Chapter 3: Checking Your Toolbox

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Music and Sound It’s been said that good audio makes your video look better. It’s true. One easy way to create a certain mood for your video is to add some music. The bad news is that none of the great music in your CD collection can be used in your videos. All the songs and music contained on those CDs are copyrighted and can’t be used unless you obtain a license that allows you to distribute a particular song on the Internet as part of your videoblog. A license can cost thousands of dollars. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are plenty of snappy tunes available for you to use free of charge. In this section we’ll look at where to find free music for your vlog, two applications that help you create your own music, and a few professional options for sound fanatics.

Creative Commons Music As we mentioned in Chapter 2, Creative Commons is helpful to vloggers because it provides flexible copyright licenses for creative works. Many musicians have copyrighted their work under these licenses as well and will let you use their music for free, as long as you use it for nonprofit purposes and follow any other terms of the license (Figure 3.8). Figure 3.8 ccMixter.org is one of several great directories of free music and audio samples available for you to use thanks to generous creators and Creative Commons.

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Secrets of Videoblogging

More Music These sites are also terrific sources for free music copyrighted under licenses from Creative Commons:

• http://ccmixter.org/ • http://magnatune.com/ • www.opsound.org/ • www.soundclick.com/ • http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

Some musicians use licenses that basically let you use an entire song, as long as you give them credit. Others say you may help yourself to a sample, but only a sample, of a musical work. Terms vary so check them carefully before you actually add any Creative Commonslicensed music to your vlog.

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net If you want to add a single voice or music track to your videos, iMovie and Movie Maker can handle the job. But if you’d like to create new music using samples or you’d like to remove hiss or hum that’s present in the audio in your videos, you’ll need something else. The favorite free tool for this is Audacity, a great audio editor that works on both PCs and Macs (Figure 3.9).