Introducing SOVNDWAVE

Background music is so important. It's one of the only no- or low-cost ways you can take a video up several notches in quality during editing. Good background music can make a good video great. Bad background music can ruin a video.

This isn't new to YouTube, look at Apple's commercials from the 90s through the 00s. They use simple, fun, recognizable jingles in the background with an actor talking to camera or doing a voiceover. Those are basically the same formats as a vlog and a "how-to" video. Check it out:

Their "Switch" ads featured a simple, playful, almost cartoony melody by John Murphy while customers and celebrities described the reason they made "the switch" from Windows to Mac. Sound familiar? These ads were basically 30 second vlogs!

The "Get a Mac" ads use another instantly classic jingle, "Having Trouble Sneezing" by Mark Mothersbaugh, while two actors talk to camera. This has all of the same components of a collab vlog. Mark is known to many as the lead singer of Devo but he's made an incredible career out of music licensing including the Rugrats theme and like half of the songs Wes Anderson has used in movies so far.

Check out the original iPhone commercials - they look just like a DIY video, with a jingle by Orba Squara and a voiceover with a simple product demonstration.

Ad rates for TV commercials range from as low as $2,000 for 5 years to $250,000+ for one year. Factors like the length of the license, the region the ad will be airing and more can affect the price. Obviously this type of licensing pricing doesn't work for YouTube videos since many videos don't generate any money at all.

Today there are more options, some new companies make more music available at lower prices but with many per-song prices ranging from $15 - $20 that's enough to put a video with under 5,000 views in the red. So where do YouTubers go for new background music?

Introducing SOVNDWAVE, a resource for YouTube background music. Today we launch with just two musicians and a handful of songs but we are already speaking with a few more musicians and have received contact from many more that are interested in distributing their music to thousands of YouTubers.