Source for free, whole songs to use?

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

I know you can get free loops and even full tracks from looperman, but is there a website where a singer can download an entire completed song without any vocals on the song and they can just put their own vocals to it?

#2

Yes, search google for ‘karaoke tracks’ of any song you want.

#3

I was taking more about songs that someone else has made, such as with Looperman. So just as a person would record a loop or a whole track of keys, and put it on Looperman, this would be an entire song, just no vocals. So it is a new creation of a song, one that anyone can create and then someone else could just use the mp3 or wave file to load onto their daw and sing to it.

#4

oh… I see. I dont know about that. Not even sure why you would want to do that (legally).

You can, of course cancel out any mono information in a track using phase cancellation (like a vocal) and then re record over whats left of that track.

#5

I have quite a few songs that I have written and I can’t sing to them very well. So I was just thinking if there was a site that was out there for singers who are looking for a whole completes song to sing to, they could use have them.

#6

I don’t know that there’s a big demand for that, if any demand at all. However, it could be quite possible to sell your music on “stock music” sites and “royalty free music” sites, that kind of thing. I have thought about that myself. You can upload loops or whole songs, and people will pay good money in some cases to license it - royalty free doesn’t mean the music is free … just that after buying it you can use it for whatever you want and not pay royalties to the composer. The sites handle the sale transactions, and would take a commission on what is sold.

This type of thing is used all the time in soundtracks and on-hold music etc. Right now, they have been playing some cheesy loop over and over on www.timeanddate.com where I’m watching the lunar eclipse updates.

#7

So yeah, I had to go there and listen. It is kind of cheesy but it could be worse. Thanks for the tip, I am now on some stock sites listening.

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#8

I’m frequently horrified by the stuff I hear in numerous places. Horrible crappy music that likely got bought for royalty-fee usage or is getting royalties on it. Also, I used to be on eMusic where you pay a monthly subscription and get a certain number of downloads for it. I chose to explore their new “indie” music after they lost their licensing for older popular selling music catalogs. I was astounded by the garbage that people were selling and asking someone to pay for. Now, there were some “diamonds in the rough” that I was able to find, which kept me on the site a few extra months after the big catalog licensing got dropped. And I really enjoyed that part, discovering new stuff and in most cases probably self-produced.

So I guess my point is that what we do here on IRD is very commendable in terms of really trying to do things well, focusing and quality and constantly learning, but also realize that our own standards may be much higher than some folks who crank something out and try to sell it - and in some cases are actually successful! Maybe our challenge is to keep focusing on the standards, but don’t let them hold us back either. :thinking:

#9

There is always that balance between when to say, “this still needs more work or could be better” and “this is probably as good as it is going to get.”

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#10

I just checked that out. I am so not up on things that I feel I should be. One of the best things about everyone here is they help keep you in the loop of so many things.

#11

So is that a call for creating a site with better quality music for commercial use or is it just not worth the time?

#12

There’s probably plenty of quality music on a lot of those sites, of course then it becomes a subjective question of “what is quality?”. Artists are putting stuff out there and seeing whether it sells or not, or gets used in some kind of media that gets some attention and people say “whose music is that?” (and it is sometimes credited in plain sight). So they get to learn. People buying music for use also get to learn, what they like or don’t like or what works and doesn’t.

I didn’t mean to ‘judge’ quality, just to say it’s a bit frustrating to see both sides of the situation, as you summed up so well:

#13

I agree with all of what you said. I think quality can kind of be defined as it really sounds professional. The difference there is, if you are always recording and mixing and producing, you notice it way more than just a person looking at the moon on a website. Being a trim carpenter for many years growing up, I never just sat in a restaurant. I always sat there and looked at every single detail of trim work in the place. People would say to me, “I hate when you come over, you just stare at all my woodworking and you criticize every little thing.” So there is a kind of threshold that music “quality” has to go over but even that is subjective as there are lots of people who work with music and they seem to not have an ear for a good sound.

#14

Right, a certain level of acceptable/professional and then shades of gray up to excellent/professional, and even shades of gray below professional. A continuum as it were.