User Manual

1. Introduction

Music Video Wizard edits music videos for you. It detects the beats in your song, divides the song into beat-length segments, and places a video clip in each one. It can also add effects and render the finished video.

Everything the app generates can be changed afterwards. You can adjust each clip, effect, color grade and transition.

Music Video Wizard runs on Mac and Windows, and editing is free. The only paid feature is generating AI clips (see Generating AI Clips).

Mac and Windows keys: This manual writes shortcuts the Mac way. On Windows, press Ctrl wherever it says Cmd.

1.1 The Basic Workflow

Step	What you do
1. Load a song	Import the audio track you are making a video for.
2. Load clips	Add the footage you want to use.
3. Shuffle	The app builds a beat-synced edit automatically.
4. Preview	Review the edit and fine-tune anything you like.
5. Render	Export the finished video.

1.2 Working Without Shuffle

You don't have to use Shuffle. You can also put one long clip on the timeline and use ✂ Slice to cut it to the beat. This works well for a single continuous take. For details, see Cutting to the Beat Manually.

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2. Getting Started

2.1 Installing the App

Download Music Video Wizard from musicvideowizard.com/download.

• Mac: Open the downloaded .dmg file and drag Music Video Wizard into your Applications folder. There are separate downloads for Apple Silicon (M1 and later) and Intel Macs.
• Windows: Run the downloaded installer. Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" message, because the app isn't yet signed with a Windows certificate. Click More info → Run anyway to install it.

The first time you open the app, a short guide walks you through the basic steps: Load Audio, Load Clips, the Clip Pool and Shuffle. After that, the app updates itself (see Updates).

2.2 Loading a Song

Click Load Audio in the toolbar and choose an audio file, such as an MP3, WAV or FLAC file. The app then detects the song's beats, tempo (BPM) and energy levels, which takes a few seconds. The waveform appears on the timeline when this is done.

2.3 Loading Clips

Click Load Clips and select one or more video files. For each clip, the app reads a thumbnail, a motion score, the average color and the duration. It saves these results so the same clips load faster next time. Your clips appear in the Clip Pool panel.

2.4 Generating Your First Edit

Click Shuffle in the toolbar. For more options, click the ▼ arrow next to it. The app divides the song into beat-length segments and assigns a clip from your Clip Pool to each one. When it's done, the timeline fills with colored blocks. Each block is one segment of the edit.

Tip: For a fast, random result with every effect at full strength, click ⚡ Chaos in the Shuffle popover. Chaos also adds datamosh, pattern overlays and a random Vibe Filter. It turns on random sorting and full-strength effects, speeds and transitions in your Shuffle settings, and leaves your other settings as they were.

2.5 Previewing Your Edit

Click Preview in the toolbar to open the preview panel. It has two tabs:

• LIVE plays a live preview of your edit, including overlays.
• RENDERED plays your rendered video file. The panel switches to this tab by itself when a render finishes.

Note: The live preview shows an approximation of color grades, most per-segment effects, overlays, and the Ghost effect. Datamosh is the only effect it can't show. Datamosh appears only in a rendered video, and the preview shows a badge where it will be applied.

Ghost works a little differently: it reacts to the music in the preview but is rendered at a fixed strength.

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3. The Timeline

The timeline is the main part of the app. The waveform and beat grid run across the top, with your video segments below them. Under the segments are the SONG STRUCTURE lane, the CUTS lane and any overlay tracks. A time ruler runs along the bottom.

3.1 Waveform and Zoom

The song's waveform runs across the top of the timeline.

• Beat markers are thin red vertical lines. Every eighth beat has a bolder line, to mark the start of a musical phrase.
• Zoom: Click the − and + buttons beside the zoom percentage at the top right of the timeline, pinch on a trackpad, or hold Cmd and scroll.
• Playhead: Click anywhere on the waveform to move the playhead to that point, or drag the playhead itself. If you click or drag close to a beat marker, the playhead snaps onto the beat. Hold Shift to place it freely.
• Track height: Use the − and + controls next to the pixel readout to make the clip rows taller or shorter.

3.2 Segments

Each colored block in the clip track is one segment.

• The block's color matches the clip's main color.
• A thin bar along the bottom shows how much motion the clip has.
• A bar along the top shows how strong its effects are.

Selecting segments

• Click a segment to select it.
• Cmd+click to add more segments to the selection.
• Drag across empty track space to draw a selection box around several segments. If you drag the box to the edge of the view, the timeline scrolls so you can reach segments that are off screen.

Right-click a segment to open its context menu. From there you can copy, cut or duplicate it, re-shuffle it, change its speed or transition, reverse it, freeze it, lock it, merge, split or extend it, fill a gap, swap the clip, align its start, delete it, or reset it.

3.3 How Editing Works

Each clip on the timeline has a fixed start time and length. Gaps are allowed, and clips never move unless you move them. These four rules describe how every edit works:

Rule 1: Deleting a clip leaves a gap. Nothing slides over to fill the space. To close it, right-click and choose Fill with main clip, or drag another clip into the gap.

Rule 2: A dragged clip can go anywhere, and lands exactly where you drop it. While you drag, a dashed outline shows where the clip will land, and you can move it as far along the timeline as you like. Clips you pass over on the way are not affected. When you let go, the clip you dragged keeps its length, and any clip it lands on, on either row, loses the part you covered:

• If you cover it completely, it's removed.
• If you drop onto its middle, it splits into two.
• Otherwise it keeps its far edge and becomes shorter.

