The goal of background music is to set the mood, establish pace, and enhance the emotional impact of your content. But it is called background music for a reason. If your music is competing with your voiceover, it stops being an enhancement and becomes a massive distraction.
A poor audio mix is the fastest way to lose a viewer on YouTube or a listener on a podcast. Finding the perfect balance—the "mix"—is one of the most important skills for any content creator. You don't need a professional recording studio or complex mixing software to get this right. Here are 5 simple, actionable mixing tips to ensure your background music sits perfectly in the mix every single time.
1. Always Start with the Voice (The Anchor)
The biggest mistake beginners make is adding the music first, setting its volume to what sounds good, and then trying to squeeze the voiceover in on top of it. This almost always results in a muddy, excessively loud final mix.
Your message is the most important part of your video or podcast. Your voice is the anchor. Therefore, always set the volume of your voice recordings first. Use our voiceover processing tips to ensure your speech is clear, compressed, and at a consistent level. Aim for a volume that is easy to understand without straining your ears. Only once the voice sounds perfect on its own should you bring the music into the equation.
2. Drastically Lower the Music Volume
When you download a royalty-free music track, it has been mastered to sound loud and impactful all by itself. If you drop it directly under your voiceover, it will completely drown you out.
As a general rule of thumb, background music that plays while someone is speaking should be at least -15dB to -20dB quieter than the dialogue. In simpler terms: it needs to be very, very quiet. On OnlineAudioEdit, use our Volume Control slider on the music track to drop the volume down to 15% to 25% of its original level.
It might feel too quiet when you are editing, but remember: the audience is there to listen to the dialogue. The music should be felt more than it is actively heard.
3. Master the Art of "Ducking"
What if you have an energetic intro where you want the music to be loud, but then you need it to drop down when you start speaking? This technique is called "ducking."
Professional video editors use keyframes to automate this volume change. In OnlineAudioEdit, you can achieve the exact same effect using our Split tool and fades:
- Find the exact moment on the waveform where your voiceover begins.
- Split the background music track at that exact moment.
- Leave the first music clip at 100% volume for the intro.
- Select the second music clip (the part under your speech) and drop its volume to 20%.
- Apply a quick fade-out to the end of the loud clip so it smoothly transitions into the quiet clip, rather than abruptly dropping in volume.
Do the reverse at the end of the video—fade the music back up to 100% for the outro.
4. Avoid Complex Instrumentation (The EQ Clash)
Sometimes, no matter how much you turn the music down, it still clashes with your voice. This happens because the music and your voice are fighting for the same frequencies (the mid-range).
The easiest way to fix this is during the track selection phase. Avoid background music that features:
- Lead vocals: Human brains are hardwired to focus on lyrics. If a song has vocals, your audience will struggle to listen to two people speaking/singing at once.
- Distorted guitars or loud synths: These instruments dominate the mid-range frequencies where human speech lives.
- Busy melodies: Complex, fast-moving lead instruments distract from the pacing of your voice.
Look for tracks labeled "Underscore," "Ambient," or "Lo-Fi Beats." These genres are naturally sparse and leave plenty of sonic room for a voice to sit on top.
5. The "Car Test" (Trust Different Speakers)
The final and most crucial step of mixing is testing it on different speakers. If you edit your entire video wearing high-end studio headphones, the mix might sound perfect. But when someone plays that same video on a cheap smartphone speaker, the bass from the music might completely disappear, or the high-hats might suddenly pierce through and drown out your voice.
Before publishing, export a test MP3 and do the following:
- Listen to it on your phone's built-in speaker.
- Listen to it in your car (the classic "car test").
- Listen to it on cheap earbuds.
If you can clearly understand every word of the voiceover on the worst possible speakers, while the music still provides a nice emotional atmosphere, you've achieved the perfect mix.
Ready to start mixing your next masterpiece? Head over to the OnlineAudioEdit editor and try out these balancing techniques today!