Apple Clips, Your Custom Music Soundtrack Composer

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to learn about Apple’s new Clips app for iOS from the app’s product manager. Although Clips is very easy to use, I learned a few great tips and tricks, and I was fascinated to learn about a Clips-only feature, the Soundtracks tool.

Clips (currently) includes 47 different Soundtracks in seven different categories:

• Pop
• Playful
• Chill
• Sentimental
• Retro
• Action
• Holidays & Events

Like other Apple apps with music soundtrack options, the tracks are high-quality, royalty-free, and may be uploaded to social media without infringing copyright. However, unlike other music soundtrack options, Clips soundtracks automatically adjust timing to create a perfectly synchronized music soundtrack for your Clips video.

In general, depending upon the Soundtrack selected, the track includes an intro, several varied sections (depending upon the length of your video), and an outro with an ending. Thus, the music doesn’t just cut off abruptly or fade at the end, it sounds like the soundtrack was composed with a beginning, middle, and ending—just for your video.

For a recent iMovie project, I found myself in my typical music predicament: I needed a royalty-free music selection in an appropriate style and at the appropriate length to play throughout the video. To make matters more challenging, I knew that I would be sharing a first revision of the video with several groups and that further edits would be imminent. It occurred to me...why not let Clips compose my music soundtrack for me?

After a bit of trial and error, I developed two methods for creating Clips music soundtracks for other video apps and created video tutorials for each. One method uses Clips for iPhone and iMovie on Mac, while the other method is an all-iPad solution (using Clips and iMovie for iPad). Using the ideas here, you may be able to adapt this idea for other video creation apps on other platforms.

Create a Soundtrack using Clips for iPhone and Use It in iMovie for Mac


Create a Soundtrack using Clips for iPad and Use It in iMovie for iPad