Cut on the beat
- Detect beats with an onset/beat tracker (e.g. librosa
beat_track) on the full mix. Note the BPM and the time of the first downbeat. - Build a grid. Beat k is at
t0 + k × 60 / BPM. Bars are every 4 beats. - Snap cuts. Every shot start goes to the nearest beat; section changes go to downbeats (bar starts).
- Pace by section. Verses: cut every 2 bars. Pre-chorus: every bar. Chorus: every 2 beats. Drops: hit the first downbeat with the biggest shot.
- Land the action. If a shot's action peak (arrow release, door slam) misses a beat by less than 0.3 s, retime the clip between 0.7× and 1.25× so the peak lands.
- Captions on beats too. Big words appear on the beat they are sung, not before.
Our free in-browser Beat Cutter does steps 1–3 for any song: nightshift.fans/#tools