Sound and music

Music can greatly impact the overall feel and mood of a video. When selecting a soundtrack for a video it’s important that this aligns with the tone, voice and style of the video. See Tone of voice section for further guidance.

Our videos don’t limit themselves to one specific genre of music, but your choice of song should never be distracting from the messaging and story. It’s best practice to consider the following when selecting your soundtrack:

• Choose instrumental tracks over songs with clear vocal melodies.

• Avoid tracks which have strong and repetitive melodic lead lines (guitar or synth solos/licks).

• Choose from music categories which are widely viewed as commercial or popular genres (i.e. pop, dance, electronic, country, acoustic, cinematic).

• When a testimonial interview is present in the video, your music should generally be lower than –20db. Between gaps of speaking and at the beginning/end of a video this can be increased using a process called ducking (keyframing the audio level up and down).

It’s important to always use royalty free music in branded videos to avoid copyright infringement online. There are plenty of online audio libraries which provide licensed royalty free music via one-off fees or monthly subscriptions.

For advice on choosing royalty free music or if you’d like to request free tracks, please contact videoteam@intoglobal.com