In June 2015, the service reported 75 million active users, of which 20 million were on a paid plan (that’s over 25%). Recently, their chief revenue officer shared that they were on track to hit the 100 million active user mark before the end of 2015. Consumers have adopted the Swedish service en masse, with Scandinavian countries leading the way, followed by the rest of Europe and now the rest of the world. By allowing people to experience the platform for free through their ad-supported freemium model and over-delivering on user experience, Spotify’s initial growth was largely driven by word of mouth instead of advertising.

• Royalty Free Music For Streaming Spotify
• How To Find Royalty Free Music On Spotify
• Royalty Free Music On Spotify

Now, having captured the majority of market share in Europe and with the competitor Apple Music entering the scene, Spotify has attracted more venture capital and is beginning paid advertising campaigns to win users in territories such as the USA.

This is interesting for artists and labels alike, as it means that streaming is now getting more exposure than ever.

Royalty Free Music, Category: Artist, Albums: Royalty Free Music Library V4 (50 Songs), Royalty Free Music Library V3 (50 Songs), Royalty Free Music Library V2 (50 Songs), Royalty Free Music Library V1 (50 Songs), Royalty Free Music Instrumentals and Horror Soundscapes, Singles: News Flash Theme Song (Instrumental Music) feat.

There is plenty of music on Spotify which is licensed in such a way that playing it on your stream is perfectly legal. ShamelessPlug All of my band's music is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, and we have most of our music on Spotify. Certainly feel free to use any of it which might appeal to you. Royalty Free Music - Twitch By Frequency. Looking for a royalty free music playlist for your livestream? This is your perfect playlist for livestreaming on Twitch and any other live-platform. Inquiries about this playlist, click here to go to our FAQ. Play on Spotify. Spotify's 'promotional royalty rate' is worse than it looks. This is a way for artists to select music they want to juice up in the algorithm, and portray it as a free service of sorts. To ensure this tool is 'accessible to artists at any stage of their careers,' Spotify won't charge an upfront budget. Instead, labels and artists must agree to a 'promotional recording royalty.

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Personally, I’m a fan.

Two years ago I started using Spotify, immediately subscribing to a paid plan after discovering the smooth user experience, nice interface, large catalog of music and ability to stream at 320kbps MP3 quality (yeah, Netherlands mobile networks rock).

Before, I had been an iTunes kind of guy, downloading music and syncing it to my iPhone to listen on the go. It worked, but the process was far from optimal – because of the set-up time of downloading and migrating the files to my phone, in reality, I ended up listening to the same collection of music for extended periods of time.

The switch to Spotify reminded me of my initial migration from Windows to OSX… awkward at first but much more efficient once I got accustomed to the interface.

The new paradigm

I think the popularity of streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and even Netflix are symptoms of a new paradigm: accessibility over ownership.

Consumers prefer easy access and a comfortable user experience over actually owning products and services.

After all, why would you purchase CDs if you can stream high-quality music on your desktop or smartphone, with your whole collection being accessible cross-device and have the option to sync for offline listening? It’s simply a better user experience.

Sure, some people still purchase CDs and vinyl because to them nothing beats the experience of having a physical product. Others still purchase CDs or download lossless quality files because the audio quality is better. Both are valid arguments, I get them, however percentage wise this is just a minority of all the music listeners.

Streaming is changing the game and with Spotify being at the forefront, I wanted to dedicate a post to talk about how you can get the most out of it.

Getting your music on Spotify

You can view Spotify as a store similar to iTunes and Beatport, falling in the category of DSPs (digital service providers).

To get your music up on the platform, you need to make sure you have all the rights (no unofficial remixes, uncleared sample usage, etc). From there, you will need either a direct distribution deal with Spotify (reserved for large record labels) or a connection with a distributor or aggregator that does.

For those of you unclear about the distinction, an aggregator is a company that provides distribution services to a large user base, supplying the content to multiple digital service providers (DSPs) (iTunes / Spotify / Beatport / Apple Music etc).

Distributors essentially do the same thing, but at a smaller scale (fewer clients with bigger catalogues) and work closer with specific record labels and artists and can assist in facilitating marketing placements on the stores.

In terms of the time it takes for your music to be live on the store, Spotify is one of the quicker DSPs and depending on your distributor’s processes, your music can be up on the store within 1-3 days after delivering the content.

