How to Add Background Music to a Video Clip
Editing videos recorded with your phone or a video camera can feel overwhelming at first. Most video editing programs offer many options, controls, and panels, and it might feel like the learning curve is too steep. Luckily, adding background music to a video clip is pretty easy, regardless of the video editing software you use.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn the basic principles of adding background music to videos that will work in any video editing app. This is thanks to the fact that video editing tools all tend to manage audio tracks and background music in a similar way.
What kind of background music do you want?
Before you start your video editing project, decide how accurate you want your final video clip to sound. You have several options to choose from for adding music to your clip.
- Play background music over a silent video clip
- Combine background music with the background noise of your video clip
- Combine background music with your own voiceover
Each of these scenarios requires that you pay special attention to the volume controls on each track of your video project. This includes the sound of the video track and any added music or sound effect of the audio track.
Where can I find good background music?
If you’re thinking about just downloading some of the music channels on YouTube to use in your own project, think again. Most of the music on YouTube videos and other websites is copyrighted and may not be reused in your own projects.
However, you can find a basic library of royalty-free music for your videos, but you need to make sure that the artists allow that music to be used on videos that will be monetized (if you plan to monetize your videos).
Below are some other free background music websites that you can also use when editing videos with music. Again, keep in mind that you probably won’t be able to monetize videos in which you’ve used these music tracks. If you want to make money, these same websites usually offer a subscription plan where you can license the tracks in their music library for use in professional or commercial projects.
Another option, of course, is to create your own music if you are musically gifted enough.
Now that you know where to get background music for your video project, let’s take a look at the different options you have to apply this background music to your video clip.
How to add background music to a video clip
The following steps will work with almost any video editing software that gives you multiple tracks for each media source you include in your project. Complete the following steps for the type of video clip you want to produce.
Background music over a silent video clip
Of course, before you can add background effects like music over a video clip in a new project, you need to add the video clip from your media library to the video track.
1. Drag the video file to the video track.
Before you can overlay background music on this clip, you need to remove any distracting noise from the video itself.
2. Options for your particular video editor may vary, but in most cases you can right-click and select the video clip in the video track Mute clip.
Now that the video is muted, it’s time to add your background.
3. Import the music file that you want to embed in your clip into your video library (the staging area for all your media clips).
4. Once you have uploaded the audio clip to your project library, you can click, hold and drag this music clip onto the audio track of your project.
There are a few things to keep in mind when placing the audio clip in the audio track below your video track.
- Place the beginning of the music clip roughly where you want the music to begin in your video clip (this may not be quite the beginning).
- If you want the music to fade in (instead of starting at full volume), you can place the music clip just before you want the music to start at full volume.
- Don’t worry about the length of the music clip because you can clip and fade out the volume where you want the music to stop.
Adjust where music starts, fade in and fade out
At this point, the music starts playing at full volume at the beginning of your video. You can also adjust the start point and volume of the music.
1. Simply drag the audio clip to the point below the video clip where you want the music to actually start.
2. If you want to overlay the music, you need to find the function in your video editing software that allows you to adjust the volume of the audio track.
Most programs provide both “fade in” and “fade out” options for audio tracks. Select the fade in option for the beginning of the audio track.
3. Scroll to the point in your video clip where you want the music to end. Find the split function in our video editing software to split the audio track at this point.
4. Apply the Fade Out function to the end of the audio track where you applied the split.
5. Right-click the end of the audio clip that you no longer need and remove it.
You’ve now added new background music over your video clip, complete with a fade-in at the beginning and a fade-out at the end.
Combine background music with background noise
If you don’t want to mute your original video file, but instead want to add background music over the sounds in this clip, you can do this by lowering the volume of the original audio file.
Follow all the steps in the section above, but skip the step to mute the audio file.
This will apply background music to your video clip. However, your viewers still hear the tones of the original audio, which don’t sound quite right. You have to decide whether to focus on the music or the original audio sounds.
Since you are applying background music, you should keep the volume of the original video file high, but lower the volume of the background music.
Select the audio track. Turn down the volume of the audio track very low using the audio volume controls in your video editing software.
Now the original audio in your video track is louder than the background music you added. This creates a nice effect where viewers can hear the music you’ve inserted, which emphasizes the action in the video itself without drowning out the entire video.
Combine background music with your own voiceover
What if you also want to include voiceover audio in the foreground and want to send both the original audio and the background music in the background?
1. First, use the track audio controls to keep the volume of both the audio track and the background music track as low as possible. Use the preview feature to test the volume and make sure each track is at the volume you want.
2. Import your voiceover recording into the video editing library. Then move that recording to the next available audio track.
For this to work, your video editing software must allow at least two audio tracks in addition to the original video clip (most do).
Place the voice recording where you want it to start in the video clip, then use the track volume sliders to adjust the volume to your liking.
Now that the audio track and background music volume are adjusted below the voiceover recording, your voiceover takes center stage while the other audio tracks simply emphasize that voiceover.
Adding background music is easy
As long as you pay close attention to the volume and start position of each audio track you add to your video clip, it’s pretty easy to add beautiful background music to your video clip.
Share your own experiences and tips from your own video editing projects and help other readers add background music to their video clips.