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How to Edit Music in YouTube: Create your Project’s Soundtrack with the YouTube Music Editor

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 20:15:22 GMT

While YouTube might have started as a small video-sharing site online, it has quickly become one of the most popular—and most important—platforms in the world. Not only is it one of the most visited sites on the internet, but it’s also the best app for those looking to launch their personal and company brands.

While it’s easier than ever to make video content to share on YouTube, it’s still far from easy. You need to write the right script, find the right camera, use all the right gear, edit your video, and give it a high-quality soundtrack (which many say is the ultimate key to defining a video’s success).

So, if you’re on your own video content creation journey and trying to figure out how to edit music in YouTube, we’re here to help. We’ll explore how to find and license the right music for your YouTube videos, add and edit these songs to your videos, and maximize your resources to create engaging and impactful videos for your YouTube channel.

The basics of adding music to your YouTube videos

To start, let’s review some basics about how music in YouTube videos works. To understand how YouTube uses music, though, you should probably know a quick thing or two about music licensing in general.

In short, all music has natural copyrights associated with it. Every song has copyrights that extend to the song’s composer and the artists who recorded it. These copyrights often extend to producers and studios as well, which can often make licensing confusing.

All that being said, when looking to use music in your YouTube videos, content creators can contact artists directly and negotiate for the ability to use their music in their videos. More often than not, creators will find music that has been licensed for them to use already.

YouTube offers music in its YouTube Music Library that content creators can use in their YouTube videos. However, if you’d like to use the same videos on platforms other than YouTube for commercial use or for other marketing purposes, your best option will be to find royalty free music offered by music licensing companies like Soundstripe.

We’ll share some royalty free music playlists and recommendations below, but for now, all you need to know is that royalty free music is the safest and easiest way to get full coverage for your YouTube videos. If you’d like to learn more about what royalty free music is and how it works, check out this full guide to royalty free music here.

How to add music into your videos using the YouTube editor

Now that we’ve covered some music licensing basics, let’s look at how you can add music into your videos using the built-in music editor, YouTube's editor tool. This feature offered by YouTube is a free tool that’s quite easy to use–but also quite simplistic in what it offers and how it works.

To start, you’ll need to create a YouTube account and upload a video. From there, you’ll want to follow these steps to add music from the YouTube music library:

Navigate to the YouTube Studio page.
Select “Content”.
Click on the video you’d like to edit.
Click on the “Editor” button.
Select the “Audio” button and use the search filters to find an audio track that you like. (You can preview the tracks here, too.)
Once you find a song you like, click the “ADD” button. The song will appear in the editor in a blue box, where you can adjust the endpoints of the track.
When you’re finished, click the “SAVE” button.

Pretty easy, right? It’s a pretty simple process but limited in how you might want to customize the music for your video.

How to add music to your videos using different editing programs

If you’re looking for more advanced controls for editing music in your videos, your best bet is to combine the audio and video in 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

How to add music to your videos using smartphone apps

If these more advanced video editing desktop programs are too advanced or confusing for you (or if you’re simply looking to edit your videos more quickly and on the run), you can also easily add music to your videos using different smartphone apps.

Here are some of the better smartphone video editing options on the market, which can be great ways for run-and-gun content creators to quickly and easily get videos out.

As a bonus tip, we recommend checking out our Soundstripe mobile app to find and license the best royalty free music for your videos.

The best royalty free music for YouTube videos

At the end of the day, though, regardless of how you choose to edit music in YouTube videos, 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 videos.

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:

The 10 Best Adrian Walther Songs to Provide Royalty Free Soundtracks for Your Videos and Films

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 17:50:11 GMT

There are many approaches to finding the best video and film soundtrack. The traditional approach, though, is to find a talented musician and composer to custom-tailor a soundtrack for your project.

And while that might always be the dream scenario, especially for filmmakers and those looking to score their narrative or other long-form projects, it’s not usually financially viable. The next best option for filmmakers, video professionals, and content creators of all types is to get those talented musicians and composers to license your music, which they’ve already written and recorded.

That’s what Soundstripe offers, and one of the best composers and musicians featured in our music library is the talented artist Adrian Walther. So, regardless of whether you’re familiar with Walther’s work, let’s explore Adrian Walther’s music history and highlight his diverse and impactful catalog in our music library.

Who is Adrian Walther?

Adrian Walther is an award-winning film composer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with over 25 years of experience. Before joining Soundstripe in 2017, Adrian Walther enjoyed a successful journey as a touring and recording musician, collaborating with artists across diverse genres and cultural backgrounds.

Over his music career, Adrian Walther has earned widespread recognition, including a Best Original Score award at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema and two Grammy nominations. His true passion, however, lies in the collaborative process of filmmaking, where he values working closely with fellow creatives to enhance storytelling through music for film.

The best Adrian Walther songs

Now that we’ve introduced you to Adrian Walther let’s let you listen to some of the best Adrian Walther songs. Over the years, Adrian has recorded a large catalog included in our Soundstripe music library.

Adrian’s songs span several genres and can be used for a wide variety of projects, from fun and impactful social films to engaging and cinematic commercial and corporate video music.

Here are some of the best Adrian Walther songs in our library that you should check out today.

Adrian Walther You Want Me

Description: A low-energy rock song best described as hopeful and inspiring. Synths and drums are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 130
Key: E Minor
Listen and license here.

Adrian Walther Wherever You Are (Feat. Jessie Villa)

Description: A medium-energy, acoustic song best described as romantic and happy. Acoustic guitar and strings are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 90
Key: D Major
Listen and license here.

Adrian Walther TPS Report

Description: A medium-energy rock song best described as fun and happy. The guitar and electric guitar are the primary instruments on this track.
BPM: 170
Key: E Major
Listen and license here.

More Adrian Walther songs to check out

Along with the three Adrian Walther songs above, we have plenty more tracks from Adrian that you can check out below. These songs would be great options for filmmakers looking for cinematic scores for their feature or short films and perfect fits for content creators hoping to give their videos background music that can help them elevate above the rest of the online noise.

The perks of royalty free music

Now, while there are many terms you could use to describe Adrian Walther’s music (terms like cinematic, engaging, and heartfelt come to mind), one term that applies to all of our music here at Soundstripe has to do with how our music is licensable for all of your content and marketing needs.

What do you know about the term “royalty free” and what it means for music licensing? If you’re like many beginner content creators, checking out this primer on what royalty free music means might be helpful.

