Mastodawn

Here's a collection of free-to-use short music for any kind of project imaginable. I've been working on this project for over 10 years on and off, and it's a labour of love.

Whether you're doing work for TV, Radio, Film, your next podcast, show reel, powerpoint presentation, youtube video or university assignment that requires something to intro or outro it, there should be something for you, and if not you directly, maybe someone you know.

This is not the final form. I add to it whenever I find inspiration to do so. Check back every so often as you may find more content was added when you weren't looking 🔇

Currently:
1210 items
766 MB download in mp3
over 9 hours of music.

Absolutely no AI was used (or harmed) in the making of this collection.

If you feel so inclined, please do boost for reach. Many thanks.
https://onj.me/shorts

Andre Louis - FreakyFwoof Shorts - AudioPlayer

More things have bene added. Yes indeed.

@pkirn Since you're the man with a plan and have a lot of reach, mind sharing a free source I put together? I'm replying to the initial post so you can see it directly. Much thanks.

peter KIRN Jan 8

@Onj ooh yeah, will share this shortly! Actually think I bookmarked it to do at some point and then... well yeah I'm one of those people with notes in five places and too many open tabs ;)

@pkirn Respect. No worries, it isn't going anywhere 😏

peter KIRN Jan 9

@Onj question, though -- had you considered a CC license for these? Or how do you define commercial use, explicitly?

@pkirn I didn't know about CC in 2014 when I came up with this concept. I'd be more than happy to switch to that now, but if people are worried, they can always reach me. I'm not gonna be evil about it for sure.

@TheBreadmonkey Hello sir Ben.
I'm being a bit naughty here, cold-calling in a way because I'm going to ask you to share the threaded post to your followers, not because I get numeration for it, but because on Fedi we like free stuff, and I like making said free stuff, so please forgive my impertinence if you will.
Much obliged.

Ben & ten thousand pigs Jan 21

No problem at all. 😊🙌

Wintergreen Dec 10

Thanks!

@Wintergr33n No, thank you. 😊

DJDarren Dec 10

@Onj Oh man, that's a lovely collection. The 'Select an Option' files sound like some really sweet '90s drum n bass is about to happen.

@DJDarren Is that short 96? If so yeah, that's one of my favourites. There's a 50 or 60-something short that's also a bit DNB but I don't remember exactly which. Also 102, but not the A varient. I did another version with different drums but same underlying feel. I forget the letter, might be F or G?

@Onj Thank you. I teach a high school movie making course, and resources like these are really handy.

@grant_h You have just made my day. You are exactly the kind of person I want to reach with this. Thank you so much.

Pxl Phile Dec 10

@Onj thanks for sharing. The titles are at times really gold 😘👌🏾🤣

@ppxl Haha thanks for checking it out. I had to make clickbait-style titles to make people go... 'What the heck? What is that for?' 😊

🤯Matera the Mad🤯Jan 22

@Onj @ppxl success 🤣

@Onj jajaja, lo mío con estas músicas breves o de fondo debe tener que ver con el #autismo pero lo cierto es que no puedo con ellas. Tampoco es que sea fan de los podcast o los videos pero cuando meten más de 3 segundos de música introductoria se me empiezan a crispar todos los nervios y los abandono para siempre. Igual con las sintonías de programas de radio, si no puedo saltármelas dejo de oirlos. Mañaneros de la 1, yo lo vería pero tiene una música totalmente crispante de fondo, bajita pero audible, y ya no puedo ni oir lo que dicen, mi cerebro solo puede escuchar la musiquita. Que no es por la música en sí sino por meterla con calzador donde no viene a cuento. Ni aporta ni la puedes escuchar, todo mal.

the gripe ibis Dec 10

@Onj what a wonderful thing to do!

@thegarbagebird Thank you. I hope people find it useful.

@Onj As someone dipping their toes in radio, this is awesome, thank you!

@zerogee No, thank you for taking a look. It means a lot to me.

Monte Freeman Dec 10

@Onj Nice work! The variety of styles and sounds is incredible.
Can’t immediately think of a use for it personally, but I will download the zip file……just in case. :)

@montef Thanks so much for checking it out at least. Maybe one day you'll think of someone, or if not yourself, maybe someone else you know who has trouble finding something that doesn't make you jump through 300 AI pop-ups, a mailing list and wants you to enter your credit card info for a free download. Not me. Never my way.

Monte Freeman Dec 10

@Onj I’ve noticed a trend of more and more podcasters and YouTubers that I follow, slowly dropping the music they once used as intros and outros for their content; and that makes me sad.
I get it. Feeding “the algorithm” is a constant battle and you have only so much time.

But the world seems diminished just a little bit more, every time a bit of music and creativity gets dropped.

I was in radio in a past life, and would definitely have used this music had I had it then.

@montef I do a podcast with my wife and we have bespoke intro music, so that if you were to hear it come up in rotation, you'd immediately know it was us. As a musician, no music in things like that makes me sad also.

