“An Ode to Open Source Audio: Selecting Tunes for Captivating Montage Videos”

The popularity of montages is increasing every day, as they allow you to use fewer words and express more. Adding non-copyrighted music to your montages can help you capture the viewer’s attention and communicate your message. We’ll give you the definition of copyright and why it is crucial to use royalty-free music in your montage videos. We have given an overview of some of the most popular royalty-free montage music tracks and where you can download them.

What Is Copyright?

If you are wondering: What is copyright? It’s a sort of intellectual property designed to give its owner the entire right of copying and distributing creative work, often for a limited time. Essentially, the creative work could be in a musical, educational, artistic, or literary form.

Copyright protects the creator of the work from unauthorized use or duplication. The original work must be tangible for copyright laws to protect it.

If you’re caught using copyrighted material that a legal copyright owner owns, you’ll have to pay them civil damages. Infringing upon anyone’s intellectual property rights by using their copyright without their permission means you are guilty of copyright infringement.

Claiming you didn’t know about the artist’s copyrighted material doesn’t excuse you from using it in your montage video without their consent.

If you use copyrighted music in your montage video without the artist’s consent and profit from it commercially, you may have to pay the owner of the song monetary damages. The court may also ask you to give the artist your profits as restitution.

The maximum statutory damage for the act of copyright piracy can go as high as 150,000 dollars along with court costs and attorney fees. What’s the worst part? You could lose your freedom, as copyright infringement can land you in jail in extreme cases.

For these reasons, you might want to pay attention to copyright issues when creating a montage video. Make sure you use non-copyright music when making your video montage.

Top 15 Non-Copyrighted Music for montages

If you are looking for free montage music to keep your audience engaged with your content when viewing it, we have highlighted some great options. There is no shortage of what is available for free to use, allowing small-time and professional video editors to create masterpieces.

1) Endless Inspiration - Alex Toner

Endless Inspiration is a corporate montage music track by Alex Toner. The music track runs 2 minutes and 16 seconds, and it features a tempo of 120. It’s suitable for motivational business presentations, and you can use it on your site, social media podcast, YouTube, vlog, and more.

Endless Inspiration - Alex Toner

2) Once Again - Benjamin Tissot

Once Again is a cinematic free montage music track by Benjamin Tissot (Bensound) that features electric guitar, marimba, strings, and piano. The emotional mood of this composition makes it ideal for vlogs or daily life montage videos. The duration of the song is 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

Once Again - Benjamin Tissot

3) Better Days - NEFFEX

Released on 15 March 2022, Better Days is one of the best non-copyrighted music for montage; it is a pop song by NEFFEX. The music track has a happy mood, and its length is 2 minutes 7 seconds. This mid-tempo record is ideal for events.

Better Days

Chocolate Cookie Jam is a country & folk song by An Jone from the album of the same name. The track is 3:22 long, and it has a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can use the song in your birthday montage.

Chocolate Cookie Jam

5) Captive - Paul Keane

Captive by Pual Keane is a motivational ambient music track ideal for a slow-motion, documentary, or emotional ambient montage video. The track runs for 2 minutes and 10 seconds; it has a tempo of 140 BPM. The song features synthesizers and piano instruments.

Captive

6) Resolve - Joel Cummins

Resolve is a cinematic song with a dramatic mood that was composed by Joel Cummins. The duration of the song is 2 minutes 18 seconds. You can use it in your vlog montage.

Resolve

7) Clap and Yell - Bensound

Clap and Yell is a fun and happy pop song by Bensound that features organ, vocal samples, electric guitar, and handclaps. You can use it to add a happy mood to your birthday montage video. Vocal samples are courtesy of Spectrasonics. The length of the song is 2 minutes and 56 seconds. The music track has a tempo of 110 BPM, and you can use it double-time at 220 BPM and half-time at 55 BPM.

Clap and Yell

8) Winter Journey - Orchestra/Background/Holiday

Winter Journey is a blend of classical music for chamber music and Christmas exploring the winter ideas. The song is an intimate experience, allowing you to celebrate and reflect. The track has a Creative Commons Attribution International License, and it runs 5 minutes and 5 seconds.