To understand how music royalties work, you must understand that all music has basic copyrights. These copyrights extend to both the composer of the music as well as the musicians who recorded the music. And if you want to use any music in any short films or other projects, you’ll need to obtain permission from the copyright owners.

Royalty free music can be a great option for your feature films simply because it’s easy to find and use. Soundstripe’s music is composed and recorded by amazing artists (like Adrian Walther) who know and truly care about making great music for all types of films and video content. We believe that these awesome musicians like Adrian should be fairly compensated for their work.

Tips for working with Adrian Walther songs in your projects

There are no right or wrong ways to use Adrian Walther's songs in your videos and projects. (That is, of course, as long as you properly license the music through Soundstripe!)

Adrian Walther’s songs have been used by thousands of filmmakers, video editors, content creators, and marketing professionals to give their projects a cinematic boost. Tracks like the ones composed and recorded by Adrian are simply a great way to give your projects that custom royalty free soundtrack music without breaking the bank or requiring a longer composing process.

To truly get the most out of your Adrian Walther royalty free music selections, all you need to do is find the right track that resonates with you and the needs of your project. From there, you can try out our Soundstripe AI Song Editor tool to help edit your song to the right length to fit your video perfectly.

You can also browse thousands of other high-quality royalty free music tracks from the rest of our library of talented musicians here. Plus, for additional help, here are some more music recommendations and tips for finding your perfect royalty free soundtracks for videos and other creative projects.

Royalty Free Music for Final Cut Pro: Top 10 Songs and Playlists for Video Projects That Stand Out

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 17:03:30 GMT

While video editing platforms like Adobe’s Premiere Pro and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve have become two of the most popular apps for editors these days, Apple would like for us all not to forget just how important Final Cut Pro has been for the industry over the past few decades.

Apple has reinvested over the past few years into making Final Cut Pro friendly for both beginners and pros alike. However, whether you’re a loyal FCP user for many years or a new content creator trying to see if Apple’s NLE is right for you, there’s one area in which Apple won’t help you out with Final Cut Pro.

If you want to add high-quality music to your edits and videos, you will need to bring your own royalty free music to Final Cut Pro. To help you with this and explain why royalty free music, in particular, will be your best option for all of your content needs, let’s give you some of the best royalty free music for Final Cut Pro projects.

Our 10 top royalty free songs for Final Cut Pro

Now, we’ll go into more detail about what types of royalty free music tracks you might want to use for your edits in Final Cut Pro below. Let's give you some music to get you in the mood for Final Cut Pro editing.

These tracks represent a wide range of genres and styles, all of which would be great for various types of content and marketing materials. Final Cut Pro is a good option for editors of all skill levels, so these tracks should work for pretty much any project you might find yourself looking to edit.

Edge Of Victory by Dr. Delight

Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as inspiring and suspenseful. Horns and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 90
Key: G Minor
Listen and license here.

Endless Pursuit by PALA

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as fun and happy. Rhodes and synth are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 122
Key: G Major
Listen and license here.

Galaxy Glider by Ghost Beatz

Description: A low-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and fun. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 80
Key: C Minor
Listen and license here.

Flavor by SPARKZ

Description: A medium-energy pop song that is best described as fun and happy. Organ and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 135
Key: A Major
Listen and license here.

Chase The Sky by LNDÖ

Description: A high-energy rock song that is best described as fun and inspiring. Ambient tones and drums are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 135
Key: B Major
Listen and license here.

TPS Report by Adrian Walther

Description: A medium-energy rock song that is best described as fun and happy. The guitar and electric guitar are the primary instruments on this track.
BPM: 170
Key: E Major
Listen and license here.

Dive Bar by Desert Dive

Description: A low-energy pop song that is best described as chill and quirky. Whistling and guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 140
Key: Ab/G# Minor
Listen and license here.

Faded Footsteps by Alsever Lake

Description: A very low-energy, acoustic song best described as calm and reflective. Guitar and acoustic guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 100
Key: C Minor
Listen and license here.

Free Flow by Reveille

Description: A low-energy, acoustic song that is best described as inspiring and hopeful. Guitar and acoustic guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 150
Key: F Major
Listen and license here.

What Could Have Been Nu Alkemi$t

Description: A low-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as chill and fun. Bass and synth bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 86
Key: D Minor
Listen and license here.

Of course, this isn’t all of the Final Cut Pro music we offer. If you’d like to explore all of our royalty free music tracks in our Soundstripe library, you should definitely check out our Soundstripe app.

What is royalty free music?

As mentioned above, we recommend that all video editors and content creators use royalty free music for their projects. What is royalty free music, though? And how does music licensing for your videos work in general? If you have questions about music for video, here’s a great primer on exactly what is royalty free music.

To understand how music royalties work, you need to understand that all music has basic copyrights associated with it. These copyrights extend to both the composer of the music as well as the musicians who recorded the music. And if you want to use any music in any short films or other projects, you’ll need to obtain permission from the copyright owners.

Royalty free music can be a great option for all of your edits simply because it’s easy to find and use. Soundstripe’s music is composed and recorded by Grammy-winning artists who know (and truly care) about making great music for all types of films and video content.

Our top playlists for royalty free music to use in Final Cut Pro

Along with some individual royalty free music track recommendations, it’s hard to imagine that just the ten songs found above will satisfy all of your video editing needs. If you’d like to truly dive into the over 8,000 songs in the Soundstripe library, we’ve done our best to help get you on the right track by providing you with some curated playlists below.

These playlists follow some general styles and guidelines, which should help you categorize your search a bit more for whatever the needs of your Final Cut Pro edit might be. Feel free to browse through the playlists below to see if any tracks inspire you.

What's Good Playlist

Description: Whether you want to stay in tune with the freshest stuff in Soundstripe's library or just want a playlist handpicked by people with superb taste, you’re in the right place.

Corporate Pop Playlist

Description: Pop music curated for marketing and advertising campaigns

Low Key Bops Playlist

Description: Vibey, understated Pop songs

Upbeat Creator Playlist

Description: Upbeat tunes are trending among our vloggers and social media content creators.

Lifestyle Playlist

Description: Vlog underscore for your next lifestyle content drop.

There is always going to be more music to listen to, though, so if you’d like to keep exploring options for your FCP edits, check out these additional playlists here.

Tips for using royalty free music in Final Cut Pro

For those who have worked with Final Cut Pro over the years, you’re probably familiar with how the app has changed. However, if you’re new to video editing, it’s worth knowing that Final Cut Pro was by far the most popular option for serious video editors in the early 2010s.

