Sound in short videos: music, effects and voice without a mixing desk

Most short videos play with the sound off, and the ones that do not usually have too much of it. A little sound goes a long way: a bed of music, one or two effects on the beats, and a voice when there is something to say.

Think in three tracks#

Video lets a scene video carry up to 24 tracks, each a music, effect or voice track placed on the video's timeline in seconds. For a short piece you need three at most.

• Music under the whole video, loud enough to feel, quiet enough to ignore.
• Effects on the moments that matter: a whoosh on a transition, a tick when a number lands.
• Voice if you have one.

Let the music duck#

When voice or effects play, the music should dip. A track's duck value is the level the music drops to under them. A value around a quarter works for most voice-overs.

Fade the edges#

A hard start and a hard stop sound cheap. Give music a fade-in of a second or two and a fade-out at the end. Effects rarely need fades.

Loop with care#

If the music is shorter than the video, loop it. Check that the loop point is not obvious, or fade it out and bring in a second track.

Credit what you use#

Every track has a credit field. Put the author and licence there. Use sounds you have the right to use: your own, or licensed. A deployment may have a library of licensed music and effects connected; where it does not, upload your own file.

Check in the preview#

The preview plays the same mix as the render, but the browser keeps a page silent until you click or tap it. Do that first. Listen on the speakers your viewers will use, not only on headphones.

What gets rendered#

The render mixes all tracks to one stereo bus and writes one AAC track into the MP4. A video with no tracks has no audio track at all, which is the right choice for silent loops.