How to Fade Sound on TikTok

Creating a truly polished TikTok often comes down to the subtle details, and one of the most powerful edits you can make is a smooth audio fade. Whether you want to gently introduce a song, gracefully blend a voiceover with background music, or create a moody outro, knowing how to fade sound will instantly elevate your content. This guide will walk you through exactly how to fade audio natively in the TikTok app and give you better, more professional methods using other tools.

What Is an Audio Fade (and Why Should You Use It)?

Simply put, an audio fade is a gradual increase (fade-in) or decrease (fade-out) in the volume of a sound clip. Instead of a sound starting or stopping abruptly, it smoothly enters and exits, which is much more pleasing to the ear and looks far more professional. Here are the main reasons why top creators use them:

• For Professional Transitions: Abrupt sound cuts can feel jarring and amateurish. When you transition from a talking segment to a music-driven collection of clips, fading the audio in and out makes the shift feel seamless and intentional.
• To Balance Speech and Music: A classic TikTok dilemma is making your voice clear while still having that trending sound playing in the background. With fading, you can have the music playing at a low volume while you speak, then smoothly fade its volume up when you finish talking. This creates a dynamic audio experience that holds viewer attention.
• To Control the Mood and Pace: Audio is a huge part of storytelling. A slow fade-in can build a sense of anticipation or wonder. A quick fade-out can add a punchline effect, while a slow fade at the end of a video can create a feeling of conclusion or reflection. It gives you another tool to guide the viewer’s emotions.

How to Fade Sound Natively within the TikTok App

TikTok’s built-in editor offers some basic audio tools, but it doesn't have a dedicated “fade” button. This leaves us with a manual workaround that creates a "stepped fade." It’s a bit clumsy and time-consuming, but in a pinch, it gets the job done without leaving the app. Here’s a detailed step-by-step breakdown.

Step 1: Record or Upload Your Video Footage

Your journey begins with the clips themselves. Open the TikTok app and tap the plus (+) icon at the bottom of the screen. You can either record new video clips on the spot or upload existing ones from your phone's camera roll. Put together the visual sequence of your video first before you start adjusting the sound.

Step 2: Add a Sound from the TikTok Library

Once your clips are on the timeline, tap the Add sound icon at the top of the editing screen. Browse the sound library to find the right music or viral sound for your video. Tap on a sound to preview it, and once you’ve found one you like, select it to add it to your video. Don't worry about the volume levels just yet, we'll fix everything in the editor.

Step 3: Dive into the Advanced Editing View

After selecting your sound and returning to the main editing screen, look for the Edit button. It’s usually located in the top-right corner of the screen and sometimes appears as a pair of scissors over a film clip. Tapping this takes you into TikTok's timeline editor, where you can see your video tracks and audio tracks laid out separately.

Here you'll see a clip representing your Original sound (any audio captured in your videos) and a second clip for the Added sound (the music or sound you chose).

Step 4: Manually Create a Fade Using the Split and Volume Tools

Now for the creative part. Since there's no automatic fade feature, we have to fake one by making several small cuts and adjusting the volume of each tiny segment one by one.

Let's say you want to fade out a song at the end of your video.

1. Move the white playhead line to where you want the fade-out to begin. Tap on the music's audio clip to select it (it will get a white outline).
2. In the bottom toolbar, find and tap the Split button. This will cut the audio clip into two pieces at that point.
3. Now, move the playhead a little bit further along the clip. Tap Split again. You now have a very short audio segment between your two cuts.
4. Repeat this process 3-5 times, creating a series of small audio segments that lead to the end of the video. The more segments you create, the smoother your manual "fade" will be.
5. Now, adjust the volume. Tap on the first segment you created. Select the Volume tool from the bottom toolbar and lower it slightly, for example, to 80%.
6. Tap on the next segment. Select Volume and drag the slider down further to around 60%.
7. Continue this process for each subsequent segment, lowering the volume incrementally: 40%, 20%, and finally, 0% on the final clip.