However, Apple decided to make Final Cut Pro more beginner-friendly with Final Cut Pro X and lost many of its more serious editors who migrated to Premiere Pro. Apple has since developed Final Cut Pro back into an app that is both beginner- and pro-friendly, which makes it a solid option for those starting on their content editing journeys today.

If you are looking to quickly find the best way to learn Final Cut Pro, or level up your FCP editing skills and are open to using helpful resources for your audio editing needs, check out these tips for working with royalty free music in Final Cut Pro.

If you'd like to edit while on the go, consider trying out the new Final Cut Pro for iPad.
Download preview tracks to use as placeholders in your Final Cut Pro edits before deciding if a track is right for your project. Learn more about how to use soundstripe here.
Use Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts to speed up editing your audio and video in Final Cut Pro.
Be sure to check out our library of royalty free sound effects to give your edits even more impact in Final Cut Pro.
Try out Soundstripe’s AI Song Editor to instantly edit your audio track to match the length of your Final Cut Pro edit.

From there, the real fun of video editing is experimenting and trying things out for yourself. So explore some tracks, try some edits, and see if Final Cut Pro is right for you.

Can I Use TikTok Music on YouTube and Other Platforms? Why You Can't and What to Do About it

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 20:49:34 GMT

Making video content is easier than ever these days. Smartphones have amazing cameras, digital cameras are affordable and easy to use, and there are an endless number of video editing apps, AI-powered features, and other tools to help content creators make engaging and impactful videos faster than ever before.

Still, one area of content creation is very confusing and trickier to harness than you might think. Finding the right music for your projects is a tall task. Not only is the search for the right music time-consuming, but finding music that you can properly license and safely use for all of your content needs is almost impossible for many.

That’s because there are an almost endless number of copyright laws, rules, and regulations for content creators to follow. Despite the intentions of many commercial music libraries online and built-in to apps like TikTok, these songs aren’t actually usable for other platforms and marketing needs.

So, if you’re looking for a primer on how to properly license music for use across all of your social video platforms and various marketing needs, here’s everything you need to know about music licensing. Plus, just because we like you, we’ll throw in several high-quality, royalty free music tracks that you can easily and safely use for all of your video projects moving forward.

The basics of music licensing

To start, let’s review some basic scary terms. Especially for those just starting out, terms like “music licensing,” “copyrights,” and “copyright infringement” can be frightening.

However, the most important thing is knowing that artists’ rights matter. If you’re a musician and you write a great song you upload online, you might be angered to find out that someone is using your track in a national broadcast television commercial.

You’d feel just as bad if your music was being used for profit or to promote something, and you weren’t seeing any residuals or payment for your work. And that’s the crux of music licensing.

To use music created by other artists in your content, whether for broadcast spots or your own YouTube videos, you should be giving credit where credit is due. And that’s where copyrights come in.

Here are some helpful resources on how the basics of music licensing work:

How TikTok Commercial Music works

Now, as you might have seen when creating content directly in the TikTok app, you can use the “Commercial Music Library” offered by TikTok. This library is a selection of pre-cleared commercial-use music that is useful ONLY on TkTok.

Suppose you use an original sound or music from outside TikTok’s library. In that case, TikTok does require users to agree to their Music Usage confirmation when the content disclosure setting is turned on as a way to confirm that there’s no copyright-protected music in the video—or, if you are using copyrighted music, that you’ve obtained permission and paid for all the necessary licenses to use the music.

The big takeaway here, though, is that if you’re creating content just for TikTok, you can use the TikTok Commercial Music Library for your regular videos. However, if you’d like to use the same content elsewhere… Well, that’s a different question.

Can you use TikTok Commercial Music on other platforms like YouTube?

If you’re wondering, “Can I use TikTok music on Youtube and other platforms?”, the short and long answer here is “No.” If you use TikTok Commercial Music for your content, it is only covered to be used on TikTok. You cannot use TikTok Commercial Music on other platforms like YouTube. Furthermore, you can’t use the content with the TikTok Commercial Music on apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, or Twitch, nor can you use it for other marketing purposes.

This can cause a lot of confusion for those getting into content creation. TikTok encourages users to use Commercial Music for their videos as it’s an easy way to create them in the app. However, they also don’t have any incentive to help you use your videos anywhere else, so the copyright coverage they provide is only for use on TikTok.

If you’d like to create videos for TikTok that you can also use across other social video apps like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, etc, the TikTok music licensing won't work. Your only real option is royalty free music. And what’s that, you ask? Well, let us explain.

Using royalty free music on TikTok

As covered in our full guide on how to use copyrighted music on TikTok, the best and safest way to use copyrighted music on TikTok is to utilize royalty free music that you can download from music licensing companies like Soundstripe. These royalty free music tracks are all already pre-cleared and ready to use not just on TikTok but across all of your social media channels that you choose to post on.

The licensing process is simple, and the Soundstripe library has over 9,000 tracks. These tracks vary across numerous genres and styles to help ensure that you’ll always have the perfect song for your video’s needs.

At Soundstripe, we own every song in our library, so you can not only avoid copyright strikes, but you also won’t find our music on any other sites or libraries. You’ll have two options for licensing a song. You can either pay for a single song license and use that song in as many projects as you want, or you can sign up for one of our subscription plans, which gives you unlimited access to our entire library.

The best royalty free music for TikTok and other platforms

As mentioned above, your best bet for providing the soundtrack to your TikTok videos that you can still safely use across all other social video platforms and marketing channels is royalty free music provided by Soundstripe.

Not only do we have a full library of awesome royalty free music for you to browse, but we also have some hand-picked songs that we’d recommend you check out for yourself.

1. Newport Nights by LNDÖ

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Synths and samples are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 100
Key: Ab/G# Major
Listen and license here.

2. Hazy Horizons by Lunareh

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as hopeful and inspiring. Synth and piano are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 103
Key: Bb/A# Major
Listen and license here.

3. Fugue Frenzy by Moments

Description: A high-energy, score song best described as suspenseful and inspiring. Strings and cello are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 170
Key: E Minor
Listen and license here.

4. Running Next To You by Andy Shaw

Description: A medium-energy rock song best described as happy and hopeful. The guitar and electric guitar are the primary instruments on this track.
BPM: 124
Key: Eb/D# Major
Listen and license here.

