How to add music to a workout video

Music keeps people moving through a workout. It just has to be music you’re allowed to use, sitting low enough that people can still hear you and the countdown.

Use songs you have the rights to

YouTube checks every upload with Content ID. If a song in your video matches, its owner decides what happens: block the video, run ads on it and collect the money, or simply track the views.

Buying the song, crediting the artist or using only a few seconds of it doesn’t give you the right to use it. Neither does a Spotify subscription, which is for personal listening.

Where to find music you can use

The YouTube Audio Library

It’s free, right inside YouTube Studio. YouTube says its tracks won’t get a Content ID claim, and you can still monetize the video. Some tracks ask for a credit in the description, and the “Attribution not required” filter hides those.

Meta’s Sound Collection, for Instagram

Instagram’s main music library is for personal, non-commercial use, and some business accounts can’t use it. The Sound Collection is royalty-free and cleared for commercial use. You’ll find it under Audio in the Reels camera.

A licensed music service

Paid libraries sell licences for online video, and some sort their songs by workout style. Before you pay, check:

• that it covers every platform you post to
• that it covers monetized and paid videos
• what happens to videos you’ve already posted if you cancel

Got a claim? You can fix it in YouTube Studio

You can trim out the claimed part, swap the song for an Audio Library track or erase just the song. In a follow-along, though, trimming cuts out part of the workout, and muting can take your cues with it. It’s much easier to get the music right before you export.

Keep the music under your voice

Your voice comes first, the countdown beeps second, and the music sits under both. Set the level by ear:

1. Find the busiest minute, where you’re talking over the loudest part of a song.
2. Turn the music down until every word is clear.
3. Take it down a little more. People are breathing hard and often standing across the room.
4. Play it back on a phone speaker. If a word gets lost, it’s still too loud.

Instrumental tracks make this easier. A singer and a coach talking at once is hard to follow mid-set.

Switch on Auto ducking in SweatCut’s Sound panel, under Music, and the music turns down while you talk, then comes back up when you stop. Duck amount sets how far it goes down, and Hold sets how long it waits after you stop talking.

Dip the music under the beeps

This is called ducking: the music drops while the beeps play, then comes back up. In most editors you set it by hand at every countdown, which on a 20-exercise workout is about 40 dips, and you set them all again on the next video.

In SweatCut it happens on its own. Songs drop under every countdown beep and the ding at each change, then come back up.

Change songs at a rest

Swap tracks during a rest or where the workout changes, like the warm-up into the main set, and never halfway through an interval. A crossfade of two to four seconds suits a short rest. Go longer into the cool-down.

Match the energy as you go: steady songs to warm up, your biggest tracks for the hard blocks and something calmer for the stretch.

Adding music in SweatCut

Drag your songs onto the timeline, across up to three music lanes. Keep them in folders in the song library, like Abs or Pilates. Each song gets its own level, and crossfades run up to 12 seconds, set at the bottom of the Music panel. In the Sound panel, one Sound slider turns all the songs up or down together. The footage gets its own, which goes up to 200% for a voice the camera caught quietly. What you hear in the editor is exactly what exports.

SweatCut doesn’t come with music, so bring songs you have a licence for. And skip playing music while you film: it records on top of your voice. How to film a workout video covers the rest of the setup.