Spotify royalties

There’s been a lot of fuss in respect to Spotify’s royalty payments.

Firstly you will have to understand the difference between the freemium and premium models. The one is free to use and shows ads (display and audio) to users, whereas the premium model is ad-free and requires a monthly fee.

Plays are not treated equal on the platform. Plays of premium users result in a higher payout to rightsholders than those of freemium users.

How it works – roughly – is that Spotify takes all the subscription (premium) and advertising (freemium) revenues over a said period, dividing those monies by the total amount of streams.

Rightsholders are paid out based on those rates and from what I understand these are corrected by the percentage of plays that came from the freemium / premium users (so larger % of streams from paid users = higher royalty rate and vice versa).

Of course, that imposes a problem.

With their tremendous growth, going from 60m active users of which 10m paid in late 2014, to 75m active users of which 20m paid in mid 2015, the growth of free users is larger than paid users, thus diluting the per-stream royalty rate.

The more users Spotify acquires, the lower the per-stream royalty rate, unless the paid-to-free subscription ratio maintains or rises. It’s like inflation.

The rates are also influenced by the country of which the streams originate (because of territorially dependent advertising buys and currency value) as well as the price of paid subscriptions, which may vary because of discount and package deals.

Spotify officially reports their average composite per-stream rate to be between $0,006 and $0,0084.

Our rate with Heroic over 2015 Q3 was approximately $0,00475 per stream, without including any distribution fees. This is the pure rate we received from Spotify via our distributor. For clarity, these are Spotify royalties over the master.

For songwriters it is different. Internationally, parties have decided to consider a stream roughly 75% public performance and 25% mechanical reproduction. Spotify pays these rates on behalf of the label (by withholding it from the master royalties) and allocates it to the PRS’ whom in turn collect for the publishers or songwriters directly.

These rates are much lower, with some songwriters reporting receiving roughly $0,00009 per stream. That’s $90 for 1.000.000 plays.

Nonetheless, Spotify is becoming a significant revenue stream for record labels and performing artists. With Heroic, we’ve seen Spotify’s share of our distribution income shift from 10% to over 55% in the last two and half years.

Pair that up with a decrease in iTunes (Apple is pushing consumers towards their Apple Music streaming service) and Beatport sales (their new streaming service is terrible, the pro.beatport.com store is confusing and SFX stock has plummeted) and you can see how streaming is going to account for the lion’s share of (digital) recording revenues in the coming years.

Playlists

The biggest driver of plays on Spotify are playlists and charts.

These are lists that are curated by both consumers and companies, which list tracks that they enjoy. Spotify’s playlists are cool because when you follow one, you’ll get a notification every time a track is added to that playlist. That’s what drives the plays.

Every user has the ability to create playlists and retitle them, however the ability to customize artwork and add a description is restricted to VIP / verified accounts.

In the past Spotify allowed users to discover playlists of other users via the browse sections of the app, however, these playlists have been removed and only those controlled by Spotify and the major labels are now shown.

Yeah, there’s a monopoly going on there.

Because Spotify’s success hinges on their ability to use the music of the major labels, there have been intense negotiations and the majors have managed to negotiate higher-than-standard royalty rates and control over a share of the advertising space and playlists on the platform.

Most users don’t realize this, but all those popular playlists that don’t carry the Spotify brand are all controlled by the majors: Filtr is owned by Sony Music, Digster by Universal Music Group and Topsify by Warner Music Group.

This control allows them to influence (Spotify) chart positions, plays on their tracks and improve the success rate of their releases beyond Spotify (improving odds on Shazam, general charts, radio and other DSPs).

So you’re wondering: how do I get my music on those playlists?

Great question – with an unfortunately complex answer. Because the biggest playlists are controlled by a few established parties, penetrating the market can be difficult.

Nonetheless, here are your options.

Spotify’s self-controlled playlists:

You’ll either need a contact at Spotify, or more realistically, a deal with a distributor or aggregator that does.

Ask them about how you can file for a ‘priority track request‘ or what is also called a ‘feature placement‘. This constitutes the distributor filling in a form with Spotify where they outline the projected sales figures for the release, as well as the artist’s historical sales figures and a summarized marketing plan.

