How to Add Sound Effects to TikTok

A perfectly timed whoosh, a funny cartoon bonk, or a satisfying pop can be the difference between a good TikTok video and a great one. While trending music gets a lot of attention, using sound effects is a pro-level move that adds humor, drama, and polish to your content, making it far more engaging. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add sound effects to your TikToks, from using the app’s built-in library to importing your own custom sounds.

Why Sound Effects Are Your Secret Weapon on TikTok

Before getting into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Sound is more than just background noise, it's a powerful tool for storytelling and grabbing attention in a fast-scrolling feed. In the first three seconds of a video, a well-placed sound effect can signal the tone - is this funny, shocking, or educational? It immediately tells the viewer what kind of experience they’re in for.

Here’s what sound effects really do for your content:

• Amplify Emotions: A cinematic riser builds tension, while a slide whistle can turn a minor fail into a hilarious moment. You can guide your audience's emotional response without saying a word.
• Create a Professional Feel: Subtle clicks, swooshes for transitions, and keyboard typing sounds make Lo-fi tutorials or day-in-the-life vlogs feel higher quality and more immersive. It shows you’ve put thought into the entire viewing experience.
• Boost Humor and Personality: Comedic timing is everything, and sound effects are your best friend here. A sudden cricket chirp after a bad joke or a record scratch on an unexpected turn of events are classic ways to get a laugh and showcase your brand's personality.
• Highlight Key Information: Use a simple ‘ding’ or ‘pop’ effect when text appears on the screen or when you’re pointing out something important. This auditory cue draws the viewer's eye exactly where you want it.

Think of sound effects as the punctuation of your video. They add emphasis, create rhythm, and make the whole story clearer and more entertaining.

How to Add Sound Effects Natively in the TikTok App

For most creators, TikTok’s own editor has everything you need to get started. Its library is surprisingly robust, and the editing tools make it easy to place and time your sounds perfectly. Here is the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Record or Upload Your Video

Start your TikTok as you normally would. You can either record your clips directly in the app or upload a pre-edited video from your camera roll. Once your footage is ready on the editing timeline, tap the red checkmark and then tap “Edit” on the top right corner. Do not tap “Next” yet, as that will take you past the main editing screen.

You are now in TikTok’s advanced editing interface, where you can see your video clips laid out on a timeline. This is where the magic happens.

Step 2: Find the “Sound effects” Tool

Look at the toolbar at the bottom of the editing screen. You should see an icon of a musical note with the word “Sound” below it. Tap on it. This will open up a new menu showing two options: "Sound" (for adding a main music track) and "Sound effects."

Tap on "Sound effects."

Step 3: Discover and Select Your Sound Effect

You'll now see the TikTok sound effects library. It’s organized into categories designed to help you find what you need quickly. You’ll see tabs for things like:

• Transition: Perfect for whooshes, swipes, and glitches between scenes.
• Funny: Home to cartoon bonks, record scratches, and comedic punches.
• Ambiance: Think rain, city noise, or forest sounds to set a scene.
• Mechanical: Clicks, clacks, camera shutters, and keyboard typing.
• Animal: Barks, meows, and other animal noises.

You can also use the search bar at the top to look for something specific, like "pop," "bell," or "explosion." Tap on any sound to preview it. Once you find one you like, tap the red “Use” button to add it to your video timeline.

Step 4: Place and Trim Your Sound Effect

After you tap “Use,” the sound effect will appear as a new blue audio clip on your timeline, separate from your main video track. You can now adjust it:

• To Move it: Press and hold the blue sound effect clip and drag it left or right along the timeline. The white vertical line (your playhead) is your best guide. Scrub through your video to find the exact frame where you want the sound to start, then drag the beginning of the blue clip to align with it.
• To Trim it: Tap on the blue clip. White handles will appear on either end. Drag the handles inward to shorten the sound effect's duration.