Winter Journey

9) One Fine Summer - Purple Planet

With a length of 2 minutes and 4 seconds, One Fine Summer features uplifting background piano chords. It also has modern electronic vocals that imply freedom or escape. The soft zonal washes in the track suggest traveling or movement, making it suitable for montage videos with documentary or travel themes.

One Fine Summer

10) Flight of the Mind by Max Tune

Flight of the Mind is a cinematic music track by Max Tune. It features strings, piano arpeggios, percussive, orchestral, and vocals. The music track runs for 2 minutes and 21 seconds and has a tempo of 110 BPM. You can use it in motivational and inspirational montage videos.

Flight of the Mind

11) Basic Trap Anthem 1 by TeknoAXE

Basic Trap Anthem 1 is a dance/electronic music track by TeknoAXE. It runs 3 minutes and 48 seconds long, and you can use it in your events montage videos. The track was released in 2019, and it is available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Basic Trap Anthem 1

12) Positive Motivation by Purple Planet Music

Positive Motivation is a music track that features positive electric guitar licks that create an instant inspiring feel that suggests an award-winning moment of success. This uplifting track implies inspiration, success, and corporate motivation for business. The duration of the track is 1 minute and 42 seconds.

Positive Motivation

13) QR - Sphenic [Argofox Release]

QR - Sphenic [Argofox Release] is an electronic music track by Argofox. This free montage music track runs 3 minutes and 11 seconds long. You can share, remix, or use this track commercially.

QR - Sphenic

14) Spacedust - Airtone ft MWIC

Spacedust is a royalty-free montage music track by Airtone featuring MWIC. Its duration is 5 minutes and 18 seconds, and it has a tempo of 80 BPM. This track can make your audience focus on the message you are sending in your montage video. It’s suitable for vlog and birthday montage videos.

Spacedust

15) Thunder - Telecasted

Thunder is a rock music track by Telecasted from the album Thunder. It has a dark mood and a length of 2 minutes and 37 seconds. You can use this free montage music track and credit the artist.

Thunder

Bonus! Non-Copyrighted Music & More in Filmora

Filmora has a feature called Stock Media, where you can find three subcategories that you can use when creating montages. These are Giphy, Pixabay, and Unsplash. In the Giphy subcategory, you’ll find download music GIFs and animated GIFs.

Pixabay subcategory features royalty-free montage music, film footage, and photos. You can choose from tons of free high-resolution pictures of songs in the Unsplash subcategory.

Filmora’s Auto Montage Maker allows Windows users to match your video with music. The tool can automatically edit your video and make it smooth with the free montage music you choose.

Here is the kicker: You do not need any editing skills to use this Auto Montage feature, as the tool can automatically match your video with music clips and analyze beat points to switch the view and video effects.

It can also identify the bad parts in your video swiftly, like too dark, jitter, or overexposure. Additionally, it can automatically delete these bad parts to ensure it matches your video with the music you have chosen.

The best part is: You can also edit the video to make it look more professional by customizing it. Filmora allows you to trim, color tune, adjust the speed of your video, and much more.

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Summarize:

Using content you do not own is always copyright infringement. If you are worried about copyright infringement or having your montage video taken down is a concern, you can use these free montage music tracks. Montage music can shape the emotions of your viewers and motivate them. It also makes the images in your video look more interesting and entertaining.

Filmora can help you create professional-like montage videos that flow well. The software is user-friendly and features tons of royalty-free music, photos, and videos that you can use to create your montage videos.

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Charting the Top Melodic Havens ‘S Downloadable BGM Scores

Starting with good news for music lovers. Like stock images and stock videos, the background music also has a license for downloading. Let’s talk a little about free music before jumping on to different BGM music sites. There are two different types of free music. One where you can use the music without for any purpose. The music is not restricted to copyright; it’s known as ‘Public Domain.’

