Opuzz Royalty Free Music

In the past I have been looking into viable options for royalty free music. I found lots of options - covering everything from small to big sites with lots of music. Many sites also have loops and sound effects as well.

First I want to clear up any misapprehensions about royalty free music. The music is not free - you need to buy it. But when you have bought it you can use it for whatever purpose your license agreement allows you to use it without paying any royalty. From an economical perspective this is good as you have fixed expenses you can include in the budget.

Royalty free music's counterpart is big organizations like RIAA. If you want to use music they manage you'll have to pay a royalty per use. That is usually more expensive - trust me.

But today I'll write about Opuzz, a royalty free music site that just crossed my web browser. There are several thing I like about Opuzz:

• They use a blog as a communication platform with their customers. This way you can see what they have been doing in the past.
• There are no limits in their license. It makes it easier for me as I don't need to count downloads, uses or anything else.
• You can purchase small parts of a song or the song as a whole. Small parts of a song if of course cheaper than the whole song.
• Instant download. (If your order is less then US$100, and not loops either.)

Price

As with everything - price is important. If it is too expensive you will walk away. Opuzz have several prices, one for about whatever need you may have. From buying one track (US$29.95) to all versions of a track (US$34.99) the gap to buying the complete CD online (US$59) is small.

Price Stingers $2.99 Music Loops $4.99 10-seconds $4.99 15-seconds $9.99 30-seconds $14.99 60-seconds $19.99 Full Length $29.99 Alternate Mixes $14.99 Music CDs $59 CD Downloads (download entire CD!) $59! Quote from their website on March 28, 2007

Music CD promotions

When I move back and forth I often find "Music CD Promo" - which sounds great. Two CD's for only US$79. But when you read the small print you'll see that it only applies to physical CDs only.

I'd love to see same or better promotions for downloads as well!

Loops

I found one loop collection that sounded interesting. Their best-seller Music Loop collection Vol 1 with a total of 117 loops at only US$49. A bargain - so I bought it.

But what do I find? Each collection contains about 30 loops. But each song (from where the loop is made) you get three versions. This gives you loops from 10 different songs.

This was not what I expected, and I am somewhat disappointed. Opuzz should be more clear about what is included in their loop. And I should have been more skeptic as this information is not easily available.

You can listen to a flash demo of all three jingle-bells loops here.

Quality of music

What is quality? What goes for me does not have to be what goes for you. But big collections makes it easier to find something you like! And with good categories it is easy to search for the song you need.

Hard drive

Opuzz sells a hard drive with all of their music for only US$1999. I have not seen this elsewhere, but I  like the idea. Unfortunately I can not afford it.

Conclusion

This seems to be a good web site with lots of music for a reasonable price. I miss sound effects - but will I ever be satisfied? :)