A review by Scott Dumas

Are you wondering if TunePocket subscription is right for you? Here’s a review by Scott Dumas, a professional photographer and videographer who’s using TunePocket music in his work.

In this review I’ll cover the basic functionality, pricing, downloading, YouTube copyright, and discuss the overall value of TunePocket from the perspective of a freelancing video editor and YouTuber. I’ll show you how TunePocket works, what it has to offer, and comment on a few pros and cons along the way.

There is also a newer TunePocket review that cover the recent improvements and catalog additions.

Where do you get music for your videos?

For a while now I’ve been using Epidemic Sound to get music for my YouTube videos when I need it, and it’s a very useful service. But, it’s a little expensive and if you want to license the tracks to use in anything other than YouTube, it gets really expensive.

Outside of YouTube I make a variety of videos from wedding related videos to short commercials to documentaries. Music for those videos has always been a hassle because the market for videos where I live isn’t amazing and my clients don’t often want to put aside much of a budget for music. I don’t want terrible music, though, so I have to push them a little or pay out of pocket for a track I want.

Recently, I found a new service called TunePocket, and they totally solve that problem. Pretty much their entire library is fair play not only for YouTube, but has a wide license that covers almost any kind of use outside of nationwide broadcast. Not only that but at just $99 per year, their membership fee is HALF of Epidemic Sound’s most basic plan. Their library isn’t quite as huge at the moment but it’s constantly growing and already has a good amount of good quality audio that’s easy to browse through and find what you’re looking for.

Pricing

They have two simple subscription plans: one for individuals at $99 and one for businesses with more than one employee for $199. There’s also a marketplace for individual licenses which I’ll talk more about in a minute.

Update: Now, there is a new, Pay As You Go membership option that allows you to purchase 5 downloads without the annual subscription. Learn more

How to search for the music you need

When you come to their homepage you can find your music in a couple different ways. You can search for some keywords if you have something specific in mind or browse by category, then preview each track that comes up.

They all have a general category listed on their thumbnail as well as a the track length, sound waves and a range of genres listed above, so you can have some idea of what to expect before hitting the play button to listen to it.

From there you can simply scroll through the results, click on one of those genres if you notice something that feels like a good direction for you. Or you can filter the list of results you got by category, mood, genre, instruments, length or tempo.

If you find a track you really like you can then click the name to bring you to its page. From there you can see a lot more information about the track as well as similar recommended tracks and the track’s author if you’d like to browse their other music. All of the categories, instruments and other information here is clickable so you can browse through any of them right from here as well.

How to download

Once you decide on a track, you can download either the MP3 or WAV format. The great thing about a subscription plan is that even for commercial work you can try out or preview tracks for your clients without worrying about them requesting changes, since you don’t have to pay individual fees for every track.

Sound effects

There is a category for sound effects, which currently has a few hundred choices but it’s growing day by day as is the rest of the library.

Short clips

They have a category specifically for shorter clips that would be great for commercials or video intros, and there are TONS of these that I can very very easily imagine using for a range of different commercials.

Honestly, I think this is where this site really shines for me.

Can I request specific music?

If there’s something you can’t find, they also have a kind of message board where you can propose and vote for things including music and sound effects.

YouTube copyright claims

One thing that you might notice talked about throughout this site may concern you at first, but I have to tell you is a total non issue. That is, not all their music is immediately cleared for YouTube.

TunePocket is not solely targeted towards YouTubers, so some of their music is registered with YouTube’s content ID for protection against unauthorized use.

However, since you do have a license, is not unauthorized. TunePocket will help to resolve those copyright claims, which are NOT strikes against your channel and have no negative effect besides the fact that you have to go through a process to get ads removed from your video if you want to do that.

The process is explained very clearly and in a lot of detail on their website. It may look long and complicated but if you read through it it’s actually quite simple and straightforward.

Tracks which are digitally fingerprinted for YouTube Content ID will be very clearly labeled as so on the website, and if you want to resolve the issue before uploading, you can upload your video but keep it “Unpublished”, clear the claims as described on the website, and then change the status of your video to “Published”.
You can request your entire YouTube channel whitelisted, which prevents copyright notices from appearing on the future videos that contain their music.

If you don’t want to worry about all that, you can also browse music with no content ID only just by checking that option when you search.

I tried this myself, purposely uploading a video that I knew would get a copyright claim, and it was very simple to resolve. It took about a day for the claim to be cleared and for my channel to be whitelisted in order to prevent future claims.

Related: How to resolve AdRev copyright claims on YouTube

What if I only need one song?

As I mentioned, they also have a marketplace for individual licenses for people who only need one or two tracks and don’t need the full subscription. And if you do use this service but decide to upgrade to a subscription plan later, you can get 25% off.

Update: With new Pay As You Go membership option you can purchase 5 downloads without the annual subscription. Learn more

Cons

1. While it’s not exactly a con, I do look forward to the library continuing to grow. It’s already fairly large but there are obviously more established larger libraries available, for higher prices.

There is definitely a steady stream of new tracks added though, so I’m looking forward to its growth.

UPDATE

Here’s a more recent screenshot showing that the catalog has grew significantly since the time of the review:

New music and sounds are added daily! See the most recent graph.

2. It’s nice on E.S. to be able to download the stems and use only the instruments you want from each track. I’d love if something simple like this existed on TunePocket as well, but at the moment the proposals message board is the closest they have.

Pros

1. Price is obviously one of the big pros.

With E.S. charging $15/month for their basic plan (and $49/month for commercial use) and with individual licenses priced between $5 and $300 (and sometimes even more depending on how and how many times you want to use it), TunePocket’s $8.25/ month (billed annually) looks like a steal.

Let’s not forget the TunePocket’s license covers the commercial use by default. There is no need to “upgrade” to a commercial tier, even if you’re on the Personal plan.

Whether you use it for YouTube only or for commercial work, the value is hard to argue with. Their library will only get larger and larger and it’s a great way to save money for both yourself and your clients with smaller budgets.

For me, using TunePocket only two or three times for commercial work, even a short commercial, will already pay for itself.

2. While it may not be more than some other sites like Epidemic Sound, the ease of use is also really really strong here. The browsing options are pretty much the same as something like E.S., where you can browse by mood, instrument, category, playlists and more.

I found that categories and moods were more accurate than Epidemic Sound, with most of the music really matching what I hoped for by searching that category.

3. In addition, you can favorite tracks you like, browse similar tracks and also look through individual artist’s music.

The music loading times are very fast, compared to other libraries, making the browsing experience much less frustrating.

4. Their FAQ section is very clear and concise, clearing up pretty much any issues you may have questions about regarding licenses, YouTube claims and so on.

5. They’re very transparent about how YouTube handles their music, letting you browse through only tracks that are guaranteed to not raise flags on YouTube. Even if something does come up, they’ll guide and help you through the process of resolving it.

Conclusion

While you might still want custom composed music or more expensive licensed music for some projects or customers, this is a really great way to get quality music for smaller budgets or personal use, such as YouTube.

You can browse through their music without signing up and even if you do sign up there is a fair refund policy.

So why not go check out TunePocket now? I definitely think it would be worth your time.

Have a question?

Post it in the comments below or contact us.