Audio for Video Production: Stock20 Library Collection 001 Music Library

For a long time, music has been the only media resource that has either been too expensive to acquire or too poor in quality to consider. It used to be that you would have to spend thousands of dollars per year only to lease a music library that was of real substance, or spend hundreds of dollars to purchase a music library touting 5,000 songs only to find that just a handful were even useful.

In recent years, royalty free music companies have become more present and are offering a competitive, high quality selection at an affordable price. One such company is Stock20. Founded just a year ago in December 2005, Stock20 offers both a complete library, as well as individual tracks that can be purchased a la carte at only $7 each. It sounds like it may be too good to be true: $7 for a completely royalty free song? The quality must not be that great, right? Surprisingly enough, it is. Let's take a look.

The library collection 001 comes on 7 CDs housed in a hard plastic protective case. Each disc contains 6-7 song sets for a total of 37 songs set across the entire collection. Each song set contains multiple tracks of the same name edited to different lengths ranging from 30 seconds to full length. This is especially useful for those working on projects with specific time constraints such as commercials. Now here's what starts to set Stock20 apart from other stock music companies. The different lengths are all a slightly different edit from each other, making them all useful together or apart. Most other companies offering variable track lengths simply cut the song to different lengths, which half-way decent editors can easily do on their own, right in the video timeline. So in a way, you're not just getting 37 song sets, you're getting 311 unique audio tracks.

Stock20 offers a wide variety of styles and flavors, from Rock to County to Techno to Jazz that will suit just about any project. One thing that was apparent as we browsed through the library, each track, no matter what style, carries a fresh modern sound. Many stock music libraries tend to be outdated and stale, as if someone sifted through a bunch of 70's and 80's B-sides that were discarded, and threw them into a library. The music found in the Stock20 library is easily something you might hear on top 40 radio today. For example, "Runway", a techno sounding track moves along with a steady beat and would go perfect as a music bed for an industrial training video. Whereas "Adeline", a soft piano driven ballad, carries an emotional tone, and would fit perfectly in a wedding production, or even a documentary where you would need to emphasize an emotional moment. "Gold Medal" an alternative, progressive rock tune reminds me of something we might hear from Nickleback or The Fray, and could easily work as a commercial's theme music or a compilation video highlighting success.

Each track is unique, catchy and melodic, and completely different from the next. And while 37 song sets may not sound like a lot while compared to a library of 500, you can be comforted in knowing that each track is usable, whereas the 500 song library may only have a fraction of usable music.