# Music bed under the voice

Edit / Sound / Music and mix. Checked 2026-11-13.

Carries the mood without costing a word.

- Use when: Stories, diaries and ads; often left out of teaching videos.
- Phrase: an instrumental bed under the voice, lowered whenever she speaks
- Page: https://directorchair.ai/sound/music-under-voice
- JSON: https://directorchair.ai/api/sound/music-under-voice.json

## Watch out

- Three of the nine measured reference edits have clean silences between the words, a sound floor under -48 dBFS, so no continuous bed. They are the three teaching boards. (measured; Director Chair measurements of published shorts (nine entries, measured 22 and 23 Oct 2026))
- The framework's rule of thumb is music at 10 to 15 percent of the voice. Our editor starts the bed at -18 dB and ducks it under the voice. (practitioner; The Director Chair hook framework (our 2026 synthesis of @marco.thecreative's TikTok series, OpusClip's hook formulas, a Brandefy article, Meta retention research and a Gemini research report) and Director Chair field notes on editing)
- Music only with a licence for the platform it goes to. (practitioner; Director Chair field notes on editing)

## Prompts

### Any chat model

```
Give me a sound brief: what to record or pick, where it sits on the timeline, the levels, and what to check before export, for a short video about [your product], for [your audience]. The technique is music bed under the voice: carries the mood without costing a word. How it works: an instrumental bed under the voice, lowered whenever she speaks. It is right for: stories, diaries and ads; often left out of teaching videos. Three of the nine measured reference edits have clean silences between the words, a sound floor under -48 dBFS, so no continuous bed. The framework's rule of thumb is music at 10 to 15 percent of the voice. Be concrete: numbers, seconds and settings, no theory. Ask me one question first if something you need is missing.
```

## Goes well with

- Loudness target: https://directorchair.ai/sound/loudness-target
- Cut on the beat: https://directorchair.ai/sound/cut-on-the-beat
- B-roll with voice-over: https://directorchair.ai/format/format-broll-voiceover

## Source

Own words from Director Chair field notes on editing and our measurements of published shorts

Text CC BY 4.0, Director Chair (directorchair.ai). Reference clips and their card texts belong to their makers.