This YouTube vlog ("TURKEY TO SWEDEN (our youtube evolution)") follows Kara and Nate Buchanan traveling from Izmir to Istanbul to Stockholm while narrating the evolution of how they source music for their channel. They recount starting with YouTube's free music library, overusing a single travel-day song, sourcing tracks via SoundCloud (including a successful Everest Base Camp series that later lost ad revenue after the musician signed with a label), receiving free submissions from artists, and ultimately adopting Epidemic Sound — becoming ambassadors and promoting a 30-day free trial (affiliate link). The vlog ends with them attending Epidemic Sound's Spring Bash in Stockholm.
Chapters
Sam, good morning. Today we're up bright and early to tackle one of your top questions.
Where do you get your music for YouTube?
Instead of just telling you about the service that we use, we thought it would be more fun to just take you to their headquarters.
But to do that, we need to jump on a flight.
Checking out. Thank you.
Wow, that was violent.
In 50 meters at the roundabout, take the first exit onto 2783.
Good morning.
There's the airport.
Today we are flying from Izmir to Istanbul and then from Istanbul to Stockholm, Sweden. And along the way, we thought we would describe our musical evolution on YouTube because we've come a long way.
When we first got started two and a half years ago, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. And so we started using the music from the free music YouTube library. And that's what we did for about the first two months. And we thought it was great.
Looking back.
Kind of annoying.
And then we had this great idea that we were going to use the same song every time we did a travel day.
We probably didn't pick the the best song to begin with, but then we ended up playing it like every other day until basically enough people begged us to stop using that song. And I'm so glad that they did.
My idea was that it would trigger these travel day vibes every time you heard it, but it was just, please stop playing this song vibes.
We quickly learned the importance of music in your videos. All right, let's go find a lounge.
Sa.
If you don't have to invoke wings, you must leave all items and have.
Lectures behind to prevent.
Aviation regulations require passenger compliance with the crew member instruction.
Bye. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you.
Short layover and assemble.
So after we realized that the YouTube free music wasn't going to cut it, we went in search of new music other places on the Internet.
And that is when I found a website called SoundCloud. It's where a bunch of artists post their songs and it was great. But I would spend hours and hours and hours scrolling through mediocre songs until I found one that was okay. Then I would message the artist and ask if I could use them in our vlog. They would say yes because they would get exposure. I would get good music. It was a win win until our Everspace Camp series.
This is the problem with trying to tell stories in the airport.
I found an artist that I really liked, so I sent him a message and I said, we're about to do this. Everspace Hamtra. I want to use your Whole album on all of the videos as the soundtrack. And he said yes. And I was so excited. And it ended up being our most viewed series ever.
More views translates to more ad revenue on YouTube, which was fantastic for us until this musician decided to sign with a label who put a blanket copyright on all of his music, which means that our songs got copyrighted and all the ad revenue that we were making off of our Everest Base Camp series started going to the guy who made the music instead of us.
You're welcome.
Which was a big bummer. And that's kind of the problem with SoundCloud is one, is takes a lot of time and two, the copyright thing is kind of hit or miss, depending on which artist you work with. I think we have time for one more lounge.
There's no seats in here, so grab and go.
On to our 77th kitchen.
There was also this one time I found a song that I liked on SoundCloud and I used it and then I got a copyright claim. But instead of just taking the monetization away, they took all of the audio away from the whole video.
So if you go watch one of.
Our Poland videos, it's like watching a silent film.
You may use your mobile phone.
Please make sure to your personal vlog and do not forget what my face take you forward. Locals.
Made it to Sweden. Now we just have to find our way to our hotel.
Yes, hello.
Ah, we made it back to the story. The next iteration in our YouTube music evolution is when people started sending us free music to use. About a year into our channel, we finally started getting big enough to where people were actually emailing me songs that asking us to use them for free.
In our videos, which was really nice because I wasn't spending as much time searching for songs. We could trust those people. The only problem was they weren't making enough songs. We were uploading every day. So as soon as they would make a new song and send it to us, I would use it and then I would be back to having no good music.
And then I also had to spend a lot of time emailing back and forth with the people trying to get like, download links. It was like almost there, but it.
Was still a pain. And then last summer, I was talking.
To my friend, we're gonna be late if we don't get ready. Okay, we'll finish the story soon.
So last summer I was complaining to my friend Alyssa because I couldn't find a song for the blog that I was working on. I was really frustrated for all of the reasons that I've said before in this video. And she told me that she started using this website that has tons of copyright free songs. They add new ones every single day. They were really good. She let me listen to a few of hers. You don't have to contact the artist. It sounded like everything I'd ever wanted in music. So I signed up immediately.
And here we are one year later, hanging out at the Epidemic Sound corporate headquarters. We love their service so much we decided to become ambassadors for them. And we've been promoting them at the end of the day, every single one of our videos for the past year. So the whole reason that we are in Stockholm is to attend their biggest party of the year, the Epidemic Sound Spring bash. So we're going to end the vlog here and go enjoy the party.
But before we do, there is a link in the description below. You should definitely check out Epidemic Sound and sign up for their 30 day free trial. We are ambassadors. We do get a commission if you sign up. But just know that we would not be making this video if we hadn't already been using and loving their service for a whole year.
Okay, now we're really going to enjoy the park it.
Today we are flying from Istanbul.
No, no we're not.
Today we are flying from Izmir to Istanbul. And then from Istanbul. There's a hair in my mouth and I was just really thinking about. Today we are flying from Izmir to Istanbul.
I just sucked in my nose really loud for some reason. So after we.
So after we.
So after we realized that the.
En suite home.
Stockholm. Let's just do a test. Where am I gonna sit? You're so close to me.
