this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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Hey everyone, any recommendations for ways to get music for your game? I would prefer not to use AI. I want to either pay a musician or get free music made by a real person. I tried making my own music for a bit and I felt totally out of my depth.

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[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

A few places I know of for PD or royalty-free music::

I suggest you focus on making your game first using PD or RF music. Then after you've got people playing it, do a music update only when you have profits. I'd suggest the same thing in graphic assets, too. PD/CC0/RF first. Graphics might be nice, but good gameplay wins every time.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

The downside to Kevin MacLeod's stuff is that it's already used everywhere. If you play a lot of free indie games (especially visual novels) you will very quickly come to recognize many of these tunes.

I'm not upset at that. I'm fond of the tune that's used in the iOS version of Tsuro - I even downloaded it to my phone and listen to it as a meditation track. I really think if the downside is, "it's so good you have to use the newest or oldest stuff because everyone else is using it", that's no reason to turn your nose up. I mean, hoe many games used the same door opening sound as Doom?

[–] SinTan1729@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There are quite a few more links in the FAQ of Kevin MacLeod's site.

https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html

(Scroll to the very end.)