Spotify then decides whether to place you or not. Success is largely based on the validity of your story; sales numbers, outstanding marketing campaign, proper label backing. It’s important to have both your label and distributor double down if you really want to make this happen.

Record label playlists:

Release with one of the major labels or bigger independents that control their own playlists. Labels such as Spinnin and Armada are doing a great job at playlisting in the electronic realm.

Leading up to your release, ask them about how they will employ their playlists to generate traction with your release. You may even want to ask them to run a Spotify exclusive for 1-2 weeks leading up to the release, if they think it will increase your odds of being included in one of Spotify’s primary playlists via a priority track request.

Independent playlists:

With Spotify removing independent playlists from the Browse section, tracking the best independent playlists can be a struggle.

Here’s a few methods to find them:

• Search for popular keywords (think Tomorrowland, EDM etc) and filter through the results, filtering out those with the most followers (anything with 5.000+ followers is significant).
• Search Google for lists of the most popular playlists. Like this.
• Or use websites that index Spotify playlists such as Playlists.me and SharedPlaylists.com.

From there, the process is straightforward: trace the account that created the playlist and employ your best internet researching skills to find a way to contact the playlist creator (usually via email, Twitter or Facebook Chat).

Catalog your results in a Google Sheets database. Here’s a template that you can use (copy the tab to a new Sheets document to get started).

Analytics

Similar to other streaming platforms, metrics are important to both see how your releases are performing, as well as to better understand your demographic (where they are based, when they listen etc).

You can view the play counts of tracks on Spotify by hovering over the battery like indicator next to a track.

These metrics are always delayed by 2-3 days though: 10.000 plays on a Monday would be visible on a Wednesday or Thursday.

In the past, Analytics were accessible for managers and labels via Spotify’s integration with Next Big Sound (a social media data aggregator for artists). Recently however, Spotify announced Fan Insights, for which limited beta applications are being accepted here.

We’ve recently received access to Spotify’s more extensive Analytics platform and the data is incredibly interesting – all our artists see a massive fall-off of plays on Saturday and Sunday, whereas the more downtempo music peaks in plays on Monday and more club-oriented music performs best on a Friday.

We’re also seeing that the bulk of our Spotify audience is in the United States, followed by the UK, Sweden and Germany. Germans seem to love bass music and trap.

Verified profiles

Beyond the freemium and premium subscription levels, Spotify makes a distinction between traditional user accounts and artist profiles.

When a release is distributed to Spotify, a profile is created for the artist, automatically generating a profile picture based on the release’s artwork.

Initially, these artist profiles are detached from any user accounts, however through requesting verification one can link these together, as well as add an about page with a custom biography, as well as customize the artwork – and receive a shiny blue checkmark (check out the San Holo page as an example).

The linkup between the profile and user account is great, because it’ll merge all the followers of both accounts into one and allow the artist or label to use the personal account as if it were the artist account, sharing all activity in the process.

This creates great opportunities for sharing content within Spotify (by right clicking a release), broadcasting it to all of the account’s followers with a custom message.

Any playlists that are created by the user are now linked and displayed to the artist profile. This is amazing and allows an artist with say 20.000 followers to create a playlist, share it to the followers and kickstart the playlist’s follower growth.

If you’re verified, I highly suggest you to use this trick to your advantage, creating a playlist in which you can include all your releases (titled something like ‘Artist – Official Releases’) and one for your inspirations (‘Artist – Inspirations’). This will be interesting for your fans to follow and allows you to give your releases a little extra push when they come out by including them in those lists.

You can request verification for your account here.

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I hope this article improves your understanding of Spotify and how to excel on the platform. Please let me know what your biggest struggle is on the platform in the comments, or any other questions you might have. I’ve also put together a checklist of ‘best practices’ you can use in order to get the most out of your Spotity profile which you can get below.

If you’re interested in other platforms such as SoundCloud you can check out my newest article here on how you can improve your SoundCloud marketing game.

Like this content? Check out the free video series for my new course, the Music Marketing Academy. You can get access here.

Royalty-free music is incredibly valuable because of the way today’s internet works.

You can’t post anything with music on websites like YouTube or Facebook if you don’t have the right to actually use the music.

In response to this, a cottage industry of royalty-free stock music catalogs has cropped up online.

