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YouTube

How to Add Music to YouTube Shorts: Tips for Adding the Perfect Royalty Free Music to Your Short-Form Content

Jourdan Aldredge

Nov 26, 2024

We all know and love YouTube. It’s the world's number one online video-sharing platform for a reason. Careers and brands are launched on YouTube, and, in truth, it’s really not that hard to use. Yet, despite YouTube’s market dominance of long-form video content, short-form video has been another story, as rivals such as TikTok and Instagram have caused YouTube to play catch-up.

Yet, with the launch of YouTube Shorts back in 2020, YouTube’s short-form video addition is growing along with its main app. And if you’re an aspiring video content creator, getting your short-form videos up on YouTube Shorts is always going to be a great idea.

To help you on this journey, let’s explore music's roles with YouTube Shorts. Following this guide, we’ll give you some recommended royalty-free music tracks and playlists to consider as you learn how to add music to YouTube Shorts.

The basics of adding music to YouTube Shorts

A computer monitor sits with a video editing software open, on a desk above an electric piano. As the creator composes a soundtrack, they wonder about how to add sound to YouTube shorts.

To kick things off, let’s review some basic steps for adding music to YouTube Shorts. Similar to TikTok, music is an integral part of YouTube Shorts. The app encourages users to find music and sounds they like and make new videos based on that audio.

Keep in mind, though, that there are risks associated with using music that you have not properly licensed for your videos—especially if you’d like to use the same content across different platforms and for other marketing purposes.

Still, with that being said, YouTube does music in its YouTube Music Library that content creators can use for YouTube Shorts and their YouTube videos. It’s worth checking out, but if you want the best—and safest music—options for music, your YouTube Shorts content, and other platforms, we’ll give you some royalty free music track recommendations and playlists to review below.

How to add sound to YouTube Shorts

 

Now, let’s review the basics of adding sound to YouTube Shorts. As you can see in the explainer video below, YouTube has made it very simple and easy to add sound—especially if you’re looking to use sound that you find in another video.

Of course, this is copying how TikTok works, and YouTube has done a great job of creating its own version of the same methodology for YouTube Shorts. YouTube shares that creators can simply click on the “Add Sound” button to add a song to the clip they want to record.

You can also choose from several tracks in YouTube’s audio library. The YouTube Audio library also has a specific Shorts library, which features music to inspire your Shorts creation and set the tone for your Short. You can learn more about adding sound in YouTube Shorts here.

How to add music to your videos using different editing programs

While YouTube will always encourage users to create their YouTube Shorts content directly within the app (as well as pick sounds and music from their library), if you’re a more advanced creator who might want to create content to use across more social video platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and more, you’re going to need to learn how to edit your videos off the app.

Your best bet for adding music to your audio and videos is to use a proper video editing app like Adobe’s Premiere Pro, Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve, or Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Here are some quick guides on how to add music to your videos using different editing programs.

Premiere Pro

 

DaVinci Resolve

 

Final Cut Pro

 

You can also check out several smartphone-based video editing apps that can help you edit your videos and audio on your iPhone or Android device together without doing the editing directly in the YouTube Shorts app. 

Here are some of the best smartphone video editing apps worth checking out:

Here’s a full article further breaking down the best mobile blog video apps for mobile filmmaking. As a bonus tip, we recommend checking out our Soundstripe mobile app to find and license the best royalty-free music for your videos.

How to upload completed videos to YouTube Shorts

 

Once you’ve edited your videos and made them ready for YouTube Shorts, uploading them to the app is relatively simple. The only real caveat is that you’ll have to transfer the videos to a smartphone or mobile device first, but once you do, you can follow these steps to upload them directly to the YouTube app or from the YouTube Studio app.

(To review some specifications for your first YouTube Shorts, check out these Shorts upload tips here.)

YouTube app

  1. Tap the “Create” button and upload a video.
  2. Select a video with a square or vertical aspect ratio and trim as needed
  3. Tap the “NEXT” button to go to the editor screen where you can add text, filters, music, or other audio to your Short. (Note: Audio picked from our library is limited to 15-second clips.)
  4. Tap the “NEXT” button to add details to your video, such as a title (max 100 characters) and the privacy settings.
  5. Tap to select your audience.
  6. Tap the “UPLOAD” button to publish your Short.

 

YouTube Studio app

  1. Open the YouTube Studio app.
  2. On the top, tap “Create” to upload a video.
  3. Select the file that you'd like to upload.
  4. Add details to your video, such as a title (max 100 characters), the privacy settings, and your audience.
  5. Tap “UPLOAD SHORT” to publish your Shorts.

 

The best royalty free music for YouTube Shorts

A man wears headphones in a music recording studio, looking at his smartphone he wonders how to add music to YouTube shorts.

Now that we’ve covered how to add music to YouTube Shorts, let’s explore some of the best royalty free songs you should consider using for these Shorts. Since the YouTube Shorts length has recently increased to 3 minutes, you will now be able to use more music in your videos too.

Keep in mind that you’ll be best served by using high-quality songs and sound effects. That’s what we offer here at Soundstripe, and we actually have some hand-selected songs that we’d recommend checking out for your YouTube Shorts.

1. Bottleneck by Neon Beach
  • Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as fun and happy. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
  • BPM: 111
  • Key: F Major
  • Listen and license here.
2. Fading Amber by Lunareh
  • Description: A low-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and reflective. Synth and piano are the primary instruments in this track.
  • BPM: 108
  • Key: B Major
  • Listen and license here.
3. Shoreline by PALA
  • Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and happy. Ambient tones and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
  • BPM: 102
  • Key: E Major
  • Listen and license here.
4. Promised Land by Brian Brown
  • Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as happy and hopeful. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
  • BPM: 96
  • Key: A Major
  • Listen and license here.
5. Anybody Out There? by Mikey Geiger
  • Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.
  • BPM: 140
  • Key: Eb/D# Major
  • Listen and license here.

You can further check out some of the best royalty free music for YouTube videos here, as well as further explore some tips and tricks for creating great YouTube videos with these resources below: