Art-list is a startup hoping to streamline the process of choosing and licensing music for video makers. We featured them a few weeks ago when they announced the service, and now they have a public beta up and running.
The idea is very simple: for a flat fee of $199 US you get access to a library of royalty free, pre-licenced music that you can download and use in your videos. You can use as many cues as you like in each video, and once you’ve downloaded a music file you’re able to use it in future projects at no extra charge.
The licence does have a few minor caveats (which we’d hope no Newsshooter readers would have trouble complying with) but those aside you’re free to use the tracks in commercial, non-commercial, creative or, er, non creative videos. Hopefully not too many of the latter.
We’ve had access to the library here at Newsshooter and have been delving into the catalogue. It’s very easy to start listening to tracks and once you’ve made your selections links to the contents of your cart are sent to you via email a few minutes later to download.
The interface is slick and although there aren’t hundreds of search filters to narrow down finding a track (or indeed a conventional search box to type queries) so far it’s been straightforward to find and audition options each time we’ve looked.
Being a startup the selection of tracks isn’t as large as more established libraries but that said there’s a good range of material and it’s certainly all of a decent quality. Art-list work with composers from around the world and say they plan to continually add to their roster of music makers.
Choice of music is always going to be highly subjective and dependent on the project, but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of what’s on offer –and we’ve already put one track, ‘Take Off’ to use in the video above.
One minor grumble is the lack of watermarked comp files – so to get a file to use in an edit you really have to sign up to the site. Although frankly at this price it’s affordable enough to make a subscription pay for itself very quickly.
It’s not quite like having an in-house composer but for the price of a few RF music cues from other providers, a subscription to Art-list could be a really useful tool for anyone who’s struggled to find an affordable, easy to use source of music for their videos.
The open beta is now underway, and you can sign up for it at the Art-list website.
