I've heard a lot about where to get free music, but not so much about how to legally obtain music for a fee.

I understand there are firms independant of labels that deal in this sort of transaction. Has anyone dealt with one of these firms? I understand prices vary wildly, but would anyone happen to know a ballpark for an obscure American piece being placed in a small independant film with the possibility to distribute in Europe?

I ran a search and found someone who said they recieved the festival rights to a popular song for $250. Hopefully a for-profit purchase would be below $500 on an obscure piece, but I'm probably horribly, horribly wrong.

-Alex

Alex, I believe that it varies greatly. One documentary maker I know of said that he was asked for $60k for the master use license and $60K for the sync license for the use of part of one relatively unknown song from a well known female singer. For my current documentary, I ended up negotiating with the original music composer to pay a price that we could both live with for use at limited engagements and film festivals, given that the documentary is a labor of love.

The original composer route is a great way to go. There are lots of us who just want to get our work heard, so we can be pretty cheap. Others ask top dollar.

You might scope out vi-control.net and northernsounds.com Both have thriving musician communities. Most of the discussion there is about orchestral instruments, but people there are skilled in many genres.

One nice thing is that you won't have to chop a song to fit your duration. A good composer can work the composition and tempo to make it fit perfectly.

Have you tried to use music licensed under creative commons? There are a lot of people who release their music online for both commerical and non-commercial uses. You might give that a try.

I'd suggest http://www.jamendo.com/en/

Have you tried to use music licensed under creative commons? There are a lot of people who release their music online for both commerical and non-commercial uses. You might give that a try.

I'd suggest http://www.jamendo.com/en/
I just looked there. I could not find anything about sync or master licensing. So, not sure if you can use these in a video production.

Try these two:
http://www.playkpm.com
http://www.audiolicense.net
I use them all the time. The first one you can sign up to nine different libraries and purchase individual licenses for what you use and the second one you can buy a blanket buyout.

Hope that helps,

Liam.

you can peruse www.soundclick.com, and approach the composer of a piece you want to use.

I just looked there. I could not find anything about sync or master licensing. So, not sure if you can use these in a video production.
I went to Creative Commons and did some searching with no joy. It looks like they have not address music in video well in some of their license models. I did not create an account to ask about it.

I have used a tune from Ehren Starks, who signed up at www.magnatune.com . I used it for a university project, so the fee was really good. Which will make me come back again when I'll be working on bigger budget projects.

I don't like the attitude from the regular record companies. Their fees start at 250 euros and can go well above that for well known pieces. They also don't like you to try to contact the composer directly. Apart from that, companies like EMI apparently have stock-music from less well-known talents available. I think those start around 30 euros per track.