A music bed is music that continues under several cues, such as background music under a series of slides, or music in the half hour before the start. It has its own column in the list, Music. A music bed is not a cue and never goes on air by itself, because it belongs to a section of the list.
How a music bed works
A music bed has no picture, and you do not arm or start it. It starts when the playout reaches a cue in its range, and it fades out and stops when the playout leaves that range.
The picture and the music are therefore independent, so you can cut between six slides while one piece of music continues.
Adding a music bed
Select the cues that the music must cover. Then right-click in the Music column, not on the title, choose Add music bed over N cues… and select an audio file.
The music bed appears as a bar in the Music column, across the selected lines. To change its range, drag the top or bottom edge of the bar. The edges also stop on the steps inside a cue, such as the lines of a song, so the music can start on the first lines or stop before a cue ends. The bar is drawn beside the labels in the Overlay column, so you can see on which step it starts and stops.
Settings
Right-click the bar to see its settings:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Repeat | On, the music starts again when the block lasts longer than the music. Off, the music plays once, and the rest of the block has no music. |
| Volume | The volume of the music bed, from 0 to 100 %, independent of the cues. |
| Remove music bed | Removes the music bed. The cues do not change. |
Like a cue, a music bed has an automatic loudness correction, so a music bed at 100 % is as loud as any other file at 100 %. See part 7.
What it is attached to
A music bed is attached to cues, not to row numbers. When you add, move or delete a line inside the block, the music bed still runs from the same first cue to the same last cue.
If you delete the first or last cue of the range, the music bed becomes shorter, and if you delete the whole range, the music bed is removed as well.
Fading out
You set the fade-out time once, under Settings → Cue list, and it applies to every music bed. About one second sounds intentional, while an immediate cut sounds like a fault and four seconds sounds slow.
When not to use a music bed
A music bed is meant for background music that starts without drawing attention. If the sound must start and stop at an exact moment, or if you want to see it in the countdown and on the timeline, use a normal media cue instead.