Royalty free instrumental music

How to find and use cost-effective instrumentals and cues

If you’re a content creator looking to add a unique soundscape to your media production then royalty free instrumental music could be perfect for you, especially if your budget is limited. All the genre-based albums on this site can be quickly licensed at low cost, and all tracks are also available as instrumentals too, so if you need to create suspense with a tense musical build up, drive a scene forward with energetic beats, or add a sense of wonder or mystery, then there’s an instrumental track for you in the library.

What is instrumental music?

Instrumental music, as the name suggests, is music free from vocals, such as singing, rapping and chanting, although choral harmonies can feature within instrumentals. Any genre of music can be instrumental, and some compositions are written from the outset purely to be performed only with instruments, but most modern tracks are now produced as full vocal songs (with only some being released with vocal free mixes).

As they can lack the impact and emotion that a passionate singer can provide, tracks specifically written as instrumentals tend to have richer, more layered melodies and instrumentation, whereas songs written to include vocals often feature a cleaner, stripped back production, as the singers voice tends to carrier the primary tune.

Popular but not in the charts

In recent times, bands and composers of popular chart music have principally written songs based around catchy vocal hooks – memorable refrains that quickly resonate with the listener; a way to engage and grow an audience. Instrumentals have only occasionally featured on chart albums, and as a rule they have very seldom been released as singles. Metallica stand out as one of the few consistent chart topping bands that have regularly included a full instrumental track on many of their albums, including Pulling Teeth (Kill ‘Em All, 1983), Call Of Ktulu (Ride The Lightning, 1984), Orion (Master Of Puppets, 1986), To Live Is To Die (…and Justice For All, 1988) and Suicide & Redemption (Death Magnetic, 2008), but none of these were released as chart singles.

There are also very few pop songs that have had high entries in the charts in the form of instrumentals. A few well known exceptions include Wipe Out (The Safaris, 1963), The Hustle (Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony, 1975), Chariots Of Fire (Vangelis, 1982) and Theme From Mission: Impossible (Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen, 1996). However, the vast majority of chart hits are full songs with vocals, much to the chagrin of famous saxophonist David Sandborn, who once said “instrumental music is increasingly marginalized”. As a genre, EDM (electronic dance music), bucks this rule, and there have been many instrumental dance tracks that have achieved high placement in both the UK charts and US Billboard Top 100, with Aerodynamic (Daft Punk, 2001)and Greyhound (Swedish House Mafia, 2012) being examples.

A very brief recent history

Whilst it is not possible to write some genres of music as instrumentals from the outset (such as rap, which is defined by its rhythmic rhyming speech) or opera (in which singing is an essential theatrical element), western classical music has to be the most recognisable, and longest established type of music to be written in the instrumental form, with composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mendelson, Brahms and Barber using complex instrumental musical forms and the harmonic organisation of piano, strings, brass and percussion to provide depth, power, desire and melody in their orchestrations.

During the 20th century there was a notable shift from the production and consumption of western classical music to short, catchier, vocal-centred pop music, however, instrumental music has seen an increase in both demand and usage in the early 21st century. This growing need for instrumental tracks has chiefly been driven by media creators and marketers requiring atmospheric music and emotive soundscapes to enhance their own productions.

Why instrumentals work best for content creators

There’s no doubt that vocal-based chart music can generate a sense of energy, liveliness or passion and therefore be utilised to enhance different forms of media, but instrumental music has the advantage of not competing or clashing with dialogue that is often crucial in promotions, movies and video games. Be it a melodic audio bed that adds intrigue to a TV advert; a growing sense of threat generated by a progressive soundscape; intensive, driving backing music for a live Twitch stream; or just pleasant calming background melodies that enhance the customer experience in a retail outlet; instrumental music has a distinct advantage over standard vocal-based pop music.

Common problems: availability, cost, quality and originality

Sourcing good quality music that is free from vocalisations can prove a challenging task, especially for a content creator working with on a tight budget. Trying to track down an instrumental version of a popular chart song can be difficult for two reasons:

• The track may not have ever been released as a mix without vocals.
• Using a chart song requires the user to pay for an expensive license [PDF ↗] as well as hefty ongoing royalty fees.

At the other end of the scale are royalty free music subscription websites and free download services. Royalty free instrumental music affords the user the ability to add music to their own creative production by paying a smaller one-off sum or ongoing subscription, but no expensive royalty fees are due. Free music downloads are just that, entirely free. There are, however, several downsides to free and cheap services:

• The music can sound generic, unoriginal, and may have been used countless times before, and this can reduce the quality of your own production.
• The music available often lacks the style, energy and spark that comes with real music written by an actual recording artist, DJ or band.
• Subscription based websites require the payment of an ongoing monthly fee regardless of how many instrumentals you actually need, download or use.

The independent royalty free solution

An alternative to costly licensing services, cheap subscription based platforms and free download sites is to consider a boutique royalty free licensing agency that represents a real artist. Scambler Music offers a diverse array of real chart music that is available to license by way of genre-specific albums or as individual tracks, all of which can be downloaded as instrumentals. In comparison to PRS licensing is low cost, there are significant discounts available for album purchases, and once licensed there are no ongoing fees or subscriptions. There are several advantages to this royalty free instrumental music setup:

• Be it a TV advert, movie, Twitch stream or video came, your production will come to life when using unique, creatively rich, layered instrumental music on this site.
• You won’t be hit with expensive licensing fees, subscription costs or ongoing royalties – you only pay for what you use and licensing is up front with immediate file downloads.
• Licensing royalty free instrumental music from a niche independent music boutique ensures that your project will stand out from the crowd with an truly original sound track.

In summary, there’s no doubt that the right piece of music can bring a scene to life and add emotion, drama or suspense. Finding the correct track, however, especially one that doesn’t compete with essential dialogue, can prove difficult. For content creators with a lower budget that want original sounds and songs, royalty free instrumental music is the best bet, and if you need something unique and original then you can’t go far wrong when licensing instrumentals from Scambler Music.