Just a quick iMovie tutorial on how to add music to a video. Where to get YT Music: More tutorials: Rela. We need to import the recorded music/audio into iMovie at first. Open iMovie, in the top of the browser, you can notice various media types available to add to your iMovie projects, for instance, My Media, Audio, and Titles. In the My Media tab, you can see.
Let's face it: iMovie's audio library kinda sucks. In this short tutorial, you'll learn how to add music to iMovie — on both Mac and iPhone — and make better videos as a result.
With iMovie, Apple offers a world of opportunity to anyone interested in making videos.
The software allows you to cut clips, add transitions, overlay titles, and much more — all for free. But if you've ever used it, you likely know that iMovie's seven-song music library is… shall we say, underwhelming?
The good news is you're not stuck with that tiny, trite collection. Adding other music to your videos in iMovie is a breeze. Let's walk through the short steps for both Mac and iOS devices now.
Recommended reading: How to Create a Quicktime Screen Recording with Audio »
1. Download music for iMovie
In a perfect world, you'd be able to add any song you want to your video. But in reality, it's usually not that straightforward.
To adhere to copyright laws, all major video platforms — including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Vimeo — enforce certain music policies. Here's YouTube's, for example.
If you violate these policies, your video may be removed or monetized through ads (to pay the copyright holders). And here's the kicker: This applies for both commercial and personal use.
So, even if you're just sharing a photo slideshow of your nephew's bar mitzvah (mazel tov!) on Facebook, your video may be removed if it contains protected music.
The simplest solution? License copyright-cleared music.
Copyright-cleared music isn't copyright-free (a common misconception). Age of empires 3 cd key. It just means it's been approved for use on various platforms. As a result, videos with copyright-cleared music don't get flagged, taken down, or penalized in any other way.
All of the music I offer on this website is copyright-cleared. So you can safely license any of my songs or — if you want to dramatically increase your musical options —become a Music for Makers Unlimited customer. When you do, you'll get instant access to hundreds of exclusive tracks that you can then import into iMovie.
But I digress.
Regardless of where you decide to source your music, go ahead and download your song of choice on your computer and open it in iTunes. (If you're going to be working on iOS and don't want to use iTunes for some reason, you can alternatively upload the file to your iCloud Drive.)
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2. Import music to iMovie
Get your music handy. It's time to bring it into iMovie and make some magic.
How to add music to iMovie on a Mac
Open your iMovie project and click the 'Audio' tab in the top left. (Make sure 'iTunes' is selected in the left panel.) You should then see your entire iTunes library. Search for the song you'd like to use — the one you just added to iTunes in the previous step.
Pro tip: On a Mac, you can also simply drag and drop audio files into iMovie's media folder (or import by clicking the down arrow button in the top left side of the window) and skip the whole iTunes bit entirely.
How to add music to iMovie on iPhone / iOS
Open your iMovie project, tap the '+' button, and select 'Audio.' On the following menu, tap 'Songs,' and then find the song you'd like to use. (Can't locate it? Make sure you've synced your iTunes library since adding the song on your computer.)
If you uploaded the song to your iCloud Drive rather than iTunes, select 'iCloud Drive' instead of 'Audio,' and navigate to the song file.
3. Add music and edit as necessary
Once you've found your song, drag it to the very bottom of the editing timeline component. (On iOS, just tap the song to have it automatically added.) This will anchor the track, ensuring it doesn't get affected by any cuts or edits you make to other audio and video files.
Now, the odds are good that your background music won't be the perfect length for your video. If it's too long, grab the right side of the track and drag left. Then, click the fade handle (i.e., the small circle on the right edge of the track — I believe this is available on the Mac version of iMovie only) and drag it left to create a fade out.
If the track is too short, you'll probably need to loop it. For tips on that, check out my beginner's guide to audio editing.
Get your groove on
Ready to add music to iMovie and make some awesome videos? License a track from our library of royalty-free, copyright-cleared music.
Privacy Overview
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
iMovie is a video editing software developed by Apple and bundled with all new Macs and iOS devices. Whether you are using a Mac or an iOS device, you can easily browse your clips, then add studio-quality titles from preset collections of styles, background music, and special effects. And that, you turned your videos into Hollywood-style movie, enjoy it in iMovie Theater. It is easy to add background music, either built-in music or the music stored on your device, make your movie sound as good as it looks. When importing Apple Music to iMovie, many users just find it impossible.
'I have a subscription of Apple Music and I want to create a movie using the soundtrack I've got in Apple Music using iMovie, is it possible to import Apple music to iMovie?' One Apple Music subscriber asked this question in a forum and got the answer 'Apple Music is a streaming service and the songs on Apple Music are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected. You can import purchased iTunes music into an iMovie project, but not songs from Apple Music.'
Why Apple Music can't be added as background sound in iMovie?
Apple Music even caused a huge waste of time and computer resource to identify and use their music in iMovie. In order to use music in iMovie, you need to download it to your device, but this cannot guarantee you can use it in iMovie. Some songs downloaded on your device are still marked unavailable in iMovie, it shows these songs are of a type that can't be used in iMovie. For example, Apple Music songs, which are protected by DRM can't be used in iMovie. Some users purchased the songs through iTunes or owned them before signing up for Apple Music, they can use this part of songs. But when the playlists get large, they just forgot which songs are purchased through iTunes, which songs belong to Apple Music. They have to download a huge amount of music to find out which can be used in iMovie, which cannot be.
But I digress.
