Here are some links to places on the net where you can get free, legal music.
Much of it is under a Creative Commons license.

Why is this information here?

Because I live in a noisy place. I do use my own concoctions of white noise a lot. I went looking for something else to improve my aural environment. I thought ambient music might be the answer, but I found lots of other interesting things.

I knew I had collected a few links to good sites where we can find free music. But, when I had good look at all the sites I had noted, it turned out I also had quite a few links to sites with other sounds, e.g. loops, environmental sounds, field recordings and so on.

The list below includes (what I think will be) less well known sites, not just the obvious ones that you would quickly find on any search engine.

(Links open in a new window. )

Free Music

Songs, ambient, mp3 downloads etc.

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Free Music Archive

Still in development, but already on the nets… at FreeMusicArchive.org

… and there is already some music available.

From their description:
“The site will combine the curatorial approach that stations like WFMU have played for the last few decades, and the community generated approach of many current online music sites.”

You can find lots of music - i.e. free, legal, Creative Commons etc., - just by looking around the site: e.g. check the comments on the ‘About’ page.

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Opsound.org

OpSound.org

Music is available under a Creative Commons license, the “Attribution-ShareAlike license”.

Musicians and sound artists are invited to add their work.

Everybody is invited to listen, download, remix etc.

There is a huge list of genres to choose from: as far as I have checked, there is a good selection within each genre.

It has taken me a long time to write this post because sites like this are so distracting. I can’t stop myself looking (or listening) around.

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Anisform

A net label, free music to stream or download. Genre: Ambient music, “subtle soundtracks”.

Ansiform.

All Creative Commons.

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Dreamstate: free ambient music.

Dreamstate.

Just some people, their ambient music, you can listen and download for free.

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we7.com

I suppose most experienced web-shoppers and frequent music buyers will not be needing my help to point them to this one. So here it is anyway.

We7 is one of the serious attempts to work out new ways for the music industry to operate.
That is, instead of the old way - which was big corporations + everything copyrighted.

We7 has a variety of ‘music delivery’ options, e.g.:

• Free streaming music,
• Free ad-supported MP3 downloads
• DRM-free MP3 downloads you can buy

And…

It’s all DRM-free music, whatever options you use.

Unlike some of the other sites mentioned here, We7 has commercial music from well known musicians and bands.

We7 prides itself on being a safe place to download and share music - i.e. without the spyware and malware that infests the free-for-all and illegal download neighbourhoods.

I found streaming and downloading speeds were particularly quick from We7.

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Wikipedia Creative Commons Music List

For a large list of mostly classical music that is public domain or Creative Commons licensed see this collection at Wikipedia.

Well, it was mostly classical music last time I looked. But it’s Wikipedia - there is no telling how it will develop over time.

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Lovefingers.org

Lovefingers.

Here there are MP3’s available for a limited time to be used for sampling purposes only, not with the intention of profit or to violate copyright.

There is recent, commercially produced music here. But each one is only available for a limited time.
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Free Music, Samples and Sounds

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Mashable

Again, frequent music users will not be needing me to tell them about Mashable.

But anyway, here is a link to their creative commons section.

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Legal Torrents

Legal Torrents offers, as the name suggests, legally available and creative commons material that can be downloaded by torrent.

There is much more than just music.
It is all organised in categories.

There is:

Music (of course)
Including:

• Netlabel Music
• Sounds, Samples and Loops

Movies
Including:

• Animations
• Short Form Video
• Television

Books
Including:

• Audio Books
• Graphic Novels

AND

• Games
• Podcasts
• ‘Other’ (e.g. wallpapers, images)

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Free Samples, Loops, Film Foley Sounds etc.

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Below here we depart from ‘music’ in a narrow definition, and branch out towards samples, loops, grooves, etc. - and then, a bit later, we get well away from music and towards other recordings, Foley for your film, environmental sounds, phonography…

Soungle

“Soungle is a free site, developed by Southern Codes, for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples on our mega online library.”

When you get to Soungle it just looks like a search engine type-in form. And it is. So just type something: search for the sound you need.

However, as they say, Soungle is not a web search engine. It only searches in the Soungle database.

The point here is that their database is full of sound effects and samples that are royalty free for downloading.

Last time I used it a search for ‘rain’ and ‘drum’ both got results, but ‘blues’ and ‘chant’ got no results.

