know. And that makes your existing audience feel like they're a part of the process. They're invested in it. They're going to be super excited to hear which song is picked once it's launched. And then you're also going to know which one your audience prefers which one they find more pleasant to listen to. So now that that is out of the way, a few of my favorite resources to recommend for my clients to purchase their music from our website called melody loops.com. And of course, I'll have links to all of these in the show notes for this episode. So you don't have to necessarily worry about the web addresses right now. But melody loops is great, because if you purchase a song through them, they actually give you the ability to change the length of the song, which you don't really realize how important that is until you go to actually match up your song with what you've recorded for your intro. So if you have recorded 42 seconds worth of copy for your intro, but you purchase a song that's only 30 seconds long, you then have to manipulate that audio and copy and paste certain parts of the song so that it makes it a little bit longer. Which if you're not familiar with audio editing, that can be pretty complicated, and pretty tedious. So what melody loops does is it allows you to take whatever track you purchase from them, and then just say, hey, I need this song to be 52 seconds long instead, and fade in the beginning and fade out at the end. And you just click a couple of buttons and put those numbers and it does it for you, which is freaking amazing. And honestly, the music sounds pretty good, too. I mean, it's pretty standard music that's going to sound good for being looped and having it be as long as you need it to be. So my next favorite website for people to purchase music from is called opas, which is actually o p is in Paul, you, zz and z is in zebra. And the reason I love olbas is because you can actually get a whole CDs worth of songs for like 50 bucks, there are some music licensing platforms out there, where they can charge you hundreds of dollars for one song, which to me is just insane when there's so much good music at a much cheaper price. But with oba's, you can purchase just one track if you want. And that's generally I think, like 12 bucks or something, or you can get a whole CDs worth of like 10 to 12 songs that are all, you know, similarly themed. And then not only do you get those individual tracks, but for each track, they actually give you different versions. So they give you two full versions, one which is the original one, and then they give you like an alternate one which has been changed a little bit and then they give you a 62nd version and a 32nd version. And then usually either like a 10 second or a seven second one which can be used for your stingers. So you just get so much for your money when you purchase through opas. And the reason you may want those different tracks is because a then you can use it in your online courses or your videos, whatever other material you need music for. In general for your business, you have music that's all similarly themed. Or if you ever create commercials for your show, either for a sponsor or for your own products, then you have music for those commercials that's different from your intro and outro but still similarly themed. So again, that's opas op use easy and there will be a link in the show notes. Now to other websites that are pretty decent for picking up music and pretty reasonably priced our loop sound, l o p sound calm and Stock Music dotnet those, you just go and purchase an individual track that you like. And the length just kind of is what it is you have to keep that in mind as you're picking your song to make sure that it matches up with whatever copy you've recorded for the intro. The final resource for purchasing music is a website called audio blocks.com. Now, this is a subscription based platform. So you don't really purchase by the song you purchase like an annual or I think they even have monthly memberships. And then while you are a member, you have access to everything that's on their platform. And you can use it however you want. And it's even yours after your membership stops. So if you wanted to, you could just sign up for a monthly membership, go and download all the songs and music that you want, and then cancel it at the end, and then you're done. So I do want to talk about some licensing when you're purchasing these songs. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about how music can be used. A lot of people are under the impression that you can use a popular song like a hit mass produced song, if you use less than 30 seconds, you're fine. And that is 100% not true. If you do not specifically own the license or have the rights to use that audio in your productions, do not use it. Just cover your bases be safe and do not use it. Even if you have reached out to the artists themselves. say there's an indie artist that you really like one of their songs, and you think it will fit perfectly for your podcast and your audience and your niche. And you reach out to that artist and they actually do give you permission to use it, you still do not legally have the permission to use that unless they actually own that song themselves. Which if they are with a record label, or they have a producer or a writer that's different from them. Chances are they don't own the rights to that song themselves either. So they don't have the ability to give that permission, which is why I recommend going through one of these sites that I have mentioned in this episode because you purchase the license and then you legally have the right to use that. However, there is a caveat that you have to purchase the right license because there are different licenses for songs. And every different music platform has different types of licensing. And unfortunately, music licensing has not quite caught up to podcast yet. So right now you will not see a podcast music license. The equivalent if you're given an option is a radio broadcast license. So if you see that, select that one, that's the one you should choose. If you don't see that, but you see an option for a commercial license, you should purchase that one, because you're going to be using this podcast as part of your business. So you want this podcast to bring in leads. So even though you won't necessarily be directly getting revenue from it, there's this whole gray area. So just to be safe, get a commercial license, you also want to make sure that the license doesn't limit you to the number of plays, plays could be interpreted as downloads, which means that if they limit you to 5000 plays, that could be 5000 downloads, and it's unclear whether that's per episode for the entire show. So again, is this huge gray area. So just cover your bases and get something that has unlimited plays or downloads. If you have any questions at all about whether or not the music license is the one that you need, reach out to the particular platform that you want to purchase a song from, and just double check with them say, Hey, I'm putting together a podcast and I really want to use this music in the show, what license Do I need and they should be able to tell you. So that pretty much wraps up what I have to say about where and how to purchase your music. If you have any questions not specifically about licensing on the various platforms, feel free to reach out to me by emailing me at Britany at podcasting for coaches calm and again that's Britany with one t a n y or lastly you can connect with me on Facebook facebook.com forward slash podcasting for coaches. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Be sure that you come back next week where we are going to finally combine your intro copy your call to action and your music to record the very first element for your podcast. Have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you're ready to see if starting a podcast is the next logical step for your coaching or consulting business, head on over to podcasting for coaches comm where you can schedule a free 15 minute strategy session with yours truly. During this call, we'll discuss your business and see a starting a podcast will help you generate more brand awareness and more leads. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I hope that we were able to chat soon