How to add background music to Streamlabs

This article will show you the absolute easiest way to add background music to your streams! You truly cannot go without having background music in your streams as it keeps the viewers entertained and listening.

Step 1: Open Streamlabs

If you do not already have Streamlabs downloaded, you can use this link to do so.

Head over to the scene that says ‘Starting Soon’. This is the scene that we are going to first add music to. Of course, you can add it to all of the scenes later, but we’re going to start with this one.

Step 2: Adding a Source

Where it says ‘Sources’, you’re going to plus the plus sign button.

 Select ‘Media File’.

After doing this, select ‘Add Source’. We then want to select ‘Add a New Source’, which we will name ‘Music Playlist’.

Press ‘Add Source’ and locate the file on your computer that contains the music you wish to use.

I prefer to do it this way so that it doesn’t put any strain on my computer or the CPU which would make the stream lag due to having more tabs being brought in. The fewer things your computer has to worry about, the better it will be for the quality of your stream.

To have my own personal music, I utilize Epidemic Sound.

Epidemic Sound offers over 40,000 royalty-free songs and over 90,000 sound effects. As a content creator, it is important to make sure that your streams are not receiving copyright flags or potentially getting muted, by using Epidemic Sound, you know for sure that this isn’t something you need to worry about.

They have tons of genres: pop, jazz, hip-hop, etc… You can even search for music by genre, mood, and so much more. You can also use the sound effects as alert noises for your stream.
 

The greatest thing about Epidemic Sound is that you are protected against copyright strikes whether you use it on Youtube, Kick, Streamlabs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, and any other social media accounts.
 

With this link, you get access to a 30-day free trial where you can see for yourself just how much Epidemic Sound has to offer.

I even put together a playlist of some songs you can immediately use in your streams.
 

This playlist is full of 3-hours worth of ready-to-use music.

Step 3: Downloading Music

Once you have created your Epidemic Sound account and have logged into it, we’re going to go ahead and download a song.

To do so, press the downward-facing arrow button.

It will ask you to download the ‘Full Mix’ and the ‘File Format’.

For the file format, select ‘MP3’ and then press ‘Download’. You can do this for any and all of the songs or sounds that you want to use.

Step 4: Turning Your Files into One

In order to use this music on Streamlabs, we need to turn the two files that we just downloaded into one. This way, Streamlabs uploads only the actual music.

To do this, we will be utilizing Audacity, which is completely free to use.

You’re going to need to download the software according to whichever kind of computer you are using, whether it be Windows or a Mac.

Once this is downloaded, open it up, come to where it says ‘File’ and we’re going to import an audio file.

Go ahead and import the files that you just downloaded from Epidemic Sound. Copy both of them in your files and select ‘Open’.

You would do this same step for any music that you have downloaded and want to use.

This is going to be a bit tedious in the beginning, but you just have to remember that once we set this up inside Streamlabs, it will play on a loop so you won't have to worry about the music stopping.

Next, you’re going to want to grab the song on the bottom row, drag it to the end, and then move it up to the top row behind the other audio file.
 

You would need to do this with every song that you’ve downloaded from Epidemic Sound.

Once we have all of this music labeled and laid out, we can export it. Be sure to select ‘MP3’ as your export type.

You can save it to your desktop or whichever folder you will be using, and then just hit ‘Save’. It will show you that it is downloading.

Once it’s done, it’s time to head back to Streamlabs.

Step 5: Adding the Music to Streamlabs

To pick up where we left off on Streamlabs, press ‘Browse’ under ‘Local File’ and search for what we have just downloaded.
 

Again, you can do this as individual songs, but the way that I am showing you explains how to create a playlist.

This will become the playlist that we have created. This particular song is only 4 minutes long, but you can add as many as you would like. Typically, 10-15 songs are a good amount to have. You can just have these loops over and over for as long as you need.

Another great thing about Epidemic Sound is that there is no limit to the amount of songs that you can download.

I’m going to select ‘Loop’ so that it continues to play.

You can now see that the playlist is playing over on the right.

You can adjust the volume of the playlist

Now, hit ‘Close’ and head over to the ‘Mixer’ to lower the volume of the ‘Music Playlist’ for the time being.

You can do this using the slider icon below the playlist.

Next, click on the gear icon found under ‘Music Playlist’ and select ‘Properties’. As a general rule of thumb, I like to keep the music playing in the background so that it doesn’t overpower the stream or the game. This is why I like to keep the playlist at around 20-25. You can gauge what volume works for you, but this is a good range to stick to.

‘Audio Monitoring’ is going to be an important feature for us. You can probably see that the music is moving but that you are unable to hear it. You need to change this setting to make sure that it includes ‘Monitor and Output’

Now, both you and the people watching your stream can hear the music in the background. The great thing about this, you can play it without the worry of copyright strikes or the fear of your video being muted.

Now, we can add this to every scene that you want the music to be a part of so that you don’t have to recreate this over and over again.

Simply come over to the ‘Countdown Timer’ scene or whichever scene that you want to add it to. Select the scene, hit the plus-sign icon under ‘Sources’, select ‘Media File’, and now I can add that source.

You can see that the music will now start playing here as soon as you unmute it.

Adding music alone is not going to be the only thing that you’ll want to include in your stream to make it more entertaining, more exciting, and to keep viewers coming back again and again. It is also incredibly important to make sure that your stream looks professional - check out this video to learn how to add overlays to your stream for a more professional appeal.