Music for the video game market largely depends on sync licensing for a multitude of sound choices. Every game has a music soundtrack as well as special effects. The game would seem extremely lifeless and dull and boring without it. If you are just starting out in the game making world, or need a new place with fresh music to choose from, where do you go to find the best music for video games?

The internet certainly abounds with choices. New music licensing websites seem to pop up like mushrooms these days. Some curate their content and some don’t. Some are easy to navigate and search for what you want while others can be chaotic at best.

The hardest part about finding just the right piece of music to sync license is actually finding an easy way to search for it on whatever licensing site you happen to choose. From my experience many of these sites don’t possess a particularly accurate search tool. Regardless of what information you input into the search parameters, often the results displayed are far from what you are looking for.

This presents a major problem; the problem of time. Who wants to spend hours or days trying to find one track for just one part of the entire video game? People are busy. Game makers are busy. No one has hours or days to research music. Once you have a general idea of what it is you want, you need to be able to find some possibilities in quick time. You need to be able to create a shortlist within a few hours at the most.

After all, video games are lengthy. Possibly dozens of tracks and SFX will be required. Sure, some will be manufactured in-house most likely, but it’s also probable that some of the music will be sync licensed.

Where to Find the Best Music For Video Games

Pond5 has quite a good selection of SFX and short loops that could be used at key points throughout the game, and their prices are pretty cheap. It can be rather arduous searching their catalogue though.

Musicbed have highly curated content, though I think some of the music they approve for their catalogue is a bit dubious. Some tracks on their website sound like the sound quality is lacking at times and there is some rather weird music on offer, but overall a good experience for people looking to license music for films and gaming.

One of my favourite sites is Songtradr; a relatively newcomer to the sync licensing marketplace. They only officially launched in March of 2016, but already they are cementing themselves as a major player.

What I love about Songtradr is their highly intuitive search feature. It allows you just enough parameters to receive very accurate results based on your input. So when searching for a particular sound on Songtradr, the results that appear are likely to be a close match to the kind of music you have in mind.

I have a catalogue of production music on Songtradr that I’m regularly adding to. To check it out – and to listen to other songs on the platform – simply click the Songtradr logo below.