Guide
A music bed sits under the voice, low enough that nobody hums it
A music bed is an instrumental track laid under speech and mixed low enough that nobody notices it as music. It fills the silence between sentences, sets a mood and papers over the joins in an edit. The moment a listener starts humming it, the bed is too loud. This page covers what a bed does, the two levels that control it, and where one comes from.
- Where a bed sits when nobody is talking
- -18 dB
- Where it drops to while the voice runs
- -30 dB
- Credits for a generated track up to sixty seconds
- 50
What a bed does that silence does not
Every cut in a spoken edit changes the room tone slightly, and bare silence makes each change audible as a tick. A bed runs continuously across the joins and hides them.
It also sets pace and mood before a word lands. The same read over a warm bed and over a tense one is two different videos.
What it must never do is compete. The voice carries the message, and a bed exists to be felt in the gaps rather than heard during the sentences.
Two levels, not one
A bed has a resting level and a speaking level. One number cannot do both jobs, because a level loud enough to feel in the pauses is loud enough to blur consonants under the read.
A working shape: the bed sits around eighteen decibels under the mix, then ducks a further twelve whenever anyone speaks. It returns in the gaps, so the track keeps its energy where there is room.
The movement between the two should be invisible. A duck the listener can hear happening is worse than a bed slightly too loud.
Where the bed sits, moment to moment
The gap between the two bed rows is the duck. It is what lets music feel present without touching a word.
- Music meant to be listened tofull level
- Bed, nobody speaking-18 dB
- Bed, under speech-30 dB
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
Where a bed comes from
Licensed library tracks are the traditional route, and the licence is the part that bites. Music cleared for personal use is not automatically cleared for an ad account.
Popular songs are the expensive route, and for most advertisers a closed one. Rights for commercial use are negotiated, not assumed.
Generated instrumentals are the new route: describe the mood and receive a track with no third-party rights attached. In Cutroom that is 50 credits a track up to sixty seconds, and the ducking is applied in the cut automatically.
Questions people ask
- Does every video need a music bed?
- No. A strong read to camera can carry thirty seconds bare, and a badly chosen bed subtracts more than silence does. Add a bed when the edit has joins to hide or a flat stretch to carry.
- Can I use a song from the charts under my video?
- Not without a licence for commercial use, and the platform music libraries that cover personal posts generally exclude ads. Unlicensed music risks the video being muted or the account flagged.
- What kind of track makes a good bed?
- Simple ones. Sparse arrangements duck gracefully and stay out of the voice's frequency range. A track with vocals is not a bed at all, because two voices at once is an argument.
A good bed is the thing nobody mentions when they praise the video. Keep it low, duck it under every sentence, and pick simple over impressive.