OT: Background Music suggestions

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/2/2007, 10:53 AM

I'm putting together a spoof newsreel in the style of a 1950's/1960's British Movietone /Pathe News reel.

I'm looking for some royalty free music both of the typical "upbeat military" style of these newsreels and Far Eastern (eg Chinese, Vietnamese) music.

Googling so far has thrown up nothing AT ALL in the first category and a few pieces in the second where download is possible, but legal use is questionable.

I don't mind paying a small amount - this is an amateur movie for showing at my local camcorder club - but I don't really want to pay for SmartSounds SonicFire Pro plus one CD just to use one track from their "Far East" title from the Audio Palette Series.

OTOH having already invested in Cinescore + two theme packs, I don't mind forking out for another if there's anything suitable - I can't hear any possibilities in the demos though.

Suggestions gratefully received.

Comments

Former user wrote on 10/2/2007, 11:01 AM

Archive.org has a lot of public domain media.

You might find something usable there.

Dave T2

dand9959 wrote on 10/2/2007, 12:32 PM

Try www.digitaljuice.com StackTraxx volumes. Tons of music to choose from. You have to buy a volume, but there are several specials you can take advantage of.

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/2/2007, 1:08 PM

Archive.org
Good call! (Slaps forehead) Don't know why I didn't think of that - especially as I'm using pd footage of Albert Einstein from that very source in another project.

Sadly though, after my first half hour's perusal, I can't find anything Oriental and nothing in the "newsreel intro" style post 1920s but pre modern era. Also the early stuff has no mention of copyright (given it's more than 70 years old, does that mean it's PD?) and the later stuff seems to be all CC with the "non-derivative" clause. Checking with the CC website derivitive works INCLUDE syncing to film.

I'll keep looking though.

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/2/2007, 1:14 PM

Try www.digitaljuice.com StackTraxx volumes. Tons of music to choose from. You have to buy a volume, but there are several specials you can take advantage of.
Perhaps I should have mentioned I've spent hours trawling through those as well. There were a couple of tunes on one volume that might just pass as authentic Oriental if far enough in the background, but I don't particularly want to spend $99 for one piece. I found absolutely nothing that might fit the bill for 1950s/60 newsreel intros.
But it WAS useful going through their catalog for future projects.

tumbleweed2 wrote on 10/2/2007, 1:24 PM

shockwavesound.com has individual pieces for download, & I think they have some stingers that may work for you.

xberk wrote on 10/2/2007, 2:20 PM

This sounds good to me ...Don't know how you obtain rights.

http://www.dewolfe.co.uk/musicsearch/cd_tracks.php?cdnumber=DWMIL%20011

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/2/2007, 2:26 PM

Anyone else who's interested in this, I think tumbleweed means shockwave-sound.com. The hyphen is important - without it, it leads to Dallas Christian music and I was really struggling to find anything that might possibly suit there.
Thanks for the pointer.

tumbleweed2 wrote on 10/2/2007, 6:57 PM

..yes, you're right, add the hyphen. Thank you for the correction : ) ...

DavidMcKnight wrote on 10/2/2007, 7:29 PM

also try stock20.com. You can buy and download individual pieces, royalty free.

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/2/2007, 11:44 PM

xberk

Thanks for the DeWolfe link. That's EXACTLY the sort of newsreel music what I was looking for.

Unfortunately it appears that it costs about £20 per 30 secs usage - which seems reasonable but is going to cost me up to £160 for my 4 min amateur film (a film has has no pretense of being seen by anyone other than 30 or so mainly senior citizens on one occasion). I think that membership of the IAC (Institute of Amateur Cinematographers) and subscribing to their copyright scheme would cover me (much cheaper).
Sadly, when I tried to register on the DeWolfe site, I received got the following:

"You can only download music from this site if you are broadcast
professional, work in the media / new media industries or if you are
an existing De Wolfe client."

Bummer.!

I send off an email anywhay and see what they say.

Galeng wrote on 10/3/2007, 12:53 AM

Tim,

Try this site...sorry I don't kow how to embed the code so you'll have to copy and paste:

http://chineseculture.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibiblio.org%2Fchinese-music%2F

I used some of it for background music for a customer's slide show of a trip to China.

Galen

marks27 wrote on 10/3/2007, 3:02 AM

Here is another cool source of royalty free music that I have used a couple of times. He has a pretty diverse range of music available there.

http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

Ciao,

marks

blink3times wrote on 10/3/2007, 5:12 AM

I hope not to spark another copyright debate, and I could be wrong about this... you would have to check the copyright laws closely....

But it seems to me that a copyrighted song (for example) is only copy righted in its entirety. Although you are not allowed to alter the song (ie: change the lyrics, or the music), it *may* be perfectly legal to use PARTS of *SOME* copyrighted material as back ground. More often than not, this actually adds to comedy of the situation.

For example, the famous shark-stocking piece of music in the original Jaws is now popular to use to emphasize comical- suspense.

AlanC wrote on 10/3/2007, 5:27 AM

Galen,

Try this http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=530189LinkCreator[/link]
it makes it easy.

birdcat wrote on 10/3/2007, 5:30 AM

Have you checked out the Prelinger Archives to see if there's anything there you can grab the music from and just piece together?

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/3/2007, 12:59 PM

Thanks to all for your great suggestions. I feel another few hours hunting coming on. And I'll avoid taking the risk of using snippets of copyright material - I've always assumed that people who use that "Jaws" theme (at least professionally) have bought the rights

rs170a wrote on 10/3/2007, 4:36 PM

...it *may* be perfectly legal to use PARTS of *SOME* copyrighted material as back ground.

It isn't. Just ask any one who's been caught using even small samples of well-known songs without permission.

For example, the famous shark-stocking piece of music in the original Jaws is now popular to use to emphasize comical- suspense.

And I guarantee that they paid for it.
An IP attorney on a different newsgroup I subscribe to said that the company that has the rights to Jaws regularly searches out any one who uses the music without permission and goes after them with a "pay up or drop it now" order.
Apparently this is one of their more profitable departments.

Mike