Free hold music
Setup guide

How to add hold music to Asterisk / FreePBX

4 steps · about 5 min

The steps

  1. 1In FreePBX, click Settings → Music on Hold.
  2. 2Click Add Music Category (top right), name it, and submit to save.
  3. 3Open the category, click Choose File, and select your 8 kHz WAV.
  4. 4Click Upload. (If you upload an MP3, wait for the page to finish — FreePBX transcodes it to WAV.)
Format gotcha

“Phone audio is µ-law, so a µ-law WAV must be right” is false here — Asterisk's WAV reader only accepts signed-linear PCM, 16-bit, mono, 8 kHz, and silently skips anything else. Use the “WAV · 8 kHz” (PCM) download, not the µ-law one.

Or skip the hold entirely

Hold music makes waiting nicer. It doesn't answer the call. Lobby does — a warm AI receptionist that picks up 24/7, in English and Spanish, so callers never wait on hold in the first place.

Hear Lobby answer a call

Menu paths verified July 2026.

How to add hold music to Asterisk / FreePBX | Lobby