Shortening extending or looping background music in Premiere Pro

Hi everyone, in this video we are going to extend our background music. At the moment our track ends about here, we need it to go a bit further. So we're going to extend it out, now if you're thinking, "He didn't just hack that one off, then start it again with a fade, did he?" Oh yes, I did; I'm not proud of it, but it works. 

So first up we've got audio track already, it's been muted earlier on. "Hi there…" Cali Buzz. So we're going to click on that one and delete it. Next thing I want to do is find the audio that's going in. It's the Audio folder, or the Audio bin. Let's find this one called Little Wolf, it's one of the Wistia tracks. Click, hold, and drag it, drag it down to my track number, what is it, A2. So this is what it sounds like. "Hi there, my name is… Way too loud. It's very cool, and I love the image.

"…as well as that I'll set assignments… You might not love it, but that's okay. What we first want to do is-- I'm going to drag this a little bit bigger so I can see it. I want to lower it, get it to be, to match my audio. So I'm going to probably start off being low, and just drag it as it plays. "You and me are going to learn how to become a User eXperience Designer, using the software Adobe XD." "Together we'll use this UI/UX software to create…

So just dragging that line up and down to get it where I feel right. Remember, it's always louder than you think it is, but that's what I've decided. Now I need two copies of this, so we can blend them. Copying and pasting is a bit weird, we cover this. So if I go copy and I paste it, it will just put it there, you're like, "Why did you go in there?" Copying and pasting is weird. Probably the easiest way to get around it is to select it. So I'm to going to copy it. That's 'Command C' on a Mac, 'Ctrl C' on a PC. Just move your Playhead down to the end here and hit 'Paste'. At least it just doesn't cover anything. 

You can just drag it on afterwards where you need it to be. That's the cheat way, let's do it properly, officially. To get used to it, the official way is to say, I'm going to copy you, then I'm going to turn that one off, that one off. I want to go to the Audio Track 3. "…where I want to go." It's going to land wherever your Playhead is, but if I hit 'Paste' now, can you see, you forced it to go to there. Do I ever do that? I don't. I'll show you the exact way I do it. 

So a little shortcut is, if you select it, and if you start dragging, and then look down at your keyboard, I want you to hold down the 'Option' key if you're on a Mac, or the 'Alt' key if you're on a PC. It will just drag out another copy as you're dragging, just drag it down to the A3. I'm going to line-- I'm going to make it a little bit bigger again so I can see it. I want to drag this roughly to the end, because I want it to kind of…

"…upside down, so I wear it lots." I want to kind of end, maybe the little beeps and bops, where it fades out. Cool. So now this is where the hackery comes in. So I'm going to put my Playhead in about here, zoom in, it zooms in to wherever your Playhead is. I'm probably going to go full screen. Remember what the keyboard shortcut to full screen is? Tilde. I'm going to go real big on these, because I need to do some real big adjustments. What we're looking for is the peaks and troughs. We're looking to match them up. It's not particularly scientific. Let's have a listen to them now. "…way through step by step." 

Can you see, they're way off. I'm looking for a group of them that are quite similar. Even though I'm probably going to only overlap this bit, I'm going to keep zooming in, and I'm just looking, see this tower here, I'm going to move it along. You'll notice, dragging, it's a bit of a pain, especially when in the zoom. Oh, nailed it. Remember the shortcut for just nudging it? So have it selected, hold down 'Command' key on a Mac, 'Ctrl' key on a PC, and just use your left and right arrows, you have to have a clip selected. Just try and get it in there close enough, and have a listen. 

"You don't even need to know what those terms mean." So because there's a consistent rhythm through it, it's going to be really hard with-- say it was just vocals, but because this is computer generated there's a really clear beats per minute, that you can kind of match up, that's what I've done. You're going to have to spend a bit more time probably messing around with yours, because I've done this heck loads, I'd like to match those little peaks up. 

Now what we want to do is, probably tuck this in about there. I don't want to match this end bit because it's quite distinctive, the little beeps and boops, so I want to go about there. And how much overlap? We'll just practice. So I'm going to dip this one out as this one comes in. We could use Audio Transitions, that works fine, let's do both of them because we want to practice. Really hard to see, but let's go to my 'Effects', which are now up here, and we go to 'Audio Transitions', I'm going to click everything but that. Let's dump in that one there, at the end of the clip, that one there at the end of the clip, I'm going to extend them out, so that one's fading that way. This one is fading this way, let's have a little listen. Let's see if we can match it. 

"…UI or UX, you don't even need to know what those terms mean yet." "We're going to start right at the beginning, and work our way through step-by-step." I can notice it but what I do is I-- this is weird. I drag mine back to random. I'm closing my eyes right now, hit 'Space', then I try and listen for it, because if you're visually watching it, it's really easy to notice the beats change, or get a little bit squirly, but I find-- that's my trick anyway. Drag it back here randomly, I'm closing my eyes. Hit 'Space', and then I have no idea when it's really coming. Random. 

Anyway, so you can do that, I'll show you the other way, of cross fading it, just to practice, let's get both practices going. You can hold down the shortcut key to add a little keyframe on here. Remember what it was? You do, because we've done it a few times now. It's 'Command' on a Mac, 'Ctrl' on a PC. I'm going to click one at that end, one at that end. Do the same here, click once, click once, drag it down. We're doing the exact same thing. 

"…UI or UX, you don't even need to know what those terms mean yet." "Going to start right at the beginning and work our way through stepwise." Not very scientific, I apologize to Dan Mills who produced that track, but that's how-- a nice quick and easy way to kind of extend your music. We learned a few little shortcuts though, remember, holding 'Alt' while you're dragging it, or 'Option' on a Mac will duplicate it. We've kind of reiterated that nudge one, that's quite handy, that you'll forget. Hold down 'Command' on a Mac, 'Ctrl' on a PC, have a clip selected and just use your left and right arrows, tap it along. On to the next video.