5. Life In Pastels by Matt Wigton

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as chill and happy. Synths and drums are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 102
Key: Eb/D# Major
Listen and license here.

You can further browse more of the best royalty free music for TikTok here. You can also check out some of the best royalty free sound effects for TikTok or simply explore how to add music to your TikTok videos here.

The 6 Best AI Text-Based Editing Tools to Speed Up Video Editing and Maximize Your Creative Potential

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 19:14:53 GMT

There are many analogies one could use for the AI revolution we’re currently in. However, as is the case with any major tech advancement, it’s hard for anyone to truly see or predict what an industry will look like after the revolution.

That said, if you’re a content creator, filmmaker, or video professional currently trying to stay ahead of the tech curve, your best bet is to strap in, stay informed, and wait to see where things go.

With that in mind, one area in which AI has already changed the game quite a bit is video editing. Specifically, text-based video editing powered by AI tools and features has been a revelation for those who work in certain video production styles, such as documentary, corporate video, and other narrative forms.

Let’s examine text-based video editing and its operation and recommend the best AI text-based editing tools currently available to video pros.

Premiere Pro

While many might think of AI as a recent innovation in the past year, Adobe has quietly had many AI-powered tools and features in several of its popular design and video apps. Under the name Adobe Firefly, the company’s AI technology has indeed come a long way over the past several years, though.

One area in which Adobe has added AI-powered tools to its flagship NLE video editing software Premiere Pro has been text-based editing. A great tool for working with transcriptions and captions, this text-based editor in Premiere Pro is built-in and easy to use, ideally for those looking to work on long-form or documentary-style projects.

You can learn more about Adobe’s text-based editing here.

2. DaVinci Resolve

Introduced by Blackmagic Design in the beta version of DaVinci Resolve 18.5, text-based editing is now a standard feature in DaVinci Resolve Studio. Resolve’s “Speech to Text” feature utilizes automatically generated AI video transcription. It can also identify silent sections within clips and fill those as well.

To use the AI Speech to Text feature in DaVinci Resolve, a user must select a clip in the media bin and click the “Transcribe Audio” button. The AI-powered software will then automatically produce a transcript, which editors can edit as they see fit.

Silent sections will be marked with ellipses, and if you highlight text in the transcript, you’ll be able to see the same section of the clip in the timeline. This will allow editors to quickly navigate and make changes to their projects.

You can read more about working with this text-based editing feature in DaVinci Resolve here.

3. Vimeo

While several AI text-based editing tools, like Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, might be full-scale NLE software, did you know that you can also edit your videos directly on social video websites like Vimeo? Vimeo launched its text-based video editor with its most recent AI-powered updates.

If your video contains audio in spoken English, you can use the Vimeo text-based editing feature with the Trimmer tool to edit your video. Vimeo users can easily remove filler words such as “ums” and “uhs,” word gaps with no sound, and any other selection of individual words or longer sections of footage containing speech.

There are some other more advanced editing features and tools that work with Vimeo's text-based editing feature, which you can read about in this full guide here.

4. Descript

If you’re more interested in using text-based editing for podcasts rather than video, then Descript is one of the best tools for using AI-powered editing features for your podcasts. However, Descript is a full-featured, end-to-end video editor that can work for both audio and video.

It’s found a home with podcasters, though, simply because it works so easily with audio and text. Stylized to feel like you’re editing documents like you would with Word or Google Docs, Descript’s text-based editing feature makes it easy to go through long recordings and find the best sections to edit, splice, trim, or delete.

You can also arrange parts of your video as you would a slide deck, making Descript a great option for those who know little about traditional digital editing platforms and would like their text-based editing to feel more organic and easy.

Read more about the text-based editing options in Descript.

5. Lumberjack System

Marketed as the “ultimate solution for text-based video editing for productions,” Lumberjack System aims to offer a text-based editing feature for those productions that rely heavily on transcripts. Lumberjack System is optimized for radio cuts from transcripts for Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro and is designed for users looking to write stories from multiple transcripts simultaneously.

Lumberjack System offers a “Builder” feature that works as a hybrid word processor and video editor combined. It’s a faster transcript-based workflow than what you’ll find in Premiere Pro and other NLEs and offers helpful features. For example, text and video are always linked so that users can go from scanning text to observing nuance instantly.

The Soundstripe AI Song Editor

Now that we’ve covered some of the text-based editing features, let’s look at some other helpful AI-powered tools that can help streamline your video and audio projects. One truly groundbreaking AI innovation of which we’re quite proud is our new Soundstripe AI Song Editor.

As many content creators can tell you, finding the right music to add to your content has always been tricky. Not only do you want to find the exact right track, but it’s also very likely that the song won’t be the same length as your content.

With our new AI Song Editing feature, you can utilize artificial intelligence to manipulate a Soundstripe track in seconds with the quality of a professional audio engineer. The AI Song Editing feature uses groundbreaking AI to analyze a song and instantly generate shorter, self-contained snippets, each of which sounds natural or can be combined with other clips directly in-app to produce a custom edit that sounds as flawless as the original version.

With AI Song Editing, you can engage with a track at a new level of detail and control, cut or extend it to the perfect length, loop a specific section, or completely rearrange it in no time while maintaining the highest musical integrity.

If you’d like to learn more, here’s a link to check out our Soundstripe AI Song Editor.

More AI editing resources

As AI continues to be the most talked about topic in the content world, staying current on the latest new tools, features, and innovations in the space is important. If you’d like to continue reading about how AI can be used to streamline your content workflows, check out some of these additional articles from the Soundstripe blog:

Top 10 Most Profitable YouTube Niches Ranked by CPM: Earn More by Targeting These High-Paying Categories

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:41:07 GMT

While there are a million reasons to get into content creation, one reason that entices a lot of creators looking to launch a YouTube channel, in particular, is simply how lucrative it can be. Whether you’re looking for a small side hustle or potentially making content creation your full-time job, it’s possible to make some serious money in video content with the way YouTube pays.

Now, with that being said, it’s not necessarily easy per se. There’s a lot to learn about content creation. However, while knowing the right writing, filming, and editing tricks might be helpful, the most important factor for finding YouTube success is the subject matter.

If you’re looking to launch a YouTube channel for the first time and want to know the most popular and profitable niches, then we have you covered. Let’s explore how YouTube works for monetization and give you a list of the most profitable niches you can use when deciding what type of content you want to make when launching your own YouTube channel.

How does YouTube monetization work?

