Insert audio or music

Add the background music track we approved to the three overview slides: start the track at slide 2 and have it fade out by the end of slide 4. Lower the track volume so speech is +12 dB louder than the music, set the music to play across slides and not restart when someone clicks, and verify volume levels by playing slides 2–4 together. Send back the final file to me by Thursday 4 p.m.

Before I hand this to the client, make the music unobtrusive: place the licensed ambient track to run from slide 2 through slide 5, duck the music by 15 dB during any slide that has speaker notes text to be read aloud, and add a 1.5-second fade at start and end. Flag any timing overlaps with embedded videos that might restart the music.

I dropped the ambient track into the deck to play across slides 2–5 but on slides with recorded narration it competes and obscures words. The presenter (Olivia) and the client will notice. What’s the quickest reliable fix so spoken parts are always intelligible, and how do I test that across different playback systems before sending to Olivia?

Across several proposals clients and speakers have complained that background music makes narration hard to hear or feels amateurish. I lose credibility and rework time. What consistent rules should I adopt for when to use music, volume targets relative to speech, and a checklist to prevent these mistakes going forward?