Music for live streaming

Selecting the proper music for your live streaming services can be complicated. Since you probably won't be playing music that you have personally created, you'll need to have a license to play the music on a live stream. The license ensures that you have a legal right to play that music. Unfortunately, buying the rights to play your favorite songs on your live streams would cost thousands to millions of dollars.

So what's the solution for playing music on a live streamed class?

1. Use royalty-free music or music-subscription services. These services, such as Epidemic Sound, Artlist.io, Premium Beat, and Audio Jungle, are a far more affordable option for including professional sounding music. Epidemic Sound is a Mindbody partner, which means easy integration with our live stream services.

2. Share a playlist for the live stream with your clients. Clients can then play the music on their end using Spotify or Apple Music, without the music being recorded on the live stream. If you're playing the music out loud in your studio, make sure to use a sound-isolating microphone. This will help prevent music that you're playing in the studio from being heard on the live stream. Otherwise, use AirPods or a similar type of earphones to ensure you can hear the music without it being overheard on your microphone.

Using music with your live streaming classes also ideally requires an audio interface device, so you can independently change the volume of your own voice and the music. You can use a physical device for this, or a program like Voicemeeter or Loopback. This takes some extra setup and knowledge – see our recommended audio hardware article for more information.

Before making any decisions on music or including it in your live streams, we highly recommend consulting local legal counsel for advice. The last thing you want to happen is to believe you're doing things properly and then have to take down all of your live streams because of a music rights dispute.