Sound design · reference reel · landscape 16:9
How to add sound effects to a motion graphics video
Sound design in motion graphics follows one rule: every visual mutation gets exactly one sound, and nothing gets a sound for atmosphere alone. Ticks for type and small state changes, pops for elements entering, one heavier hit reserved for the single most important moment. baz ships the Sound Effects Skill as a reference reel that demonstrates each named effect against the exact visual trigger it belongs to — use it as the sound-design reference for any reel you build.
The shortcut: run a skill instead of starting from scratch
A skill is a context file that teaches an AI agent one specific video style — its structure, pacing, typography, motion grammar and sound design. Hand an agent the skill plus your product, and it rebuilds that video for you. The steps below are what the Sound Effects Skill skill already encodes, so you can follow them by hand or let the skill carry them.
baz is a library of video skills: context files that teach an AI agent a specific motion-graphics style, so it can rebuild that video for your product, with your brand, from your inputs. Run a skill inside your own coding agent — Claude Code, Codex — or directly in the baz editor.
What you need before you start
Required
- The sound effects library manifest — the named effects available to place
Makes it materially better
- A finished visual cut, since sound is placed against mutations that already exist
- A list of the moments you consider most important, so the heavy hits go in the right places
How to add sound effects to a motion graphics video: step by step
Sound the picture, never the timeline
Place effects against what changes on screen, not at regular intervals. If nothing mutates, nothing sounds. This single principle is what separates designed sound from a bed of noise.
One mutation, one sound
Each visual change gets exactly one effect. Two sounds on one event muddies both and makes the moment read as an accident rather than a hit.
Use ticks for type and small state changes
Word-by-word reveals, counters, small toggles — dry ticks. They are quiet enough to place densely without fatiguing the listener, which matters in a format where things change several times a second.
Use pops for elements arriving
Cards, chips, logos and panels entering the frame get a bubble pop. The distinction between tick and pop is what lets the ear tell "something changed" from "something arrived" without looking.
Reserve exactly one heavy hit
One boom, thock or subdrop per video, on the single most important moment. Used once it makes that beat feel inevitable; used four times it means nothing and the video sounds like a trailer parody.
Check it against the reference reel
The showcase pairs each named effect with its canonical visual trigger and the rule for using it. When you are unsure which effect a moment wants, find the equivalent trigger in the reel rather than guessing.
What the finished video actually contains
Approximate timings for a ~57 seconds (the reference reel) cut. Treat them as a shape to hit, not a spec — the exact durations shift with your script and your music.
| Time | Beat | What is on screen |
|---|---|---|
| Throughout | Effect and trigger pairs | Each named effect demonstrated against the exact visual moment it fires on, with its usage rule on screen. |
| Structure | Single continuous scene | One scene, one pre-mixed bed — the reel is a reference document, not a narrative. |
Mistakes that cost you the view
Sound placed on a rhythm rather than on events
Do this instead: Slave every effect to a visual mutation. Regularly spaced sound over irregular visuals feels subtly wrong throughout.
Stacking two effects on one event
Do this instead: One sound per mutation. Layered hits on a single moment blur the attack and lose the crispness that makes the technique work.
Multiple heavy hits
Do this instead: Exactly one per video. The heavy hit is a currency — spending it repeatedly devalues every use.
Whooshes and risers between every scene
Do this instead: Cut clean. Transition sweeteners are the default sound of generic motion graphics; their absence is what makes a cut feel confident.
Mixing sound before the picture is locked
Do this instead: Finish the cut first. Every re-time invalidates every placement, and sound is the cheapest thing to redo last.
Run it from your own agent
Skills are designed to run inside a terminal agent like Claude Code or Codex, against a project you control. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
npm install -g bazaar.it@latest
# Install this skill into your agent (Claude Code, Codex or Cursor)
baz skill add sfx-grammar-showcase
baz project create --name "Sound Effects Skill for my product"
baz prompt "add sound effects to a motion graphics video" --stream-json
baz review --summary --json
baz export start --wait --format mp4 --jsonOperations draw from a prepaid balance. See the CLI reference for the full command set.
Common questions
How many sound effects is too many?
There is no fixed ceiling — dense formats fire several per second and sound correct, because each one is attached to something the eye is already seeing. The question is never the count, it is whether each effect has a visual event under it.
Do I still need music?
Usually, but quieter than you think. In effect-dense formats the music is a bed for mood and the effects carry the rhythm. In beat-cut formats the music leads and the effects accent. Decide which one you are making before you mix.
Do I need video editing experience?
No. The skill carries the editing decisions — shot order, pacing, type treatment, transitions, sound design. You supply the raw material and the facts about your product; the agent assembles the cut. You review it and ask for changes in plain language.
Can I run this in my own coding agent instead of the baz editor?
Yes. Skills are designed to be run from a terminal agent like Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Install the CLI with `npm install -g bazaar.it@latest`, then `baz skill add <slug>` to pull the skill into your agent. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
What does it cost?
baz bills against a prepaid dollar balance rather than a seat subscription — you top the balance up and each operation (generation, voiceover, render, export) draws a listed amount from it. There is no per-seat fee to make a video, and the price of each operation is published.
Can I change the video after it renders?
Yes, and this is the point of doing it as code rather than as a flat render. Every scene is a real component you can edit — ask the agent to re-time a beat, swap a screenshot, rewrite a line, or change the accent colour, and only that part rebuilds. You are not re-rendering from scratch each time.
Will every video from this skill look the same?
The grammar is the same — that is what makes it a skill and not a template. The content is not: your brand colours, typography, screenshots, copy and data all come from your inputs. Reusing one skill across a series is a feature, because episode three lands in the same visual language as episode one instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
Related guides
Pick a skill. Get the video.
Run the Sound Effects Skill skill in your own coding agent, or in the baz editor. Usage comes out of a balance you top up, with a listed price per operation — no seat subscription to make a video.