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Beta Testing the Free Music Archive

I signed up for and have just been invited to beta test the Free Music Archive. The Free Music Archive has launched into public beta.  Right off the bat I must say it is by far the best designed and most comprehensive source of podsafe music I’ve ever encountered.

Jason Sigal, who I only assume runs the FMA, has this to say about the site:

It’ll be a valuable resource for those in search of legal audio; each track will have a clear set of rights associated with it, as determined by the artist, letting podcasters, bloggers, remix artists and music fans know what uses the rights-holders will and will not allow. The project began here at WFMU, but we are just one of several curators who’ve been gathering audio for the Free Music Archive, freeing archival audio into the public domain, adding to the Creative Commons and building an open forum for participation that we’re very excited to share with you.

More screenshots and a little review after the jump:

Music is searchable and also divided into 12 main genres, further divided into various sub-genres.  Just hit the play button on the left to immediately hear any track you like or add any track to a pop-out player.  The pop-out player looks very nice, but I’d like to see some added functionality, namely the ability to reorder tracks.  Currently, when you choose to add a track to the player, it automatically starts playing that track instead of queuing it up to play next. This is OK if you were allowed to rearrange the order in which the tracks play, but I couldn’t figure out how to.

There are also opportunities to participate by posting to an on-site, personal blog and the ability to create and share mixes made from music on the FMA.

I remember reading on the pre-launch blog somewhere how many songs the FMA was going to start off with, but can’t remember the exact number.  However, its claiming to be one of the largest places, if not the largest place to procure free, safe and legal music for podcasts and the like.

Directed by free form radio station WFMU and funded with a grant from the New York State Music Fund, the Free Music Archive launched sometime on or around April 4th, according to the announcement on the pre-launch blog and a launch party scheduled for that day.