Music is a handy tool to capture your audience’s attention and make them feel what you want to feel
It is another form of communication that is amazing for engagement
Streamers can play music while live streaming by using commands for bots. You can get music from a few websites like YouTube, Spotify, Pixabay, Bensound, and any other website with copyright-free music. Make sure it is not copyrighted!
Music can be used to:
- Celebrate a subscriber
- Change the mood
- Make a joke
- Interact with viewers
- And more
The most important things to remember is to only use copyright-free sounds so you don’t get in legal trouble and to avoid overdoing the sounds
They can be a great addition but can also do a lot of harm if you aren’t careful
Why music may be a good idea and why it may be a bad idea
Music is a powerful tool that we get to use a lot in the online world
Music can do amazing things for your streams
Most people watch videos to be entertained
Music can give you more of that entertainment factor
Music can make funny moments funnier
Or epic moments more energetic
Music and create a build-up of anticipation
Or a hint that something scary is coming
At the same time, music can harm your stream and videos
It can be easy to make music too strong
It needs to be loud enough to get the desired response, but not so loud that it breaks the connection you have with your audience
The only thing you can do is practice
You may make some musical mistakes, but the more you do it… the better you will get!
Pay attention to your audience and learn as you go!
What Music Can I Play On My Stream?
When choosing music for your stream, making sure to stay legal is important.
Copyright laws are important to understand and stick to
There are a lot of songs and soundtracks that are copyright free
Those are the songs that you can add to your stream
There are many places you can search and download royalty-free music
Some possible websites are:
- Pixabay
- Bensound
- SoundStripe
- And any other website when you Google “copyright free music” or “royalty free music”
To be extra safe, check their rules and regulations to make sure you don’t accidentally break the law on your stream
You can also play the music that is owned by you or that you have a license to use
Just keep in mind that you may have to prove it sometimes
Especially on places like Facebook, you can even get in trouble for using your own songs that are copyrighted
How Do Streamers Play Music On Twitch?
There are a few ways to add music to your streams
One way is to use Soundtrack by Twitch
All of the music there has already been rights cleared
Twitch added this to help prevent copyright issues on their platform
One of the easiest ways to play music is by creating a bot command
We use streamlabs chatbot
Download from their website and install it
Then you want to connect it to your stream
Go to connections, give the bot a name, choose a channel, name the bot in the channel, and generate a token
You can also sign in as a streamer and generate a token that way
Once you have done this, now it is time to decide on a sound
You can get sounds from the websites that I mentioned above, YouTube, and Spotify
Just make sure it is copyright free!
If you do a sound from YouTube, grab the link, and get a YouTube to MP3 converter to get the sound
Once you have the sound downloaded, you can use that or you can clip it to get the exact sound you want
Now you can add that sound file to the Sound Files section of Streamlabs Chatbot
Select the plus sign, name the sound (this is what viewers type into the chat to activate the sound), choose if you want a voting system, select the volume, and upload the file that you downloaded
This makes it so you can make the song play or your viewers can
Note: The sound has to be an MP3 to work
Then select “Automatically Generate Command”
Once this is done, you can select who is able to play the sound
There is a huge list of options!
Being able to play sounds can be an incentive to be a subscriber.
Or you can choose a specific person or moderators only
Whatever you want!
You can also choose a cost for the sound so they need to use points to use the sound
The last thing that you need to set is the cooldown and user cooldown
Setting these to about 5 minutes for both with preventing people from abusing the sound and annoying you and other viewers
Cooldown is for the sound, and user cooldown is for the person
If you have a really obnoxious sound, I recommend a longer cooldown
You also have an option to add an automatic response
This is an excellent way to make your stream unique because your viewers can interact with you as well you use sounds during your stream
Choosing music carefully when creating videos for promotion
Music is an important decision when editing streams for YouTube or other platforms
Music helps you say more without saying more
People go to social media to be entertained
We can entertain through our words, gameplay, background audio, props, and more
It is vital to choose the music or sounds that you use in your videos
But it is also a good idea not to totally depend on them
Many people don’t use the volume on platforms like TikTok
So adding text on the screen is an essential pairing with the music
Why using visuals that go with the video and music can turn good videos into great videos
Music gives you a lot of power over your audience, so just practice and try things out
You never know what video will go viral
I would test different methods and styles to see what:
- You enjoy
- What uses your strengths
- What your audience likes
Every audience will react to things differently
People that watch Pokemon streams will enjoy different styles that people watch APEX
The important part is to:
- Hook the views
- Keep their attention
- Entertain them
- Make them want to see more
If you can do all 4 of those things, your social media will grow and so will your streams