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Free Sounds: Sound Samples

From the “One Laptop per Child” project (O.L.P.C.)

Free Sounds: Sound Samples - OLPC

Offered under a Creative Commons license.

7000+ samples, 16-bit, WAV, Mono, normalized.

A huge collection of new and original samples.

Includes:
Loops, Grooves, Licks, Stings, Hits, Pads, Melodic Motives/Themes/Phrases, Sound-Effects, City and Country Soundscapes, Motors, Machines, Toys, Guns, Explosions, Swords, Armor, Cars, Jets, Pot & Pans, Acoustic and Synthetic Noises, Acoustic and Electronic Drums, Voices, Western and World Instruments, Real and Human Animals, Industrial and Natural Ambiences, Film and Game Foley.

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SoundTransit

SoundTransit is a collaborative, community dedicated to field recording and phonography.

This is a great searchable collection of environmental sounds.
Sounds can be used according to the Creative Commons Attribution license.
Files are mp3.

There are sounds here that I think would be extremely hard to find anywhere else. E.g. a 17th Century water mill, 1890s steam tractor.

And all the usual: birds, rain and other weather, trains and planes, ships, cities, clocks, alarms, markets, habours, riots, bells from around the world, underwater recordings, etc.

Some of my favorites:
A whole lot of Buddha Machines sounding simultaneously.

The engine of a bridge.
Sound of rain heard from the end of PVC pipe.
A weaving factory.
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The Freesound Project

FreeSound.org

Very possibly this is stating the obvious to anybody with an interest in this kind of thing, but anyway…

The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound has its focus on sound, not songs.

While SoundTransit seems to attract field recording enthusiasts and the values of phonography, the Freesound Project has more variety: the sounds you find there could have been created/recorded in many different ways. I.e. it’s not just about field recording at the Freesound Project.

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And, a bit off to the side of the topic…

Midi Reggae Riddims

From BaroqueDub.

It’s Reggae, it’s rhythym: it’s MIDI. You can use these with your sequencer.

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Old 78s on the Web

A man known as CDB recorded a great many 78s and made them available via his website, 78records.cdbpdx.com.

Until…
He found out that:
1. His hosting provider did not like him offering a free-for-all unlimited download site.

2. There were already other copies of a lot of that music on the internet (e.g. on the torrents).

So what does that leave us with? It leaves us with his huge list of 78s transferred to digital. If you are looking for something in particular, check out his BIG list of 78s - it includes album names, musicians and record labels.

If what you are looking for is on his list then you can probably download it from somewhere on the web. (You might have to hook up with the torrents.)

If you can’t find any place from which to download your heart’s desire you can send Mr. CDB an email. He probably still has his own recording on his own system.

Well, where else are you going to find all that 1930’s-1950’s Arabic Pop and Swing music?

Seems to me it was entirely a labour of love from Mr. CDB. He never asked for anything in return. He didn’t even have one solitary advertisement on his site. (Just like the OLD internet we knew and loved.)

Now that he has these hosting issues, if you want a swag of his transferred recordings on a CD he will have to ask you for postage.

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But if you don’t get along with these young people today and their rowdy 78s…

Wax Cylinder Recordings.

At UC Santa Barbara.

A project of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Library.

Including a wax cylinder radio feed (Cakewalks and Rags).

Get your fix of turn-of-the (previous) century music there.

The wav files of the cylinder recordings are not protected by copyright and can be used for either noncommerical or for-profit use.

The mp3s that the project has made are under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. But you can even make commercial use of those too: just contact the library about it.

Warning: there is something slightly odd about the site. It crashes Firefox on Linux. (Site is a bit heavy with Flash maybe.) Works fine in Opera. I expect there are no problems in IE/Windows.

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The Internet Archive.

At Archive.org.

There is a section just for open source/Creative Commons audio.

Other music you might find on the site MIGHT be freely available.

There is a lot of out-of-copyright material at Archive.org. It is a well arranged site that is easily searchable.

The archive has categories for music, movies, literature, software and more.

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Don’t forget: downloading files from the internet is a risk to your computer security. Equip yourself with anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.
Since there is reputable free software available there is no reason be without the basic protection.
And watch out for rogue software: only use reputable brands and trusted free tools.
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Image Credits: Images on this post are by dmytro.

Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial.