Music locations

While you can mix music and sound effects into regular voice locations, you can also add a second location type to your tours called a music location.

This location type is only available on the Pro and Premium plans, as part of the priority editing service, and unless you've been given private access, you'll need to ask your editor to add music locations to your tour.

What is a music location?

Music locations differ from regular voice locations in a number of important ways:

• Music locations play on a loop, so when the audio file ends, it immediately starts from the beginning again
• Music locations can overlap one or more regular voice locations, allowing for simultaneous playback
• When a listener enters a regular voice location while a music location is playing, the volume of the music location's audio drops "below" the regular location's audio
• When the regular location's audio is finished, the volume of the music comes back up
• Music locations only play audio while the listener is inside the location's radius. When the listener leaves the radius, the music fades out

How to use music locations

The simplest use case for music locations is an atmospheric soundtrack. For example, if your tour passes a park you might want birdsong to play in the background while the listener is in or near the park.

Music locations can also be combined with a larger radius to serve as a background track for multiple regular voice locations. If the music location's radius is big enough that it covers several voice locations, the music will play in the background throughout that area.

Things to keep in mind

• Licensing: make sure you have the right to use any music or sound effects in your tour. We can't publish tours with copyrighted music unless you have a license.
• Volume: the music location's audio should be mixed at a lower volume than your voice locations. We'll adjust this during the editing process, but it helps to start with a reasonable level.
• Length: since music locations loop, even a short clip can work well. 30 seconds to 2 minutes is usually enough.

Other location types

Besides voice locations and music locations, there are also other types available in VoiceMap. Here's a quick overview:

• Voice (Automatic) – the standard location type. Audio plays automatically when the listener enters the radius.
• Voice (Manual) – audio plays only when the listener taps the play button.
• Music – plays on a loop and can overlap voice locations. Volume ducks under voice audio.
• Ambient – similar to music locations, these play environmental sounds in the background on a loop
• Secret or hidden locations – that users can't see on the map and have to find by solving puzzles

If you have another potential use of these location types in mind, let us know!