Regardless of where you decide to source your music, go ahead and download your song of choice on your computer and open it in iTunes. (If you're going to be working on iOS and don't want to use iTunes for some reason, you can alternatively upload the file to your iCloud Drive.)
Want more content like this? Subscribe to our email newsletter for video editing tips, free music, and more.
2. Import music to iMovie
Get your music handy. It's time to bring it into iMovie and make some magic.
How to add music to iMovie on a Mac
Open your iMovie project and click the 'Audio' tab in the top left. (Make sure 'iTunes' is selected in the left panel.) You should then see your entire iTunes library. Search for the song you'd like to use — the one you just added to iTunes in the previous step.
Pro tip: On a Mac, you can also simply drag and drop audio files into iMovie's media folder (or import by clicking the down arrow button in the top left side of the window) and skip the whole iTunes bit entirely.
How to add music to iMovie on iPhone / iOS
Open your iMovie project, tap the '+' button, and select 'Audio.' On the following menu, tap 'Songs,' and then find the song you'd like to use. (Can't locate it? Make sure you've synced your iTunes library since adding the song on your computer.)
If you uploaded the song to your iCloud Drive rather than iTunes, select 'iCloud Drive' instead of 'Audio,' and navigate to the song file.
3. Add music and edit as necessary
Once you've found your song, drag it to the very bottom of the editing timeline component. (On iOS, just tap the song to have it automatically added.) This will anchor the track, ensuring it doesn't get affected by any cuts or edits you make to other audio and video files.
Now, the odds are good that your background music won't be the perfect length for your video. If it's too long, grab the right side of the track and drag left. Then, click the fade handle (i.e., the small circle on the right edge of the track — I believe this is available on the Mac version of iMovie only) and drag it left to create a fade out.
If the track is too short, you'll probably need to loop it. For tips on that, check out my beginner's guide to audio editing.
Get your groove on
Ready to add music to iMovie and make some awesome videos? License a track from our library of royalty-free, copyright-cleared music.
Privacy Overview
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
iMovie is a video editing software developed by Apple and bundled with all new Macs and iOS devices. Whether you are using a Mac or an iOS device, you can easily browse your clips, then add studio-quality titles from preset collections of styles, background music, and special effects. And that, you turned your videos into Hollywood-style movie, enjoy it in iMovie Theater. It is easy to add background music, either built-in music or the music stored on your device, make your movie sound as good as it looks. When importing Apple Music to iMovie, many users just find it impossible.
'I have a subscription of Apple Music and I want to create a movie using the soundtrack I've got in Apple Music using iMovie, is it possible to import Apple music to iMovie?' One Apple Music subscriber asked this question in a forum and got the answer 'Apple Music is a streaming service and the songs on Apple Music are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected. You can import purchased iTunes music into an iMovie project, but not songs from Apple Music.'
Why Apple Music can't be added as background sound in iMovie?
Apple Music even caused a huge waste of time and computer resource to identify and use their music in iMovie. In order to use music in iMovie, you need to download it to your device, but this cannot guarantee you can use it in iMovie. Some songs downloaded on your device are still marked unavailable in iMovie, it shows these songs are of a type that can't be used in iMovie. For example, Apple Music songs, which are protected by DRM can't be used in iMovie. Some users purchased the songs through iTunes or owned them before signing up for Apple Music, they can use this part of songs. But when the playlists get large, they just forgot which songs are purchased through iTunes, which songs belong to Apple Music. They have to download a huge amount of music to find out which can be used in iMovie, which cannot be.
Imovie Music Downloads
Now that we know it is the DRM protection that stopped us to use Apple Music songs in iMovie. The way to solve this problem is to convert the encrypted Apple Music songs into plain music files, without any restrictions for use in any software including iMovie. The tool which can do this task is Apple Music Converter.
Remove DRM from Apple Music and get plain MP3 audio file
How To Input Music Into Imovie Free
Step 1:Launch Apple Music Converter, press '+' to load iTunes library and select the Apple Music song you would like to add to iMovie as background sound.
Note: You need to make sure that you have checked the option 'Share iTunes Library XML with other applications' under Preference in iTunes before getting started.
Step 2: Set the output as plain audio format such as MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC. For adding music to iMovie, our suggestion is MP3 or AAC which is used more widely and has better compatibility. And to get a good output sound quality from Apple Music, we suggest you set the audio quality as 256 kbps or 320kbps.
Step 3: Click 'Convert' button on the bottom to start the Apple Music to MP3 conversion. Generally speaking, you would spend several seconds in converting 3 minutes long song with the application. Find the converted Apple Music song that you want to add to iMovie through the output folder. It is now completely DRM-free.
Now Let's add the converted Apple Music to iMovie freely
As you know, iMovie only loads these types of audios: songs in your iTunes library, music you composed in GarageBand, and canned Sound Effects. The original Apple Music can't be imported to iMovie to be a part of the project, however, the converted Apple Music song has no such restriction. Now, we need to import the converted Apple Music (the MP3 audio) to iTunes first.
Step 1: Launch iMovie, open your project and click Audio tab.
Select iTunes, then Music, you can find the converted music in the list. Or you could just type the song title in search box to select directly. Double-click the sound file to hear a preview.
Step 2: Drag the item to the timeline to add the music to your movie project.
That's all. Music usually plays a vital part of most movies. Adding audio files to your video allows you to develop your iMovie HD project into your own personalized creation. If you want to add a song from Apple Music to your iMovie video project, follow the steps above and you could make it without hassle.
Video tutorial: How to Convert Apple Music to MP3 on Mac:
(105 votes, average: 4.95 out of 5, rated)How To Input Music Into Imovie
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