This precision is what creates great comedic or dramatic timing. Zoom into the timeline with two fingers to get a more detailed view and place your sound effect on the exact frame it’s needed.

Step 5: Control the Volume

You almost never want a sound effect to be louder than your speaking voice or main background music. After placing your SFX, tap on the blue audio clip on the timeline. Look at the bottom toolbar and find the “Volume” option. Tap it, and a slider will appear, allowing you to lower the volume of the sound effect so it complements your video instead of overpowering it.

You can add multiple sound effects by simply repeating these steps for each one. Don’t be afraid to stack a few to create a rich, layered soundscape.

How to Layer Sound Effects with Music

What if you want to use a trending song and add your own sound effects? That’s easy. TikTok’s editor handles this gracefully, but the order of operations matters.

1. Add Your Main Music First: Before you go into the advanced editor, add your main audio track from the initial screen by tapping "Add sound.” This sets your video's primary music or trending sound.
2. Enter the Advanced Editor: Once your music is selected, tap "Edit" in the top right.
3. Add Your Sound Effects: Now, follow the exact steps from the section above to add your sound effects. They will appear as separate audio tracks underneath your main music track.
4. Mix the Volumes: This is the most important step. You need to balance the levels. Tap on your main audio track (the purple one) and adjust its volume down. Then, tap on each individual sound effect track (the blue ones) and set their volumes. Typically, you want your main song to be present but not overpowering, your voice (if any) to be loudest, and the sound effects to be just loud enough to make an impact without being distracting.

The Pro Method: Importing Your Own Sound Effects

Sometimes, TikTok’s library doesn't have the specific, high-quality, or unique sound you're looking for. In that case, you can import your own sound effects by adding them to your video before you upload it to TikTok. This gives you unlimited creative control.

Step 1: Find Royalty-Free Sound Effects

First, you need to find a sound effect file. It is extremely important to use audio you have the right to use to avoid copyright issues. A few great places to get royalty-free SFX are:

• Subscription Services: Platforms like Epidemic Sound, Artlist, and Envato Elements offer massive, high-quality libraries for a monthly fee. This is the best option for serious creators and businesses.
• Free Libraries: Websites like Pixabay and ZapSplat offer thousands of free sound effects that you can download and use.

Download the audio file (usually an .mp3 or .wav) to your phone or computer.

Step 2: Add the Sound Effect in a Third-Party App

You’ll need a video editing app to combine your video and your new sound effect. CapCut is a fantastic, free, and popular choice for this since it integrates seamlessly with TikTok.

1. Open a new project in CapCut and import your video clip.
2. Tap on the "Audio" option in the main toolbar, then "Sounds."
3. Go to the "Your sounds" or "From device" tab to find the sound effect you just downloaded.
4. Add it to your timeline. Just like in TikTok's editor, you can drag the sound effect to position it, trim it, and adjust the volume.
5. When you are finished, export the completed video to your camera roll.

Step 3: Upload Your Final Video to TikTok

Now, open TikTok and upload the new video you just exported from CapCut. Since the sound effects are already part of the video file, TikTok will treat it as "Original Sound." You can still layer a trending TikTok song over it by using the "Add sound" feature, but remember to go into the volume controls and lower the added song’s volume and increase the "Original Sound" volume so your custom-edited track is what people hear clearly.

Final Thoughts

Mastering sound effects is a deceptively simple way to level up your TikTok content from amateur to polished and professional. Whether you're using the convenient in-app library for a quick edit or going the extra mile with custom sounds in an external editor, paying attention to your video's audio landscape is what separates casual creators from those who build an engaged audience.

After you’ve created a batch of perfectly edited, sound-rich videos, the next challenge is planning and scheduling them effectively. That’s why we built Postbase from the ground up for a video-first world. We saw how clunky older tools were with formats like TikToks and Reels, so we fixed it. You can use our visual content calendar to plan your entire content strategy at a glance and schedule posts across all your platforms reliably, without worrying if they’ll actually publish on time.