I am not sure if this is off topic or not.  Does anyone know of a web site where they offer "Free-Royalty Free" music to be used commercially or non-commercial as background music in animations?

I know this is a lot to expect, but funds are low and licensing fees are very high.
Thanks,
Pappy

you might try http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/

They have a non-commercial only clause, but some authors do specify that commercial use is OK with special credits, conditions, etc.

Have you looked into music creation software such as FL Studio (ther are others as well)?
If you have any musical talent (or know someone who does) this could be an option that allows you to fit the piece to your animation.

Thank you Antaran and PurplePanther.

Attached Link: http://www.archive.org/details/audio

Archive.org has a fairly huge audio section. Much of it is released under Creative Commons. However, the catch is that finding the gems amongst the randomness and crap is an enterprise in itself. But there are good songs and music in general to be found there, it just takes time.

If you just need some filler, you could also try making it yourself. These may be handy for starting out:
http://www.anvilstudio.com/
http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/
http://www.audacity.org/
http://eng.musicshake.com/

You might want to try Band-in-a Box. "Type in the chords to any song using standard chord symbols like C or Fm7b5; and Band-in-a-Box does the rest, automatically generating a complete professional-quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar, strings and more.  Plus, add REAL accompaniment to your song with RealTracks and RealDrums- actual recordings of professional studio musicians!"
   I've recorded quite a few demos for myself and others using BIAB for backing tracks. There are many dozens of different styles from Heavy-Metal to Jazz. It's dead simple to use and I know pro composers who use it to generate ideas for film scores. It also can generate instrumental solos.
http://www.pgmusic.com/

I use FL Studio to make my own stuff, its more fun that way, there are tons of Free VST's (Virtual Studio Technology) so you can do things on low budget.

Now if you want to do this all FREE and learn an interesting way of making music.  I would recommend  OpenMPT its an Open Source Tracker software (Pauljs75 would know what I'm talking about here :) )  and it also support VST's.

You can download it from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/modplug/

For anyone who is into making their own music, try DarkWave Studio from Experimental
Scene Pro.  It looks to have a starter set of VST plugins, and since people are into the
computer magazine freebies too, try Computer Music Magazine for more free plugins
that you can use with the software.

Find Darkwave Studio ** here**.  It's free and open source.

Attached Link: Darkwave Studio Walk-through Demo

All those are cool. I'm beginning to like the Darkwave studio one. The UI is easy enough for anyone without prior experience. I made a quick walkthrough on using it once I sort of figured it out. Still I wished I knew what the heck I was doing, so I'm not exactly the best person to give the demonstration. But I'll admit it's definitely fun to play with. It's good enough that I'm gonna spread the word about it now.

Some cool apps here guys. A lot of 'em I didn't know about. Thanks for the links.

Quote - All those are cool. I'm beginning to like the Darkwave studio one. The UI is easy enough for anyone without prior experience. I made a quick walkthrough on using it once I sort of figured it out. Still I wished I knew what the heck I was doing, so I'm not exactly the best person to give the demonstration. But I'll admit it's definitely fun to play with. It's good enough that I'm gonna spread the word about it now.

Thanks for putting up that demo!  Like you, I'm only starting to play with DWS.  You might
want to go and get ASIO-for-All, which is linked off ESP's site.  It will make the MIDI go
easier.

News!

LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio) just went cross-platform from its former Linux-only form.

No Mac release that I can see, but I think OSX is based on some form of Unix so might
run the Linux release in native mode.  I'm no Mac expert, so someone else check me
on this.

So, if you are currently in 'collect all you have room for and see what works best' mode,
as I am now (I'm more or less a complete newbie to digital music creation), collect
LMMS from this link.

Another one? Sheesh, I'm in trouble now. LMMS has even more depth to it than DWS. Yet is still easy enough to figure out. And that one lets you dump samples into it. Which means you can really go crazy.

Now if only I can be as good at music as I am at doing visual stuff...