Monte Freeman Dec 10

@Onj Yep. It’s definitely a way that my brain associates an artist/presenter with their work.
When the music plays, my brain gets itself ready for their content.
When I suddenly hear their voices, without “their music”; it’s jarring.

A good friend of mine used to do a podcast ( @KingShawn and “Your Mac Life”).
Even today, when I see an email or social media post from Shawn, I *still* hear his theme music in my head.
Brains are so weird, and how they catalogue things.

Griselda Gimpel Dec 10

@Onj The Readme says this can only be used for non-commercial ventures, but you mention "TV", "Film", and "podcasts" here, which are usually commercial.

@griseldagimpel Right, there's a reason for that.
Some podcasts make 0 money, so you don't have to pay for music. If you're doing something where you'll get payment, I'd like a little cut of that.
For your payment, you get access to the collection in either.wav or .flac which is of course superior to mp3 anyway, so it's not that you're just paying for the same files you already have access to. I don't believe in that.

Griselda Gimpel Dec 10

@Onj Got it! I'll keep that in mind.

(I'm currently working on an audio drama/fiction podcast. It would be awesome if it made money, but right now, I'm in the "will be happy if I can pay my voice actors rather than obtaining their services via bartering". So I'll have to check out the selection.)

@griseldagimpel Then please do. Until you make money, I want nothing other than attribution. Most people that find the collection are students or bedroom podcasters making 0 money anyway, for which I ask nothing other than a shout-out. That's often the best thing for me anyway, is word-of-mouth.

@griseldagimpel Let's be honest though, people could use them for commercial ventures and I couldn't stop them. I run on donations and good will, that's all I can do. I'd like to think that a collection this size would keep people honest anyway, but I can't enforce it.

Griselda Gimpel Dec 10

@Onj Sadly true. For my own venture, I'm being honest and respecting copyright. (I've been recording my own sound effects lately.)

@griseldagimpel If you need any free sounds, I have a collection of various things again free to use on my youtube channel. Here's a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLajmu-AM8Z8yjJCQFyGu_t0Ap2RqLKYUU

Audio and Field Recordings

YouTube

@griseldagimpel I am blind and love audio as well as music, so tend to record a lot of things I find out and about.

pintozilla Dec 10

@Onj Oh wow I'm really enjoying a lot of these tracks. Love this format of just dropping everything on an easy access page. Makes me want to do something similar down the line.

@criticalmammal Thank you. I saw too many 'Click here, sign up, give me 900 things about you that I really don't need to know before you gain access to 5 cut-down versions of our product' and said absolutely not.
I wanted something simple, fast, easy-to-use and a one-click download, so I made it happen.

Callisto Dec 10

@Onj I don't expect to use it, but wow, thank you for doing this!

@callisto You're more than welcome. If you do, great, but if you don't, maybe you know someone who is looking for something like this and finds it hard to locate free stuff.

@Onj There's a lot of love and character in these. A lovely gift :)

@adrigen I do my best 😊

Thank you.

Crazy-to-Bike Dec 10

@Onj

Thanks 👍💪

@crazy2bike Thank you also.

ondrosik Dec 11

@Onj I love the audioplayer, who created something that simple?

@ondrosik It was built by the fantastic @tspivey.

it's B! Cavello 🐝Dec 11

@Onj @FreakyFwoof Wow, what a deep collection!

@b_cavello Thanks. I try to keep it interesting. Lots of different styles and ideas.

Tito Swineflu Dec 11

@Onj This is cool! My son has been working on learning how to build video games, I'll have him use some of these in his programs.

@tito_swineflu That would honestly make my day. I hope he finds this useful.

@Onj Cool, cool. I notice the linked license doesn’t mention Mastodon (like the page does), FYI.

Appreciate your work on this. 🙂

@helianthropy Forgot to update that to be honest. Thanks for the reminder.

@Onj Wonderful and generous

@CiaraNi Thank you. I'm having fun getting over creative block and adding new content to it these last few days. Seeing how much interaction the post is getting also helps. I haven't been able to write meaningfully for two years now.

@Onj I hope you enjoy it as much as people value it - happy creating!

Julia Clement Dec 16

@Onj I'm curious why you appear to have rolled your own license.
If so, doing this can create problems as you may not end up with the protections you wished to have.
As they have been honed over many years, the Creative Commons licenses are often a good choice and provide real protection.
Your license looks to be most similar to CC BY-NC-SA which allows free use, modification and sharing but not commercial use.

@juliaclement Don't think I knew of it back in 2014 when I started to be honest

Julia Clement Dec 16

@Onj You can always change the license for any new downloads if you choose.

@juliaclement Yeah, it's just a text file anyway. To be honest I'm not that precious about it. I just want people to find it useful, high-quality, easy to obtain.

Slash909uk Dec 16

@Onj wow, that is so generous! Thank you!

I do some DJing for my kids primary school discos; now I am rummaging for some fun stings to throw in my mix 😁🪩🕺

@Slash909uk OO fantastic, I hope you find a good handful in there. Do let me know if you do and if not, well I'm always up for trying to make more. Ideas to add to the collection are always welcome.
Thanks so much.