But there’s a major problem with these sites–most stock music is dry and void of any personality.

Most stock music is dry and void of any personality.

There’s a better way to find the right music for your content, and that’s with construction kits and sample packs that allow you to easily piece together the elements you want in your track.

In this article, I’ll explain how royalty-free music works and how you can quickly make your very own custom track using royalty-free samples and curated construction kit packs.

I’ll also list some top tier royalty-free song construction kits for you to look at yourself.

What is royalty-free music?

Royalty-free music is any music you can freely use in your own content without having to make royalty payments to the creators of the track.

Once you own a piece of royalty-free music, you essentially own the rights to that song and can use it in any way you want.

It will never be flagged or taken down on websites that track ContentID like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or any other podcasting or video content site.

So, you’ll still collect all the revenue you earn from advertising and other forms of monetization.

Royalty-free music can either be purchased from a stock music catalog or created with cleared samples and loops.

How to make royalty-free music

Let’s focus on how you can use samples and loops to create your own custom royalty-free music and add personality to the music you use in your content.

1. Pick a genre

To make it easier to find the loops you need, it’s best to decide on what genre your track will sound like.

Since sample libraries are often organized by genre, you’ll have better luck finding the right sounds if you know what you’re looking for.

2. Find a sample pack or construction kit that matches your genre

Once you know the genre of music you’re looking to create, it’s time to find one sample pack that matches that genre.

You’ll see many sample packs tagged as lo-fi, trap, techno or house, for example.

Ideally, you want to work using one sample pack since these packs are intentionally designed to have samples that complement one another.

Remember to watch out for sample packs that come with construction kits, since these sample packs contain loops that fit perfectly into a pre-designed complete loop.

3. Pick the samples you want to use in your track

Now the fun begins, it’s time to piece together your very own royalty free track.

Working with a construction kit means you can pick out the exact samples and sounds you want in your track.

Working with a construction kit means you can pick out the exact samples and sounds you want in your track.

It also makes it super easy to arrange the beat and add breakdowns and build-ups exactly where they need to be.

There’s some specific language used to organize the loops contained in the sample pack’s construction kit.

You’ll see top loops, bass loops, full kit loops, synth loops, and more.

Typically these loops are labeled by which construction kit they belong to, so make sure you pay attention to the labeling of the loops you use.

Your best option is to listen to what each loop contains and then compile them using software like Creator, an incredible new sound compiling tool that easily matches key and BPM between different samples.

Try it on LANDR Samples, it’s really fun to experiment with!

4. Assemble the loops in your DAW

Once you have the loops you need to make your original song, it’s time to get down to business.

To create your track, you need to have access to a Digital Audio Workstation or DAW.

There’s several free DAWs out there and we’ve written about which DAWs are best in other articles.

DAWs can be a little bit complicated to use, but the good news is that assembling and arranging loops is one thing DAWs do very easily.

Because these premade loops are designed to fit together, all you have to do is drag and drop them into the DAW’s track timeline and they should click into place.

It’s basically like doing a collage, except with sound.

It’s basically like doing a collage, except with sound.

If you need help, there’s plenty of free tutorials and help on YouTube.

Here’s a great video tutorial about working with samples in my personal favorite DAW: Ableton.

5. Export your original track and master it

Alright, you have your track worked out and you’re happy with how it sounds.

Now it’s time to export your track. We’ve written about the track export process before, but in general, you’ll want to export a high quality .WAV file.

But hold on, even once you’ve exported your track it’s not ready yet.

To make sure your track sounds the best it can, you need to master it.

Mastering makes your track sound louder and it makes your track sound as good as it can when it’s played on any medium like a car stereo or phone speaker.

Traditional mastering is an expensive and technical process, so your best bet is to use AI software to cheaply and efficiently get a perfect master.

LANDR’s AI mastering tool is by far the best option, other than hiring an expensive professional mastering engineer that could cost you hundreds of dollars per track.

6. Use the track anywhere you want!

Congratulations! You just made an original composition.

Now that you have a pristine master of your track, you can use it anywhere you want.

It’s completely your own, you put your personality into it, it’s not just something picked randomly from a stock music list.

Everyone will notice when your content uses interesting, original songs.

The 10 best royalty-free music sample packs

Sample packs are your go-to when creating royalty-free music since all the samples they contain are created to go with one another.