The other type is ‘Royalty-free Music,’ which allows the purchaser to pay for the music license only once. Along with these, another license is ‘Creative Common License.’ With this type of license, you can easily download and share music tracks for free. Now that you know a little about free music let’s move on and discuss popular sites for BGM mp3 download.

Part 1: Top 10 Sites to Download BGM Music for Videos

We are not always connected to the internet. Suppose you want to listen to songs, but sadly you don’t have internet connectivity. What are you going to do in such a situation? The best suggestion to avoid such problems is to download your favorite music. The following section of this article will share 10 sites to download BGM songs.

1. Jamendo

The first site that we are going to talk about is Jamendo. The site offers two platforms; Music and Licensing. With Jamendo Music, you can do free downloading and free streaming. All the songs under Jamendo Music have a Creative Commons License.

On the other hand, if we talk about Jamendo Licensing, it offers royalty-free music. This type of music is best for commercial use. Jamendo is an open community. It has a variety of free BGM music in almost all genres. A magical thing about Jamendo is that it’s not just for free downloading. You can also upload and share your music with this platform.

2. Bensound

The following site on the list for background BGM download is Bensound. This is the home for thousands of royalty-free music. The price range for Bensound is free. The homepage of Bensound is very inviting. You can easily find your desired music from Bensound. This is because it has easy-to-use search functionality.

It has a wide range of genres. All the songs are displayed on Bensound with names, interesting thumbnails, and descriptions. The majority of the clips on Bensound are offered through an attribution no-derivative CC License. This license means that you can use free background music as long as you credit the site.

3. BeatPick

Moving on to discuss another site. It is ‘BeatPick,’ the site with music with a Creative Commons License. BeatPick is known as a compelling site. It is an online music search engine. You know what? If you plan to add killer beats to your videos, check BeatPick. You will indeed find the best BGM music for your video.

With BeatPick, you can create your ‘Beatlist.’ You can add your favorite background music to your Beatlist for later use. You can also download your desired background tracks. One thing to keep in mind is that BeatPick has primarily instrumental tracks. So, if you are looking for piano BGM music, then head over to BeatPick.

4. SoundCloud

In today’s world, no one is new to SoundCloud. Let us state a fact here that SoundCloud is the world’s largest open audio platform. It has a community of listeners as well as creators. All the music on SoundCloud is protected under the Creative Commons License. You can use free BGM music under this license. This is why its price range is free.

Working with SoundCloud is very convenient. It helps you narrow your search by using various available tags. Not just this, but you can also do streaming with SoundCloud. It gives you a platform to share your music and has confidence in yourself.

5. Thematic

The next popular site for downloading cool BGM songs is Thematic. The site has copyright-free music. You can find suitable music for your videos that matches the video theme. The platform has free songs that musicians and artists establish.

Using Thematic is not at all difficult. You have to become a member of it. As soon as you become a member, you will see its complete music catalog. It has a variety of music from various known artists. You can easily use Thematic by following its simple rules.

6. ccMixter

Up next is the ccMixter in line. This is a collaborative platform for musicians. On ccMixter, firstly, singers upload their vocals. Then musicians share samples. Lastly, DJs mix them to create stunning songs. All the songs on ccMixter are under Creative Commons License. Its price range is free but with attribution.

Hence, you are free to use the music as long as you give credit to the artist. ccMixter offers you Instrumental Music, Free Music for Commercials and Video Games. Do you know that ccMixter has a tag search? This narrows your search process and saves time. A fact about ccMixter is that it has been used in over 1 million games and videos.

7. YouTube Audio Library

YouTube was created in 2005. Today, it is the most used site with billions of videos. Do you know YouTube has an Audio Library? It has free songs available in its massive library. The songs in this library are protected under the Creative Commons License, and some are Public Domain. They are free to use.

The songs in this library are grouped according to their genre, duration, mood, etc. You can use filters to speed up your search process. With the YouTube Audio library, you can listen and download without limits.

