Instrumental Background Music was started in 2015 to give content creators a straightforward way to find and license great usable music for their projects.

The library is built around music written by a selection of professional composers whohave been vetted carefully and work across film, television, documentaries, advertising and production music. Between us, we cover a wide range of styles, from upbeat corporate tracks to darker, more atmospheric music and full-on cinematic scores.

Everything in the catalogue is written by composers we work with. We’re not here to fill the site with hundreds of tracks for the sake of it, rather the aim is to offer music that’s well made, useful and, most importantly, right for the job.

Who’s behind it?

Instrumental Background Music is independently run, which means we’re not part of a large music licensing company. We handle the day-to-day running of the library ourselves and, when you get in touch, you’ll be dealing with the people behind the music.

Alongside writing for the library, our composers work on film scores, documentaries, advertising campaigns and projects for established production music libraries. We understand what it’s like to work to a brief, meet a deadline and find the right piece of music for a particular scene or project.

Is this just another music library?

No, and there are a few reasons for that.

For one, we wanted a more direct relationship with the people using our music. Large libraries have their place, but it can be difficult to get hold of someone who can actually help when you need a particular track, an edit or an answer to a licensing question.

We also wanted more freedom over the music we release. Rather than working to someone else’s catalogue requirements, we can explore different styles and add music that we think is worth having, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into a particular category.

And then there’s the music itself. There’s plenty of it available online, but finding something that sounds professional and actually works for your project isn’t always easy. We’d rather offer a smaller selection of genuinely useful tracks than upload music just to make the catalogue bigger.

Lastly, a bit like an open mic night, we’re open for requests if you’d like more of a certain type of material on the site, just contact us and let us know what music you need.

Can’t I just use AI music now?

You can, but we’re seeing that it’s very risky and all the clients we work with explicitly demand music that has had zero AI input. The reason being that AI music models are almost always trained material on they don’t own (ahem, Suno, ahem) which has resulted in huge lawsuits from music giants like Universal.

As AI models are a bit like like huge sampling machines that try to replicate patterns, you can imagine the legal issues that pop up when a Justin Bieber melody or riff pops up in an AI-generated track that is then broadcast on a TV advert or similar. It’s a minefield, and potentially a very expensive one at that.

Because of this, and many other reasons, we don’t use generative AI to create our tracks. From what we’ve seen, it also tends to result in generic mediocre music, unless you spend excessive amounts of time trying to re-add the human feel that is lost through a prompt-based approach. But at that point, you might as well write the music from scratch with real humans.

What sort of music can I find here?

There’s a bit of everything, although upbeat corporate music and motivational tracks have always been popular so there’s more of that in the catalogue. You’ll also find cinematic music, dramatic cues and tracks suited to film, advertising, podcasts and online video.

We’re continually adding new music, so the catalogue will keep growing. As mentioned, if you’re looking for something specific and can’t find it on the site, get in touch. We may have something suitable in our wider catalogue, including music available for exclusive or non-exclusive sync licensing.

Can I access the whole catalogue?

Yes. We offer a membership for people who use music regularly and would rather not pay for every track individually.

Membership gives you unlimited downloads while your subscription is active, along with other benefits. If you’re regularly producing videos, podcasts or other content, it can work out considerably cheaper than buying tracks one at a time.

Keeping in touch

If you’d like to hear about new releases and occasional offers, you can follow us on social media, subscribe to our YouTube channel or join our mailing list.

We don’t send emails every other day. Usually, it’s around one email a month, and you’ll receive a free track when you sign up.

Looking for something custom?

If you need a particular type of music, a different edit of an existing track or a completely original composition, let us know what you’re working on. We’ll see what’s possible and discuss the options with you.

Good music, straightforward licensing and real people to talk to when you need a hand.