Sound and MusicThe half you hear

Viewers forgive bad picture, not bad sound#

Ask an editor what makes amateur video look amateur and many will say sound before picture. A slightly soft image passes unnoticed; a voice that is muffled, echoing or buried under music makes the whole video feel cheap and hard to trust. Sound is half of the experience and usually less than half of the attention in planning.

Sound also does work picture cannot. Music sets emotional register before a word is spoken. Atmosphere places us somewhere. A single sound effect can make a product feel solid. And a recognisable sonic cue can identify a brand faster than a logo in a feed where people are not looking closely.

Voice first#

Intelligible speech is the non-negotiable foundation. Most problems are solved at recording, not in post-production. Use proper microphones close to the speaker, choose quiet rooms with soft surfaces, switch off noisy appliances where possible, and record a few seconds of room tone for the editor. AI-assisted speech enhancement can rescue imperfect recordings, but it is a safety net, not a plan.

Casting a voice-over is a brand decision, not an afterthought. Accent, age, warmth and pace all signal something. For multilingual markets such as India, decide early whether you need separate voices for each language and whether on-screen talent will be dubbed or subtitled.

Keep the voice consistent once chosen. A brand that changes narrators with every video loses a recognisable asset; one that uses the same voice, or the same style of voice, across years of content builds familiarity that viewers notice even when they cannot name it.

Choosing and briefing music#

Music is the fastest way to set emotion, and the easiest way to make a video generic. The stock track everyone else uses tells the viewer they have seen this before. Choose music for what the video needs to feel at each moment, not for what is popular.

• Brief with feeling and function, not genre alone: ‘builds quiet confidence, leaves room for voice, resolves at the product reveal’.
• Use reference tracks to communicate a direction, but do not ask for imitations of copyrighted works.
• Edit picture to music for emotional pieces; edit music to picture for information-led ones.
• Leave space for voice. Busy arrangements and vocals compete with narration.
• Decide the music approach early: library, commissioned or licensed commercial track. Each has different costs, timelines and rights.

When music should stop

One of the most effective musical decisions is silence. Wall-to-wall music flattens a film; dropping it out for a key line, a customer’s answer or a product sound gives that moment weight. Ask the editor where the music could stop, not only where it should swell. In interview-led films especially, a well-placed absence of music often makes the speaker more believable.

Sound design makes things real#

Sound design is the craft of creating and placing sound effects and atmosphere. In product videos it makes objects feel tangible: the click of a mechanism, the fizz of a drink, the texture of fabric. In motion graphics it gives weight to movement. Done well, it goes unnoticed; removed, the video feels oddly empty.

Sonic branding#

Some brands develop a sonic identity: a short motif, a signature sound, a consistent voice or a musical palette used across all content. In feeds where people glance rather than watch, a recognisable sound can identify the brand quickly. A sonic identity belongs in the brand guidelines alongside logo and colour, with rules on when and how it is used.

If your audience heard your video from the next room, would they know whose it was?

Sound in a sound-off world#

Many feeds autoplay muted, which leads some teams to treat sound as optional. That is the wrong conclusion. The right one is that a video must work without sound and be better with it. Captions and on-screen text carry the message for muted viewers; sound rewards the many who do listen, and on YouTube, connected TV and most long-form placements sound is the default.

Design both experiences deliberately. Ask what the muted viewer sees in the opening moments, and what the listening viewer hears. A distinctive sound in the first second can prompt people to unmute; a voice that starts mid-sentence with no visual support loses the muted majority. Test every edit both ways before sign-off. The visual side of this is covered in vertical video.

Loudness and mixing for platforms#

Different destinations expect different loudness. Broadcast television in many regions follows formal loudness standards, such as EBU R128 in Europe, measured in LUFS. Streaming and social platforms normalise playback loudness in their own ways, which change over time. Mixing too loud can lead to the platform turning your audio down and squashing dynamics; too quiet and the video sounds weak next to others. Ask your mixer to deliver to each platform’s current guidance.

• Check the mix on headphones, laptop speakers and a phone speaker; most viewers use the last two.
• Keep dialogue clearly above music, especially for phone speakers.
• Deliver stems (separate voice, music and effects tracks) so versions and translations can be remixed.

Licensing: the part that causes takedowns#

Using music in video typically requires rights to the composition and to the specific recording, often called sync and master rights. A licence will specify where the video may appear, for how long, in which territories and in what media. Music available inside a social platform’s library for organic posts is often not cleared for ads or for use elsewhere. Collecting societies, such as IPRS and PPL in India, manage certain rights and may be relevant. Read every licence and record its terms.

Sound also matters for accessibility: captions should describe meaningful sounds as well as speech. See video captions and accessibility and, for where sound fits in the edit, the video editing workflow.

Published by Fabulous.Media, a network of specialist marketing agencies. Updated 9 October 2026. Platform features change often; check current official documentation before acting on platform-specific detail.