Once you know what kind of background fits your meditation, the next question is where to get it.
You do not need to compose music yourself. You can use a finished track, start with free music, build your own mix, create the whole meditation in one tool, or work in a traditional audio editor or DAW.
The best route depends on how much control you want, how often you create meditations, and how much time you want to spend on the music itself.
Start With Free Meditation Music
If you are creating your first meditation, testing an idea, or keeping the budget small, free music is an easy place to start.
ZENmix has a collection of free meditation music for commercial use.
You can use the tracks in commercial projects under the ZENmix Free License. Attribution is required, and the free license has its own conditions, so check the license before publishing your meditation.
This is a good option when you want to try working with professional meditation music before buying anything.
Use a Ready-to-Use Track
The simplest route is to choose a finished track that already fits the meditation.
Download the music, place it underneath your voice, adjust the volume, and edit the length if the license allows.
This works especially well if you do not want to spend time creating the background yourself.
ZENmix offers ready-to-use royalty-free meditation music for guided meditations, hypnosis, sleep, relaxation, yoga, and other wellness projects.
You can buy individual tracks if you only need one piece of music, or packs and bundles if you create meditations regularly and want a larger library to choose from.
A finished track is usually the easiest option when you hear something that already fits what you are creating.
Create Your Own Mix With ZENmix Creator
Sometimes a finished track is close to what you want, but you would rather choose the ingredients yourself.
ZENmix Creator lets you combine music, nature sounds, ambient effects, and other elements into your own background.
For example, you could combine:
- a soft musical layer with rain
- meditation music with forest ambiance
- a calm background with ocean sounds
- music with a subtle frequency layer
- several sounds into a longer soundscape
You choose the sounds and their volume, then export the finished mix.
This gives you more control than choosing a ready-made track without requiring you to compose music or learn a traditional music production program.
Creator is useful if you regularly want backgrounds that feel more specific to the meditation you are making.
Create the Meditation and Music Together With Studio
If you want to avoid moving your voice recording and music between different tools, you can use ZENmix Meditation Studio.
Studio is built around creating guided meditations rather than creating music as a separate project.
It includes music and sounds from ZENmix Creator, so you can choose the background while building the meditation itself.
This can be the easiest route if your goal is to finish a guided meditation without setting up a larger audio-production workflow.
Buy Music From Other Meditation Music Providers
ZENmix is not the only place to find music made specifically for guided meditations.
Other specialist providers sell royalty-free meditation and relaxation music, including LuxAuralis and others.
Specialist libraries can be useful because the music is generally created with meditation, relaxation, hypnosis, or similar uses in mind. That often makes it easier to find tracks that leave enough room for a spoken voice.
The MindfulDevMag has a comparison of royalty-free meditation music providers if you want to compare several options.
Whatever provider you choose, read the license rather than assuming that “royalty-free” means every use is allowed.
We cover that in more detail in the Music Licensing for Guided Meditations lesson.
Use a General Music Library
You can also find suitable tracks in general royalty-free or stock music libraries.
These libraries usually contain music for many kinds of projects, so you may have to spend more time searching for something that works underneath a meditation.
Useful search terms can include:
- meditation
- ambient
- calm
- peaceful
- sleep
- relaxing
- minimal
- atmospheric
- yoga
- wellness
Listen to the track with your voice before deciding.
A track that sounds relaxing in a preview can still have a strong melody, dramatic change, or percussion that becomes distracting once someone speaks over it.
Build a Background From Sound Libraries
Another option is to work with individual sounds instead of starting with finished music.
You can find nature recordings, ambiance, drones, bowls, chimes, and other sounds in audio libraries and combine them in an editor or DAW.
This gives you a great deal of control, but it also means you are responsible for putting the soundscape together yourself.
Make sure every sound you use has a license that covers your finished meditation.
A sound being available as a free download doesn’t automatically mean you can use it commercially.
We’ll cover the practical side of combining these sounds in the Creating Your Own Soundscape lesson.
Music generation tools can also create backgrounds from a description or a set of choices.
This can be useful when you want something different from a stock track but do not want to compose from scratch.
The main thing to watch is the license.
Different services have very different rules about:
- commercial use
- what you own
- whether a paid subscription is required
- whether existing exports remain licensed after cancellation
- distribution on YouTube or other platforms
- use in client work
- whether the generated music can be registered with Content ID
Those terms can also change.
If you use generated music, check the current license at the time you create and publish your meditation.
Compose or Arrange the Music Yourself
If you already make music, or want complete control, you can of course create your own background.
A traditional DAW such as GarageBand, Reaper, Ableton Live, or another audio-production program gives you control over every layer.
You can compose music, work with virtual instruments, add nature sounds, create loops, automate volume changes, and shape the background around the exact structure of your meditation.
You do not need this level of control to make a good guided meditation, though.
If learning music production is not part of what you want to do, a finished track, Creator, or Studio will usually get you there much faster.
Which Route Should You Choose?
If you are just getting started, try the free ZENmix tracks.
If you want the quickest route to a finished meditation, choose a ready-to-use track.
If you want to choose and combine the sounds yourself, use ZENmix Creator.
If you want to create the meditation and its background in the same place, use ZENmix Studio.
If you want complete control over every part of the sound, use a traditional audio editor or DAW.
There is no single right way to get the music.
Choose the route that lets you create the meditation you want without turning the background music into a bigger project than it needs to be.