·3 min read·Guides
How to Add Background Music Under a Voice Without Drowning It (Audio Ducking)
How loud background music should be under speech, what audio ducking is, how to duck music automatically in Premiere Pro and other editors, which part of a song to use, and how to avoid muted or claimed clips on TikTok, Shorts and Reels.
To add background music under a voice, keep the music well below the speech (as a starting point, roughly 15 to 25 dB quieter while someone talks) and let it come up a little in the pauses. That automatic lowering is called ducking. Premiere Pro does it in the Essential Sound panel (tag the music and dialogue, then Ducking and Generate Keyframes), and AI clipping tools such as Boostlix Clipper duck your own music automatically and start it at the track's strongest part. Use music you have the rights to, or the platform's own sound library, or the clip can be muted or claimed.
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Music makes a talking clip feel finished, and it is also the easiest way to ruin one. Too loud and the viewer misses the words; too quiet and it is noise. The fix is to keep the music under the speech and let it breathe in the pauses, which editors call ducking.
How loud the music should be
There is no single correct number, because songs and voices differ, but these starting points work for most short-form clips:
| Moment | Music level |
|---|---|
| While someone speaks | roughly 15 to 25 dB below the voice |
| In pauses and at the start | a few dB louder than under speech |
| Fade in and out | about half a second in, a second out |
Then listen on a phone speaker, not studio headphones. If any word is harder to follow with the music on, the music is too loud.
What ducking does
Ducking watches the voice track and lowers the music while there is speech, then raises it again in the gaps. Without it, you either keep the music very quiet all the time (and it vanishes) or you adjust the volume by hand around every sentence.
Two settings matter:
- How much it drops (the reduction): more for fast talkers and busy music.
- How quickly it comes back (release): too fast and the music "pumps" between words; a few hundred milliseconds sounds natural.
How to duck music in common editors
Premiere Pro: open the Essential Sound panel, tag the voice clips as Dialogue and the song as Music, select the music, turn on Ducking, choose what it ducks against (Dialogue), set the sensitivity, reduction and fade, and click Generate Keyframes. Premiere adds volume keyframes you can adjust by hand. Adobe's steps: Automatically duck audio.
DaVinci Resolve and CapCut: both can lower music under speech, with the option names and availability changing between versions. Without an automatic option, add volume keyframes on the music track around each sentence, or simply keep the music low throughout.
Use the best part of the song
A 30-second clip that starts a song at 0:00 usually plays the intro and never reaches the part people know. Start the music at the chorus or the drop, where the energy comes in, and trim so it lasts as long as the clip, with a short fade at each end. If the clip is longer than the section, loop it at a natural point.
Music rights: avoid muted and claimed clips
- Popular songs added in your editor are the main cause of muted audio and copyright claims.
- Royalty-free music: check that the licence covers social media and monetised video.
- The platform's sound library: adding a sound inside TikTok, Instagram or YouTube is often the safest route, but business and brand accounts usually get a smaller, commercial-use library.
- Your own music, or music you commissioned, is the cleanest option.
Doing it automatically
Boostlix Clipper has music in its brand kit. Upload your own tracks (MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG or FLAC), choose one, and every clip gets it:
- Starts at the best part: Clipper measures the track's loudness every half second and starts the music where it is strongest for that clip's length, at the chorus or drop rather than the intro, or from the beginning if you prefer.
- Ducked under speech: the music drops automatically whenever someone talks and comes back up in the pauses.
- Looped, faded and level-controlled: it loops for the whole clip, fades in and out, and you choose quiet, medium or loud.
- Works with jump cuts: when pauses are cut out, the music still plays smoothly across the cuts.
Your logo and brand colour live in the same kit, and the style is remembered for every new clip. As with any tool, use tracks you have the rights to.
For cutting dead air before you add music, see how to remove silence and pauses from a video.