So, before we go into a ranked list of niches, let’s do a bit of homework first. How does YouTube monetization work? In the world of content creation, YouTube stands tall as one of the most lucrative social video platforms in the world. This is because YouTube does it bigger, better, and more streamlined than anyone else.

If you just look at the sheer amount of traffic the site gets and the staggering amount of money it sends back to creators (plus other built-in benefits like access to its huge audience), it practically starts and ends with YouTube.

Suppose you’re looking into YouTube monetization for the first time. In that case, it’s important to note that you must meet certain standards with your channel to be eligible to join the YouTube Partner Program and monetize your content. Here are the steps to follow:

Follow YouTube’s monetization policies, which should be easy if that’s your goal.
Live in a country where the Partner Program is available. That's a pretty long list, so we doubt you’ll have anything to worry about.
Get your watch time for YouTube monetization up to more than 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months. It might seem like a lot, but remember: Users watch a combined 5 billion videos every day. You just need to find the right audience for your content.
Having more than 1,000 subscribers can seem like an impossible goal for new channels. Just remind yourself that people always end up finding great content, so you’ll need to keep creating awesome videos that attract people.
Set up an AdSense account, which gives Google permission to manage ad content, track statistics, and pay you for it.

You can read a lot more about YouTube monetization in our complete guide to video monetization .

Understanding CPM vs RPM

Another metric we should explain is the difference between terms like “CPM” and “RPM.” These numerical metrics can give you an idea of how revenue a video generates compared to watches or clicks, your chief metrics for deciding how successful (and ultimately lucrative) a video is.

CPM stands for “Cost Per Mille” and is a measurement that tells creators how much advertisers will pay for 1,000 (a mille) ad impressions on one of their videos. RPM, on the other hand, stands for “Revenue Per Mille” and covers the full amount of revenue a creator receives for every 1,000 views.

Of course, YouTube takes its cut, too, for all of the above, but if you can understand these metrics and terms, you can start to make educated decisions about which of the most lucrative YouTube niches and genres to choose.

The most profitable YouTube niches

Now that we’ve covered some basic information about YouTube monetization and metrics let’s give you the list that you came here to review. Here’s a ranked list of the most profitable YouTube niches, along with more info about what they are and why you might want to consider them.

How to make money online: The most profitable YouTube niche is one focused on helping people make money online. These videos can range from “get rich quick”-style content to more sophisticated guides to starting a small business, growing side hustles, how to make money on social media, or—yes, even—launching a YouTube channel.
Digital marketing: The second most profitable YouTube niche is focused on digital marketing. These videos are guides to learning digital marketing, growing a digital brand, or providing news and updates about the latest trends in this space.
Investing and personal finance: Similar to the “how to make money online” niche, finance and investing channels are very popular on YouTube, and many beginner investors turn to YouTube to find advice on how to grow their personal and retirement accounts.
Technology: As you can see, with accounts like Marques Brownlee, covering all of the latest tech innovations is a huge YouTube niche. There’s an endless stream of new announcements and products from the likes of Apple, Tesla, and others that require updates, insights, and reviews.
Education: YouTube has also become one of the top spots for those looking for basic or advanced education over the years, as there are tons of great channels dedicated to teaching viewers about whatever they’d like to learn.
Fashion: YouTube is also a great spot for those looking to make content about fashion. These videos range from general fashion announcements and news to try-on videos or reviews of clothes so that viewers can decide whether to purchase them.
Beauty and makeup: Another YouTube classic, makeup and beauty tutorials have been on YouTube since the beginning and represent a major industry and online presence.
Video games: While Twitch might be the most popular app for video game streaming, YouTube is still king for all other types of video game-related content, from reviews to play-through guides.
Fitness and bodybuilding: As more people opt out of personal trainers and gyms, home workouts have become much more popular thanks to a rise in YouTube fitness channels that can provide full workouts and guides for all types of fitness goals.
ASMR: Perhaps one of the most unique niches of YouTube in particular, ASMR and other relaxation videos have become very popular as a way for viewers to unwind and destress from their busy schedules.

(It’s important to remember that YouTube does not share these numbers directly, so these highest CPM niches on YouTube were decided based on numbers compiled on social tracking site Social Blade, but they give a general idea of profitability.)

Tips for monetizing your YouTube channel

Overall, though, your best bet for finding the right niche for your YouTube channel isn’t going to come down to reviewing profitability metrics. You’d be much more likely to find success (and not get burned out) if you focus on finding a niche that resonates with you and your passion and interests.

That said, if you have a passion for any of the most profitable YouTube channel ideas listed above, it would be a great idea to focus on these popular niches as they do return more on your time investments. They can also be more competitive, though, simply because others can figure out they are popular.

If you find yourself ready to launch a channel and start creating, here are more articles and resources to help you on your YouTube content creation journey.

How to Use Adobe Firefly AI Text-to-Video Generator for Your Content and Video Creations

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 19:52:53 GMT

There’s been another major breakthrough in the realm of generative AI video that could end up being one of the biggest game changers for those working in video content. Adobe has just announced that their Firefly AI video model is here and ready to start generating video for your video projects.

While several other generative AI video models have been available to content creators and video editors for the past year, this Adobe AI video generator does look quite promising and more streamlined for many content creation workflows.

Let’s examine how to use Adobe Firefly AI text to video generator and explore how it can be used with other AI-powered tools and features to speed up your edits and make your content more dynamic and impactful as you grow your channels and brands.

Adobe Firefly AI video model

Announced at Adobe MAX in Miami, Florida, this year, Adobe has unveiled an expansion of its Firefly family of generative AI models to include video. This new Firefly video model is set to be released to public beta before expanding to full release here soon. Since releasing the first beta of Firefly, Adobe has generated over 13 billion images for various content creation needs.

“The usage of Firefly within our creative applications has seen massive adoption, and it’s been inspiring to see how the creative community has used it to push the boundaries of what’s possible. We’re thrilled to bring creative professionals even more tools for ideation and creation, all designed to be commercially safe.” — Ely Greenfield, chief technology officer, digital media at Adobe.

This update to Firefly will work as an AI text-to-video generator that can create AI generated videos from text prompts, access a variety of camera controls such as angle, motion, and zoom to fine-tune videos, and generate reference images for B-roll generation that aim to seamlessly fill gaps in a video timeline.

Combine AI video with AI audio tools

When looking at these new AI video models, though, it’s important to keep in mind that despite their impressive generations, these are still just tools. No video AI model can truly replace the full content creation and video production process. As many users might quickly discover, generating AI videos can be a lot of work.