8. Free Music Archive

The next popular site is Free Music Archive. Let’s start, shall we? This site is commonly known as FMA. Free Music Archive is very popular because it is one of the most extensive selection platforms for free BGM music. Some of its songs are protected by Creative Commons License. Whereas some are from Public Domain. The price range for FMA is free.

This online site is impressive to get background music for all videos. Are you interested in knowing the best thing about FMA? It has over 1500 Public Domain tracks that are for commercial use. Not just this, but it has thousands of tracks under the Creative Commons license.

9. Incompetech

Jumping on to the next site. This is Incompetech. Kevin Macleod, an American composer, created the site. Macleod is known for his work. He composed thousands of songs and sound effects for free use. Incompetech is considered the best platform for royalty-free music.

The interface of Incompetech is straightforward. You can easily understand it and search for your background music. The site offers a wide range of backgrounds like horror, BGM, comedy, etc.

10. StoryBlocks

The last site to be discussed is StoryBlocks. This is another brilliant platform to get royalty-free music. You have to subscribe to StoryBlocks. This opens your gateway to download hundreds of free sound effects.

Let us tell you the coolest thing about StoryBlocks. You can specify the length of the track you are looking for. This is done by using its slide bar. This feature has made the search process so easy in StoryBlocks.

Bottom Line

Looking for suitable BGM music for your video is not easy. The task consumes your time as well as your energy. All your problems are over once you read this article. We have shared the 10 best and popular sites to download background music. You can take help from these sites and download free BGM for your videos.

The Sound Editor’s Companion: Reducing Lengthy Audios in iMovie for iOS Users

Cutting Audio in iMovie: A Guide for Mac and iPhone Users

Marion Dubois

Apr 30, 2024• Proven solutions

Sometimes, we find the desired audio or soundtrack for our videos longer or shorter than we want, and that is where audio editing comes. Audio editing refers to manipulating audio to alter the length, speed, and volume or create additional effects such as loops. Are you new to audio trimming? Don’t worry, as our article today would show how to cut audio in iMovie on Mac and iPhone.

Part 1: How to Cut Music in iMovie on Mac?

Cutting music is audio editing carried out when the music or soundtrack seems longer than desired. To cut music or soundtrack in iMovie using Mac involves the following steps:

Step 1: Adjust the Playhead to Cut the Clip

You can cut an audio clip only when the specified audio is in the timeline. To perform the operation, right-click on the clip and pick out a split clip. This operation cuts the clip into two and divides the two pieces wherever the playhead is situated.

Step 2: Select Split Clip

Right-click and select the Split Clip. Once this step is over, you have successfully cut the audio clip.

Part 2: Cut Audio in iMovie Alternative – Wondershare Filmora

Generally, as humans, we feel more satisfied when we have options or choices because we get fed up with doing the same over and over again the same way without changes. Wondershare Filmora is an alternative for iMovie and can easily carry out the function of various forms of audio editing.

If you wish to trim off the beginning or the ending of a mp3 file quite swiftly, this section is for you. Things can get specifically weird if you want to import heavy mp3 files to your space-limited MP3 player to play.

You’re required to choose an intelligent MP3 trimmer to trim an MP3 file to any length. Here, we suggest this robust video editing software — Wondershare Filmora, which enables you to precisely extract an MP3 file or audio segment effortlessly without losing any original audio quality.

You can get both the Windows and Mac versions of this great video editor. It embodies the following features:

Import videos, audio, or photos from various sources and edit them in one place.
Three different video cutting methods to meet different editing needs.
Various editing tools help you edit the video completely, including rotation, picture-in-picture, green screen, cropping, etc.
Output the edited video to more than 20 different formats or locations as needed.
Use more than 1,000 video effects in the effect store to customize videos.

Using Filmora is quite effortless. The following tutorial will display how to cut audio in it easily and quickly.

Step 1: Import MP3 Files for Editing

Firstly, drag the specific MP3 file or audio clip into the media library, or you can directly import audio files or video from portable devices such as your digital camera, smartphone, or camcorder, etc.

Step 2: Drag MP3 Files to the Timeline below for Cutting

Filmora provides two ways to cut audio/video files. You can either select to cut from the beginning or the end by trimming. You can also split it into various segments from the mid-sections.

