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Why is it that some people can accept - even like - music behind a voice that tells something?

I strongly dislike it. It makes it harder to listen to the voice.

Am I the only one?

should add option to turn off background music

Not at all, I feel the same. In fact, last time I had that reaction was yesterday, listening to an audiobook which was employing the same dubious technique.

No, it's pretty annoying really; I don't know why people do that. I don't like it on youtube/podcasts either. It adds nothing at all at best and distracts at worst.

Totally agree.

There used to be a commercial that would play on Canadian TV stations. It showed the view of a river, once with calm and tranquil sounds and then played again with ominous sounds like from a horror movie. When you are presented the river with tranquil sounds, you are happy and calm. When you are presented the river with eerie sounds, you dislike it. The message at the end of the video was to inform Canadians to think more critically about the media they consume, and to question if they are being led down a forced narrative rather than being given facts to question for themselves.

When I see modern day Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc, almost all of the videos are backed by music which is trying to bias the user. It makes me uncomfortable.

+1

Thanks for the feedback, looks like you're not the only one. Personally I enjoy it, but I can understand that some might find it distracting.

I just need to figure out a way to implement a toggle for the music, while also playing nicely with the playback speed etc.

No, you are not the only one, background music is pretty common though.

Often the background music is just too loud compared to the voice. Professional productions use a technique called ducking, where the music is dynamically made quiet in relation to the volume of the voice.

Personally, I prefer no background music at all, and I wonder if there is a case to made for the professionally balanced case?

I enjoy it as well. Makes it easier to listen for me, voice alone is droning.

It causes sensory overload for me, I abhor it.

the music is more distracting at higher speeds for me and i usually listen at 1.5x when walking or at the gym. you could have the music be a separate audio track where the playback speed doesnt impact it and the toggle plays it simultaneously with the vocal track or not.

The issue is that the voice track will be shorter than the music track if you speed it up. So you'll have the music playing until the end, but the voice track ending before that. It's definitely possible, just a bit more complex to implement. Maybe when I have the feature to mute the music, I can just mute the music when the speed is changed?