Your best bet for working with AI for video content as it currently stands (and likely will for the next few years) is to use AI-powered features simply as tools to help streamline your workflows and further unlock your creativity.

Along with AI video models, many other AI video editing apps are worth exploring. Here are some helpful articles outlining some of today's AI tools.

The Soundstripe AI Song Editor

Along with the AI tools and features linked above, we must mention one of the best AI-powered tools currently available for content creators. Our new AI Song Editor is proving to be quite popular with filmmakers, video professionals, and content creators of all types.

We offer a quick and easy solution for editing music for your projects and videos. The AI Song Editing feature uses AI to analyze a song and instantly generate shorter, self-contained snippets. Each snippet sounds natural on its own or can be combined with other clips directly in-app to produce a custom edit that sounds as flawless as the original version.

Learn more about AI audio editor tools here.

Best royalty free music tracks to use in Premiere Pro

If you do choose to work with Adobe’s new AI video model to generate text-to-video for your projects and perhaps also choose to use our AI Song Editor, you’re still going to need to find the best royalty free music for your videos.

Luckily we have you covered there as well as we have some of the best royalty free music in the world with over 8,000 tracks composed by Grammy-winning artists. With a focus on finding royalty free music to use in Premiere Pro, let’s share some of our top track recommendations for your content.

Minty Fresh by Yung Koolade

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.

BPM: 95

Key: Ab/G# Minor

Listen and license here.

Transversalis by Isaac Joel

Description: A high-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.

BPM: 155

Key: C Minor

Listen and license here.

House Of Cards by Hale

Description: A high-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and calm. Synth and ambient tones are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 140

Key: Ab/G# Major

Listen and license here.

No Link by Sam Barsh

Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as chill and calm. Bass and piano are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 81

Key: Eb/D# Major

Listen and license here.

Strobe Light by Ghost Beatz

Description: A high-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as chill. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.

BPM: 106

Key: F Minor

Listen and license here.

Along with the tracks above, you can also check out some curated playlists of impactful, video-editing-ready songs that would also be great for your videos.

Low Key Bops Playlist

Description: Vibey, understated Pop songs

Positive Vibes Playlist

Description: Compilation of lyric-driven tracks that inspire and uplift.

Electropop Playlist

Description: Upbeat electronic pop music from the modern era

Other AI text-to-video models

Of course, text-to-video AI isn’t entirely new to video and content creators. We’ve seen many examples of this type of AI technology released over the past year. However, for every new startup that offers generative AI, it can quickly become obvious that these tools need to be partnered with other more holistic workflow options.

Besides Photoshop and Illustrator, Adobe offers video editing apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects, which can be more seamlessly integrated with generative AI and other AI-powered tools.

With that being said, if you are interested in text-to-video AI, here are some other AI for video creation models worth checking out:

Stay tuned to our Soundstripe blog for more tips and information about working with AI and video content creation.

Business Shreditors: Our 7 Must-Have Features to Improve Workflow and Editing Efficiency

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:48:28 GMT

Even while it can be creatively rewarding, we know that it’s a tough job being an all-in-one shooter, producer, and editor for video. As a “shreditor,” all of the responsibilities fall on your own shoulders, which can, admittedly, be great for those who love to control all aspects of a project’s production.

However, if you’re looking for a partner who can help you with those elements you simply cannot control, we’re here to be that trusted resource for all your music, sound effects, and video needs.

At Soundstripe we pride ourselves on understanding the “shreditor” mentality and have many offerings and features designed to help make your shooting, producing, and editing jobs easier. From our rich library of royalty free music for video, to our superb sound effects and video assets, we have you covered.

In addition to our core offerings, let’s review some of our lesser-known features, such as our track stems, AI song editing tool, Premiere Pro plugin, mobile app, and many more. At the same time, we give you a full outline of how to maximize your experience working with us.

Getting Started With Soundstripe

So, if you’ve made it to this article here, you’re perhaps a bit familiar with Soundstripe and music licensing. However, if you are a bit confused about what we do here at Soundstripe and how all this royalty free music for video works, let’s go over some basics.

For all of you, business shreditors (aka in-house shooters, producers, and editors) who work solo or as part of a small or large team, your best option for working with music licensing for all of your video and content needs is going to be Soundstripe’s enterprise plan.

What is that, you ask? Here’s a quick primer on everything you need to know about the Soundstripe enterprise plan.

But, in short, our enterprise plan is basically a music licensing service tailored for companies, brands, non-profits, or other organizations that need a certain level of protection and insurance to ensure that the music used across all their different videos and channels is safe, protected, and of a trusted quality.

If you’d like to get started with Soundstripe today, feel free to contact a sales representative directly here. Then, check out these Soundstripe features and plugins, which we think you’ll find quite fun and helpful for your shooting, producing, and editing workflows.

On-Platform Soundstripes Features

Let’s start by looking at some of the most important features we offer on-platform here at Soundstripe. To go along with our full library of high-quality royalty free music and sound effects produced by Grammy-winning artists and musicians from Nashville, Tennessee, and abroad, here are some helpful Soundstripe tools you should know about.

Song Stems

Our music tracks at Soundstripe consist of isolated groupings of similar instruments or sounds that, when combined, form an entire track. Music stems can be manipulated separately to give you the most creative control over the overall track's sound.

For example, as you can see in the video, many music tracks can be broken down into different sub-tracks, including options like drums, synth, guitar, vocals, etc…

Instead of trying to find a way to isolate the different sections yourself (which can be tricky and time-consuming), downloading stems from a place like Soundstripe can lay out these specific tracks for you — allowing you the freedom to edit them in and out as you see fit.

You can read more about our song stems and how to use them here.

AI Song Editing

With our new AI Song Editor, you can utilize artificial intelligence to manipulate a Soundstripe track in seconds with the quality of a professional audio engineer.

The AI Song Editing feature uses groundbreaking AI to analyze a song and instantly generate shorter, self-contained snippets. Each snippet sounds natural on its own or can be combined with other clips directly in the app to produce a custom edit that sounds as flawless as the original version.

You can read more about AI audio editor tools here

AI Music Search

Search is the essential tool for finding the perfect music for your creative projects. At Soundstripe, we understand our platform's vital role in helping our users discover ideal content quickly, easily, and accurately.

That's why we are thrilled to unveil our groundbreaking AI music search feature, poised to revolutionize the way you find the music you need.

