Adding background music is an important way to add a general tone to your digital story. Try watching your favorite movies or TV shows without audio … you’ll see that the background sounds really add to the show.
Here’s what you do in iMovie to get your background audio kickin’.
- In iMovie, open the Music and Sound Effects by clicking on the music icon in the lower right.
- Select “Jingles” to find the list of background audio. You’ll find Jingles by clicking on the arrow that points to “iLife Sound Effects.”
- Sample a few of the jingles by double clicking on their names, one at a time. Each jingle’s length is detailed next to its name.
- Once you’ve found a proper jingle for the background of your presentation, drag it and drop it on the slide where you want it to begin. You can adjust this later, but you have done a good job if your jingle appears as a green line beneath the images during which it will play.
In this image, the “Breakbeat Medium” is the background audio track. - Adjust the starting and ending points by dragging them where you want them.
- Once you’ve added background audio, you may need to adjust the “Ducking” on your voice over track. Do this by selecting on the voice over track (it will have a yellow border when you select it) and then clicking the audio icon in the middle of the interface.
In the “Audio Adjustments” box that appears, ensure that Ducking is selected and decrease the percentage for other tracks to 10% or so. You may need to play with this, or decrease the volume of your background audio track, to get the correct balance.
- Always have another student check your work so that you know the audio is well balanced. Other people’s ears may hear things differently than yours do.