How can you use music to improve sound design for commercials?

2 Sync music with visuals and voice-over

The second step to using music to improve sound design for commercials is to sync music with visuals and voice-over. Music can create a sense of rhythm, pace, and continuity in your commercial, as well as highlight key moments and transitions. You can use music to support your visual story, by matching the tempo, intensity, and mood of the music to the action, emotion, and message of the visuals. You can also use music to contrast with your visuals, by creating tension, surprise, or humor with unexpected or ironic music choices. Additionally, you can use music to complement your voice-over, by choosing music that matches or contrasts with the tone, pitch, and cadence of the voice, and by adjusting the volume and EQ of the music to avoid masking or clashing with the voice.

3 Mix and master music for clarity and impact

The third step to using music to improve sound design for commercials is to mix and master music for clarity and impact. Mixing and mastering are the processes of balancing, enhancing, and optimizing the sound quality of your music and other audio elements, such as voice-over, sound effects, and ambient noise. Mixing and mastering can make your commercial sound more professional, polished, and powerful, by improving the loudness, clarity, dynamics, and stereo image of your sound design. You can use tools such as compressors, limiters, equalizers, filters, reverbs, and delays to shape the sound of your music and other audio elements, and to create a cohesive and consistent sound design that works well across different platforms and devices.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?