Powered by advanced artificial intelligence, this innovative tool revolutionizes how you discover music, making it easier than ever to find the perfect soundtrack that amplifies your vision. By integrating AI tools into our search capabilities, we're enhancing your experience with natural language searches, popular artist inquiries, song titles, video genres, and much more.

You can read more about how our music search AI tool works on the Soundstripe platform here

Shared Team Projects

We also offer some advanced Projects features that serve as a de facto multimedia hub to allow customers the ability to do all of the following:

Store multimedia (Music, SFX & Video) for a Project in one location
Add a Project description
Download media in a project in one click
Add, order, and sequence your media for your Projects
Robust control for project settings
Share & collaborate on your Project with clients and teammates
Easily see and revisit your Projects history on Soundstripe

You can read more about our basic Projects feature here (as well as some more advanced Projects 2.0 features here)

Off-Platform Soundstripe Features

Alongside all of our on-platform tools and features, there are plenty more ways to integrate with Soundstripe off-platform. Let’s look at some helpful plugins and our mobile app to explore how these tools can also boost your workflows.

Adobe Premiere Pro Plugin

One of our most popular off-platform features is our Premiere Pro music plugin, which allows editors to download royalty-free music directly from their timeline, eliminate redundant steps, and finish their edits faster.

You can learn more about our Adobe Premiere Pro sound editing feature here, as well as more information on the best Premiere Pro extensions to streamline your workflow.

Twitch Extension

For those interested in live streaming, we also offer a Twitch extension so that customers can create the perfect listening experience for their viewers and unlock music from Grammy-winning artists trusted by streamers around the world.

You can learn more about our Twitch music extension here.

Soundstripe Mobile App

Finally, if you want to try out the full Soundstripe experience, you can take us wherever you go with the Soundstripe mobile app. It’s a great way to keep listening to your favorite tracks, find inspiration for your next projects, and be ready to download music and sound effects on the go.

You can learn more about getting started with the Soundstripe app for mobile here.

How to Sign up for a Soundstripe Enterprise Plan

At the end of the day, though, if you’re curious about getting set up with Soundstripe for all of your music, sound, effects, and video needs, then feel free to contact a Soundstripe sales representative directly here.

We can walk you through the custom pricing and term contract options and help you choose the right plan to license and protect you and your company.

Top 5 AI Storyboard Apps: Streamline Your Workflow for Seamless Visualization & Efficient Project Planning

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 18:56:30 GMT

As AI continues to evolve and move into more aspects of film and video content production, it’s important for all of us to remember that the main goal of artificial intelligence is to streamline our productions and make our lives easier.

While the jury might still be out on how helpful AI is today with different elements of live video production and various post-production processes, one area in which AI is already quite capable—and indeed helpful—is the pre-production process.

Most notably, AI is very assistive with concepting and storyboarding. These are some of the earlier iterations of filmmaking and video content production, and many generative AI tools are already available to help creators conceptualize ideas for their projects.

So, if you’re in the early stages of a video project and looking for some tools to help you storyboard your content, here are some of the best AI storyboard apps currently available.

What is storyboarding?

Before we share some of the best storyboard apps and generators for film pros and content creators, let’s take a quick step back and look at what storyboards are. For those perhaps unfamiliar, storyboards are traditionally hand-drawn sketches that outline what shots will be created in the filmmaking process.

The storyboard sketches vary drastically in quality. Some simply stick figures and lines, whereas others are sometimes highly detailed images complete with color, shadows, and other elements.

Storyboards are traditionally done by a film's director or possibly the director of photography to plan out what they want the shots in their project to look like. However, over the years, professional storyboard artists have also emerged who help bring these visions to life with more detail based on a director or filmmaker’s input.

How can AI assist with storyboarding?

As the world saw with the launch of AI models like Runway and DALL-E, one area in which AI has been most impressive here early on is generating images based on text prompts. When you think about it, it is really all storyboarding is.

As one might expect, many AI video editor apps and innovations in this space popped up overnight in the early days of AI.Now that the dust has settled a bit, though, and generative AI innovations have slowed down a bit, it is a good time to look at which AI storyboard generator apps are out there and how well they can perform storyboarding.

We should also mention that there are other tools out there to help content creators prepare for their videos. One helpful new feature is our AI Song Editor which helps filmmakers and video pros start the process of looking for the best royalty free music for their projects right at the start. Once you’ve selected some tracks you like for your video, you can rest assured that with the help of AI you’ll be able to make any song perfectly fit as the soundtrack for your video.

Best AI storyboard apps and generators

Now that we've covered some of the basics of using storyboards in your projects,let’s examine some of the best AI storyboard creator apps and generators available.

Storyboarder.ai

The first AI storyboard app we’re going to highlight is exactly what it sounds like: Storyboarder.ai. This AI-powered storyboarder can generate complete storyboards from a simple prompt in a few minutes.

At this point, Storyboarder.ai has been used by some of the most well-known streaming services, acclaimed film productions, and top advertising agencies in the world. It boasts that it has generated over a million images, almost ten thousand concepts crafted, and five thousand scripts processed.

As a cloud-based, AI-powered tool, Storyboarder.ai offers many helpful features, including impressive image-to-image, image-to-video, and animatic capabilities. It is free to try and offers monthly or yearly plans starting at $50 a month for its most basic package.

ShotPro HQ

While apps like Storyboarder.ai might be more flashy and artistic, other storyboarding apps are more traditional and practical. ShotPro HQ feels more like an industry-standard storyboarding tool that helps with all aspects of pre-production.

ShotPro HQ offers compelling pre-visualization options to help filmmakers and content creators design their shots and build their plans into exportable animations. Some other AI-powered and AI-esque features like text-to-speech and 3D characters and objects capable of facial expression animations are neat tricks. Still, overall, the tool feels like playing an advanced version of The Sims.

Boords

Dubbed as a “shortcut to effective storyboards,” Boords is a top-rated online storyboarding software that aims to make planning video projects feel fun and not like a job. Like many AI-powered storyboarding apps these days, Boords can work off of a simple text prompt where a user can simply describe the direction of the story and then have an entire script to storyboard AI generated in a matter of seconds.

Boords also offers some innovative AI character guideline features that make it easier to maintain character consistency across your AI-generated storyboard frames. This, honestly, gives Boords a nice step up on its competition, as consistency across frames is a major issue for AI at this current point in time.