To put you on the right track, here’s the best sample packs for making royalty-free music right now.

1. The Ten Best Construction Kit Sample Packs

Construction kits are specifically designed to make it easy to piece together a custom track.

They contain hundreds of loops that fit together perfectly, so you can find the exact sound you need.

In this article, you’ll find the 10 best construction kits we’ve found so far.

2. Melody loops

Here’s a great place to start when looking for a melodic loop for your royalty free track.

Spotify playlist promotion. SoundGrail was made from the heart. Moreover, SoundGrail was designed by musicians, for musicians. Our free Spotify playlist promotion and promotion network is a simple way to get more Spotify followers. WHat's more is that this organically boosts your Spotify plays. GET 1000 FREE SPOTIFY PLAYS or STREAMS. Read the T&C for free spotify plays or streams campaign. Name. Email address. Your Country Contact Number. Next. Spotify Track URL. Number of Streams on your Track. SHOULD WE SEND YOUR SPOTIFY PROMOTION DISCOUNT OFFER? WILL YOU BE INTERESTED IN SPOTIFY PROMOTION SERVICE. Conclusion Countless artists are trying to figure out how to get Spotify plays free, as they should.It can be difficult for music artists to get the right exposure, but landing on a playlist or going viral for a song can obviously mean more free Spotify plays for artists of all genres. It doesn’t matter if you are a country artist, a rapper, or a folk singer – if you can get Spotify plays. Spotify’s pay per stream varies in different countries and regions, but the average is $0.004 per stream. Use our calculation tool to estimate how much you’ll earn from your streams. How much money per Spotify play? Spotify’s pay per stream varies in different countries and regions, but the average is. Get 1000 spotify plays free. Is music promotion free? If it was, every artist would be a hit, however, when we distribute your music to our digital partners it doesn’t mean that people will hear it but we do guarantee 1000 Free Spotify music promotion streams on your first release. Now, as one of the top music promotion companies, we have the marketing tools to place your music in front of organic music lovers that.

Our favorite loop from the pack: Popsicle 140 BPM

3. Loops and Things

Loops and Things has tons of full drum loops that can easily be dropped under any melodic sample.

Our favorite loop from the pack: Full Drum 057

4. Iconic Loops

This is your go-to for finding classic sound hip hop drums.

With over 400 loops, you’ll definitely find the perfect groove for a hip-hop beat.

Our favorite loop from the pack: Iconic Marvel Loop Hip Hop Drum Swing

5. Fashion Loops

Fashion Loops has all the smoke and heat needed for a modern hip-hop or R&B track.

This royalty-free sample pack is the perfect jump-off point for something flashy and new.

Our favorite loop from the pack: 032C 160 BPM

6. Essential Piano Loops

Here’s the perfect place to find just about any style of piano loop you can imagine.

Our favorite loop from the pack: Piano 62

7. Nu Disco Elements: Loops

Looking for a fun and sunny royalty-free track? This is the perfect place to start.

Use the pack to match drum loops with synth and bass loops and you’ll have the perfect modern dance track.

Our favorite sample from the pack: NDE Drums 19

Royalty Free Music For Streaming Spotify

8. Indie Game Music Loops

These anthemic, fun and dancey electronic loops come ready to go and they’re useful for a lot more than just video games.

Our favorite sample from the pack: Indie Game Loop Cartoon Synth Techno

9. Ukulele Loops Volume 2

Looking for that uplifting ukulele inspired track? Here’s a go-to sample pack with everything you need to piece together a royalty-free ukulele song.

How To Find Royalty Free Music On Spotify

Our favorite sample from the pack: Ukulele Group C Rhythm 1

10. Browse for multi-instrument loops and more with LANDR Samples

Of course, you can always browse LANDR for complete loops.

Don’t forget to put filters on your search to find what you need faster.

Stock music is boring

An original track you assembled yourself is so much more interesting to your audience and you can be sure they’ll notice the extra effort you put in.

Your fans will notice that you don’t use canned stock music.

Royalty Free Music On Spotify

People pay very close attention to the music you use, it’s a huge part of any experience.

The good news is you can easily make an original track that’s intended to match whatever piece of content it’s intended for.

Dive into a construction kit and see what you can make!