Move the slider ahead to the cutting point within the midsection, and then tap the scissor icon to split it into little sections as desired.

When executed, please select the part that you don’t want to, hit the Delete button to remove.

Step 3: Export to Save

Hit the Export tab to save your edited project. If you want to save in the original MP3 format, select MP3 before you export.

Part 3: How to Trim Music in iMovie on iPhone

This section will offer you a guide on how to cut out parts of audio in an iMovie project on an iPad or iPhone. After adding music to your project, the audio is trimmed to the desired length using iMovie’s inbuilt tool.

Step #1: Open iMovie on your iPhone or iPad.

Step #2: Tap the movie project you want to edit.

It will display a list of your projects, among which you must select the one you want to edit.

If you want to edit a current section of video not even opened in iMovie, you have to make a new iMovie project to add your audio and video. Select the + icon, choose the Movie tab, select the video(s), and then choose the Create movie button.

Step #3: Hit the Edit button below the name of your project.

This opens your project in the editor. And, you’re already in the editor if you just created a new project in the previous step.

Step #4: Add audio to your project.

You can skip this step if your project already contains the audio. Hit the + icon in the upper-left timeline’s corner.

Choose Audio.

Go with a specific category:

Soundtracks are audio tracks provided by iMovie which are free to use in your project.

Select My Music to locate the file and use a song from iTunes or the music app.

Sound effects are shorter sounds—mostly below 10 seconds duration.

Choose an audio file for the preview.

Select the + icon to add the file to your project.

Step #5: Hit the audio bar on the timeline.

It is present below the multi-frame version of your video in the screen’s bottom area.

Now, detach the MP3 segment or audio from the video by tapping the video on the timeline and selecting the Detach button at the screen’s bottom area.

Step #6: Tap and drag the beginning of the audio track.

Drag or move the audio track to the exact point where you wish it to start from—the audio track’s left-end marks of the yellow bar starting your audio.

Step #7: Tap and drag the end of the audio track.

You can drag the yellow bar at the end and move it to the exact point where you want the audio to end.

If you can’t see the yellow bar on the far-right end of the audio track, swipe left below the audio track to scroll to the end.

To move the audio track to another location, select and hold it for about one second, and then move it to the desired video’s location.

Step #8: Select the Play tab for preview.

It’s the sideways triangle just below the video preview.

Step #9: Select the Done button when you’re finished.

It is present at the screen’s top-left corner. You have now confirmed the changes done to your project.

If you want to play it on any other device, tap the Share button at the bottom after choosing the Done tab and select Save Video to export it.

Part 4: Audio Editing Tips for iMovie Users

Here are some guidelines or tips for various audio editing processes, starting from cutting trim music on iMovie, using iMovie to trim audio and video together, and other audio and video editing tips.

Use Waveforms to See What You Hear

Sound is just as relevant as the images in a video, and should focus just as much during editing. To efficiently and adequately edit audio, you need a good set of speakers and headphones to hear the sound, and you also need to be able to see the sound.

If the waveforms don’t appear, go to the “view” drop-down menu and select “show waveforms”, the waveform would show you the sound intensity level of a sound clip and definitely would give you an idea of what part will need to be turned up or down.

Audio Adjustments

With the audio button situated at the top right, you have access to some essential audio editing tools for changing the sound level of your chosen clip or changing the relative volume of other films in the project.

The audio editing window also contains primary noise reduction and audio equalization tools and a range of effects – from robot to echo- which would affect how people sound in your video.

Editing Audio with the Timeline

iMovie permits you to adjust the audio within the clips themselves, each volume as a bar. You can shift up and down to increase or decrease the audio level. The clips also have “fade in” and “fade out” buttons at the beginning and end, which are draggable to adjust the fade length.

Conclusion

Finally, with the answers to the question, how to cut audio in iMovie, you can follow the simple step guide and feel free to edit your audio or video to your taste using iMovie or Wondershare Filmora.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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