Boords also offers some helpful collaborative work features, plus the ability to download and export storyboards as presentation-ready PDFs, PNGs, or even MP4 animatics. Boords is available to try out for free and offers standard plans starting at $44 a month.

StudioBinder Storyboard Creator

A familiar name perhaps to those who have worked in film and video production for the past few years, StudioBinder made its name by offering itself as a one-stop shop for all of a project’s pre-production (and production) needs.

Adding some AI elements, of course, makes sense, and StudioBinder has actually had a pretty solid storyboarding option for several years now. With the StudioBinder online storyboard creator, the tool promises to bring visions to visuals as intuitive storyboard software featured inside one of the world’s leading video, TV, and film production management softwares.

What’s nice about this StudioBinder option is the other tools that go hand-in-hand with the storyboard feature. For example, along with storyboards, you can create mood boards and shotlists and handle almost all of your other pre-production needs.

StudioBinder's online storyboard creator is included in the base subscription model, which starts at $29 a month and includes many of the other helpful StudioBinder features.

Storyboard Hero

For those looking to generate convincing video concepts and storyboards with one of the best AI storyboard generators on the market, Storyboard Hero is another great option. It offers unlimited AI images and promises to drastically reduce the time and cost of storyboard creation.

If you’re tired of spending hours preparing concepts, scripts, and storyboards for your projects and are looking for a one-click solution, Storyboard Hero is focused on AI-powered automation.

The results look on par with some of the better generative AI images you can find online these days, and Storyboard Hero does offer some helpful organization features to help you get the right images in the right places for your projects.

Storyboard Hero offers several different levels of subscription plans, but the lowest level for a solo creator begins at $19 a month.

Ultimately, the choice for the right AI-powered storyboard app is up to you and your unique project needs. For more reasons to use AI audio editor tools, Final Cut Pro AI features or Premiere Pro AI tools for your video content, be sure to stay tuned to the Soundstripe blog.

YouTube Shorts' 3 Minutes Expansion: What the New Maximum Length of YouTube Shorts Means for Creators

jourdan.alredge@soundstripe.com (Jourdan Aldredge) — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 20:03:56 GMT

The battle for short-form video content supremacy is heating up. The story of TikTok’s meteoric rise in short-form popularity, mostly over the pandemic years, was studied closely by rivals like Meta and Google, and now competitors like Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and YouTube Shorts are quickly making up ground in the short-form content creation space.

While there will always be some nuance between these platforms, it does feel like they are all basically morphing into one, as any innovation from one platform is quickly copied and adapted by the others.

The latest area to see a change has been the maximum video length of these short-form videos. With TikTok now offering up to 10 minutes for recording and 60 minutes for uploads, YouTube Shorts has just announced that its maximum video length will be expanded to three minutes.

What does this mean for content creators? Let’s explore this news, lay out the latest YouTube Shorts guidelines, and see if we can help any aspiring content creators successfully navigate this ever-changing short-form video space with the best royalty free music, sound effects, and resources at your disposal.

Is the maximum length of YouTube Shorts 3 minutes now?

As of October 15th, 2024, the new maximum length of YouTube Shorts is 3 minutes long.These Longer Shorters, as YouTube is calling them, have been one of the most requested updates to YouTube Shorts since its first release.

According to YouTube, the goal is to further empower content creators to have more flexibility in telling their stories. This change will only apply to videos that are square or taller in aspect ratio and shouldn’t affect any videos uploaded before October 15th.

Why is YouTube making this change?

Now that we’ve covered the big news about the change in YouTube Shorts maximum duration, we can explore a bit more about why YouTube is making this change now. As mentioned at the start, the shortest and best answer here might simply be because of TikTok.

Even as YouTube Shorts grows more popular, it’s far behind TikTok in the short-form content creation space. According to data, these short-form content platforms like TikTok are just as popular as ever. They are becoming increasingly valuable to companies, brands, and promoters as they figure out more ways to engage and monetize the audiences on these apps.

YouTube Shorts has the world’s largest streaming platform behind it, but despite YouTube’s success, it hasn’t quite caught on with younger demographics enough to be truly competitive. While changing the maximum length of a YouTube short won’t instantly change anything, it does signal that YouTube is open to making adjustments and pushing for more viewers.

Tips for creating YouTube Shorts

If you’re a content creator of any type looking to launch a channel and brand today, you’re still going to have many options to consider. Lucky for you—and all content creators—is that you don’t have to pick just one platform.

These days, most people upload their videos to multiple platforms that pay content creators, often all at once.However, because of the small but sometimes significant differences between the platforms, content creators have needed to re-edit their videos to better fit different length rules or other guidelines.

Your best bet, though, might simply be to focus on your content and develop your own unique voice. You can also hone in on just one platform to start, like TikTok, for example, and then expand from there as other platforms, like YouTube Shorts, for example, continue to grow their audience.

Royalty free music for YouTube Shorts

Our other top piece of advice for aspiring content creators out there is to make sure that you’re using royalty free music for your videos. Royalty free music is crucial for all types of content creation as it’s the only type we can guarantee will always be safe for these different platforms.

Unlike lots of popular music and other so-called “copyright free” songs, royalty free music from Soundstripe will always be protected and available to use on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and all other social platforms.

If you’d like to check out some of the best royalty free music for YouTube Shorts we have some hand-picked selections to share with you below.

Get Flipped Or Die Trying by Sam Barsh

Description: A low-energy, hip-hop song best described as chill and fun. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 84

Key: E Minor

Do It To Me by Mandimore

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as reflective and romantic. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 111

Key: A Minor

Good Tonight by Cira Grandi

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 120

Key: C Major

Night Life by LNDÖ

Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 109

Key: B Major

Shock Rock by JMPSCR

Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song best described as angry and fun. Bass and synth bass are the primary instruments in this track.

BPM: 150

Key: A Major

You can also find a full article exploring the best royalty free music for YouTube Shorts here. Or, if you’d like to dive into some more tracks right now, here are some additional playlists worth exploring.

Pop Vocals Playlist

Description: A collection of the best vocal Pop tracks from the Soundstripe catalog.

Lo-Fi Playlist

Description: Low-energy Lo-Fi style background music for studying and other deep focus work.

Lifestyle Playlist

Description: Vlog underscore for your next lifestyle content drop.

And, as always, there are more playlists to choose from in our full Soundstripe music library.

Resources for YouTube Shorts

Finally, to wrap things up, here are some extra articles and resources exploring how royalty free music and copyrights work, as well as some additional tips for working with YouTube in particular.