HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PODCAST BACKGROUND MUSIC
While the main focus of a podcast is the voice of your host or guests, there's usually a lot more to the mix than that. Background music is one of those essential audio tools in podcasting that sets the mood, adds personality to your output, and drives an episode’s narrative forward.
Yet adding a soundtrack to your podcast doesn’t just involve picking and laying a random track over your audio. To give your final episode the quality finish it deserves, you need to select the right music and edit it across your podcast effectively.
Why use background music for podcasts?
Background music plays a vital role in podcasts. Adding an audio track can help creators communicate emotions, create suspense and increase engagement in their audience.
Cleverly selected and edited background music can also communicate your brand in the same way its intro music or audio logo might.
Adding a musical theme in the background to your podcast at key places can signify a transition point, such as a major development or shift in the narrative. These sounds can also introduce a sense of movement; perhaps the conversation shifts to a recording which took place at a different location. Using backing music in this way creates the opportunity to further cement your brand with identifiable audio markers and helps your audience discern separate segments or developments in your podcast.
How to use background music in podcasts
You may already have plenty of ideas on how to use music in podcasts. However, to get the best quality result, here are a few rules you should try and follow.
Set the mood and tone
Before the conversation or narrative element of your podcast begins, your background track has the potential to signpost and even evoke the sense of emotion you wish to portray in the subject matter of your podcast.
A sense of mystery and intrigue can be created with tense, vibrato strings, while pop or hip hop music brings energy to your episode as soon as a listener hits play. By thinking about the mood you want to set and choosing a track to match it, you can start to build a library of background music that chimes well with your podcast content and your audience.
Enhance don’t distract
There’s a reason it’s called background music. Just as unscrubbed recordings of a conversation can include distracting noises, the wrong track can also be jarring for your audience. Certain moments may mean you make a song or sound effect front and centre, but generally this audio should help you tell your narrative without overwhelming it.
Finding long instrumental pieces that change in pace and rhythm gives you plenty to chop up and play with - while maintaining a sense of consistency - depending on where you’d like the backing track to come in. Instrumental tracks are useful because it means the lyrics won’t clash with your podcast's main spoken sections if you choose to underscore them.
Selecting a few choice sound effects might also help emphasize particular narrative points or serve as transition markers.
Choose consistent sounds
You probably won’t want to use the same background track for each episode, but you want the tone to be similar. This will help build audience recognition and tie episodes together. Review playlists (e.g. tech or true crime) or themes (e.g. documentary, fitness) to look for tracks that use similar instruments, have a particular tempo or rhythm and keep a folder of these so you have them to hand while editing.
How to add background music to a podcast
Once you’ve figured out the track you want, it’s not just a case of laying on the audio and exporting. Following a few tips can help you leverage your background music to full effect.
Find copyright-free music
Before you even download a track, check you have the right to use it. Whether it's for commercial or personal use, if you haven’t paid for the correct usage license, then you’ll be infringing copyright laws.
A great option that covers all bases is to choose claims-free tracks. By paying one fee, you can use this music for both personal and commercial projects without any worries.
Universal Music for Creators offers a range of curated playlists with tracks designed specifically for different podcast topics such as pop culture, true crime, sport, health & wellness, business and tech.
Edit in your tracks
Once you’ve cut and scrubbed your main podcast audio into a basic edit, it’s time to add in your background music. The exact way you do this will change depending on the specific editing tool you’re using (some of the most commonly used include Audacity, Descript, Adobe Audition).
Generally, the process will involve:
- Importing the full background track into the editing suite. This can usually be done through a drag-and-drop or file upload functionality
- Once the track is in place, you can move and cut it around your main podcast script, including adding it as bumpers or transitions when there’s a break in subject or conversation
- You can then start to manipulate the track using effects such as fades (which are great for moving in and out of intros), volume adjustment (to make sure the background track doesn’t dominate), panning (to create a quality listening experience) or EQ (to manipulate frequencies and remove faults)
Test bumpers and transitions
Changes in topic, moving to other sections of the podcasts or shifting moods can all be indicated by an audio bumper or transition. These are usually effects or tracks of up to 15 seconds. Having a few of these saved in your library can help you pull together edits more quickly without disrupting the overall tone of your episode.
You might even remix part of your intro and outro track or have a similar, shorter track composed to match your start and end audio.
Attribute and upload
Even if you’ve paid for a claims-free track, you might want to give your fellow creators a shout-out in the podcast description or spoken end credits. Adding in a link to a musician’s profile or the track you use not only helps promote their work but in putting a name to the creative, you also build the identity of your podcast brand.
Once you’ve edited all the clips together, run a final check of the levels and listened for any audio faults, you can export and upload ready for your listeners to enjoy.
Need background music for your next podcast? Browse our catalog and get unlimited access to over 50,000 fresh new tracks and 200,000 SFX.
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