When you play it back, you will hear the volume drop in steps, giving the illusion of a fade-out. The same principle applies in reverse for a fade-in. It's not a perfect solution, but it’s the only way to accomplish this effect without leaving the TikTok app.

The Superior Method: Using a Third-Party Editor for Clean Fades

If the manual process seems tedious, you're right. To create reliably clean and smooth audio fades, creators almost always turn to a third-party video editing app. These apps often feature one-tap audio fading, giving you more creative control in a fraction of the time. Once the edit is done, you simply export the video and upload the finished file to TikTok.

Top Video Editing Apps for TikTok Creators

• CapCut: This is the go-to editor for the vast majority of TikTokers. It's owned by ByteDance (TikTok's parent company), so its features and interface are perfectly aligned with TikTok's format. Best of all, it's free and incredibly powerful.
• VN Video Editor: Another fantastic and popular free option that offers very similar capabilities to CapCut, including precision audio editing.
• Adobe Premiere Rush: A great choice for those already working within the Adobe family of creative tools. It’s a simplified version of its bigger sibling, Premiere Pro, and makes mobile editing and audio fading easy.

Example Workflow: How to Fade Sound in CapCut

Since CapCut is the most popular choice, here's a quick rundown of how simple the process is:

1. Import Your Clips: Start a new project in CapCut and add all the video clips you want to use. Arrange them on the main timeline.
2. Add Audio: Tap the Audio button below the timeline. You can select 'Sounds' to access an extensive library (you can even link your TikTok account to get your saved sounds) or 'Extracted' to pull audio from an existing video on your phone. Add the audio clip to your timeline.
3. Find the Fade Option: Tap to select the audio clip in the timeline. A white frame will appear around it, and a new toolbar will pop up at the bottom.
4. Set the Fade Duration: In the bottom toolbar, find and tap the Fade button. A small window will appear with sliders for 'Fade in' and 'Fade out'. Simply drag the sliders to set the length of the fade in seconds. For most videos, a 1 to 2-second fade feels natural.
5. Export and Upload: That's it! When you're satisfied with your fade and other edits, export the video from CapCut in high resolution (1080p is standard). Open TikTok, tap the plus (+) icon, and upload the video file you just saved. You now have a clip with professionally edited audio ready to go.

Pro Tip: when you upload a video with pre-edited sound to TikTok, still go to 'Add Sound' to attach a trending sound for discovery purposes, but then use the app's 'Volume' tool to turn the volume of that newly Added sound all the way down to 1%. That way your perfectly edited audio is the only thing viewers hear, but you might still get an algorithmic boost.

Tips for Creative Audio Fades

Once you’ve got a handle on the technical steps, you can start using fades to tell better stories.

Master J-Cuts and L-Cuts

These are classic video editing techniques. A J-Cut is when the audio from an upcoming clip begins before the viewer sees the clip. An L-Cut is when the video switches to a new clip, but the audio from the previous clip continues for a few moments. Using short fades in these cuts can seamlessly bind different scenes together, making them feel connected. Fading out dialogue from one person as a shot of another person looking thoughtful appears is a powerful storytelling L-Cut.

Match Audio Fades to Visual Transitions

Try to align your audio edits with your visual ones for maximum impact. If you use a visual "fade to black" transition, complement it with an audio fade-out. For a more energetic transition like a quick zoom or swipe, a very fast audio fade helps reinforce that speedy movement. This pairing creates a cohesive and immersive viewing experience.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to fade sound on TikTok moves you from being a casual creator to someone who understands the finer points of video editing. Whether you use the manual workaround within TikTok or opt for the precise control offered by an app like CapCut, mastering audio fades gives you a powerful tool to make your content look and sound more captivating and polished.

And once your video edit is perfect and you're ready to share it, the real game of content management begins. We created Postbase to solve the chaos we felt when trying to schedule dozens of TikToks, Reels, and Shorts for a full content calendar. Our visual planner and video-first scheduler let you line everything up weeks in advance and trust that it will go live without a hitch. This way, you can spend more of your time making awesome videos and much less worrying about what and when you need to post next.