Graphic art, photographs, and animation appear on web pages, sites, games or other media.  When visual content is accompanied by an instrumental audio component it becomes substantially enriched.  Indeed sometimes leaving out the audio component is not an option.  Fulfilling the audio requirement is achieved in one of two ways.  In the first, the audio is obtained from a custom source such as a musician or sound artist.  This solution is expensive and takes time.  In the second, audio is borrowed or taken wholesale from an existing source via a music licensing agreement.  This is the most economical and quickest solution.

For modern sound designers, the best sources are online which offer browseable content and quick delivery of the virtual goods upon receipt of a convenient payment.  But choosing where to spend the time browsing for the right sounds and music effects is difficult.  Even if you find a good source of music, how do you know that there isn’t a better supplier?  This article will present a number of sites with advanced features that allow much greater freedom and control over commercial music.

A carefully curated and organized presentation of sounds is absolutely necessary otherwise you will spend a lot of time clicking through pages trying to find what you need.  An excellent example is the fastidiously organized instrument list found on this excellent site for royalty free instrumental music: www.melodyloops.com/instruments/.  Note the sounds are divided by instruments with an indicator for the number of samples found in each.

High quality content is necessary for your sanity.  Why wade through hundreds of low quality tracks to find the one you need when you can go to a quality business and be sure that almost anything you pick out is a potential clip because of its high quality.  And make sure that there is great variety in the high quality music.

Look for sites that have a technological solution to let you listen to substantial segments of the clips.  Sites will not provide the original music file because that invites theft and piracy.  Instead the sounds are played through an interface such as a Flash-based application that does not allow downloading of the original files.

(Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk / Creative Commons)