Rule 3: Dragging an edge extends the clip under its neighbors. While you hold the mouse button down, the clip extends under the clip next to it, and a dashed outline shows how far it reaches. When you release the button, the parts of other clips inside that outline are removed. Neighboring clips are never pushed along the timeline.

Rule 4: A resize can shorten only one clip. Dragging an edge can shorten the next clip, or remove it entirely, but it stops there and doesn't affect the clip after that. The same limit applies when you drop a clip from the Clip Pool. To clear several clips, delete them or repeat the edit.

Locked clips are never moved or cut. If you try to drop a clip on top of a locked clip, the outline turns red and names the locked clip, and nothing changes when you let go.

Snapping

While you drag, clips snap to the nearest beat marker or to the edge of any other clip, on either row. Snapping to clip edges is useful after you've resized clips by hand, because it lets you line a clip up exactly against a neighbor that is no longer on the beat grid.

Hold Shift while dragging to turn snapping off.

Cut, copy and paste

Select one or more segments and press Cmd+C to copy, Cmd+X to cut or Cmd+D to duplicate. Cutting leaves a gap, just like deleting.

Press Cmd+V to paste at the playhead. The pasted clips go next to the clip under the playhead, on whichever side the playhead is closer to: after the clip if the playhead is in its second half, before it if the playhead is in its first half. If the playhead is in a gap, they go before the next clip. You can also right-click empty track space and choose Paste here.

Main and B-Roll rows

Main and B-Roll clips appear on two separate rows, but they play as one video. Only one clip is on screen at a time, and the rows are there to keep your clips organized. As a result, an edit on one row can shorten a clip on the other row.

3.4 Adjusting Beat Markers

Beat markers can be dragged. Drag one left or right to lengthen the segment on one side and shorten the segment on the other. Use this to line a cut up with a particular moment in the music instead of the regular beat.

After you edit beat markers, a Reset Beats button appears in the toolbar. Click it to move every marker back to its original position.

3.5 The Structure Track

The SONG STRUCTURE lane sits just below the Main and B-Roll rows. Use it to mark the sections of your song.

• Add a section: Click and drag along the lane. A picker opens with a button for each section type: Intro, Verse, Pre-chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, Breakdown and Outro. Each type has its own color.
• Change a label: Click a section to open the picker again.
• Delete a section: Right-click it.

Shuffle treats each section differently. Chorus sections get heavier effects and transitions, and Intro and Outro sections get clean cuts. With Section Pacing on (it's on by default), Shuffle also cuts faster in the chorus and slower in the intro, breakdown and outro. See Other Shuffle Options.

3.6 Cutting to the Beat Manually

Control	What it does
Cut every N beats	Sets how many beats apart the cuts are.
✂ Slice	Cuts the timeline at that spacing.
Jitter	Varies the spacing slightly so the cuts sound less mechanical.
◀ Chop / Chop ▶	Makes a single cut at the nearest beat or half-beat just before (◀) or after (▶) the playhead, and adds a beat marker there.
S key	Splits the clip under the playhead, exactly at the playhead.

Use these controls when you have one long take instead of many short clips. Put the take on the timeline, slice it to the beat, and then rearrange the pieces.

3.7 The CUTS Lane and Transitions

The thin CUTS lane below the clips has a colored dot on every cut. Click a dot to choose the transition for that cut.

Menu group	Transitions
(top of the menu)	No Transition (a straight cut), Dip to Black, Dip to White
Blend	Dissolve, Fade Through Grey, Blur Dissolve, Ripple
Motion	Zoom In, Zoom Out, Radial, Spiral
Wipe	Left, Right, Up, Down, Soft Wipe, Diagonal Wipe, Blinds, Wave Wipe
Shape	Circle Open, Circle Close, Barn Door, Split, Iris, Box, Diamond, Heart, Checkerboard
Slide	Left, Right, Up, Down, Squeeze, Cover, Reveal
Glitch	Pixelize, Slices, Wind, Glitch

• Spin direction: Radial and Spiral also have a SPIN row. Choose ↻ for clockwise or ↺ for counterclockwise.
• Duration: The FRAMES slider sets how long the transition lasts.

Removing a cut

Remove beat chop, at the bottom of the menu, deletes the cut itself:

• If the same clip is on both sides of the cut, it plays straight through, as if it had never been cut.
• If the two clips are different, the left clip continues through that point and the right clip is removed.

The red beat marker stays where it is, because Shuffle and snapping both use the beat grid.

3.8 Song Fade In and Fade Out

There are small tabs at the far left (▶ in) and far right (◀ out) of the waveform. They set the song's fade-in and fade-out.

• Drag a tab inward to set the length of the fade.
• Double-click a tab to remove the fade.

Each clip also has its own audio fades. See Audio.

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4. The Clip Pool

Click Pool in the toolbar to open the Clip Pool. It shows every clip you've loaded and lets you control how each one is used.

4.1 Including and Excluding Clips

Clips you've loaded appear here automatically.

• Exclude a clip: Click its card. Excluded clips are dimmed, marked with a ✕, and left out when you shuffle. Click the card again to include the clip.
• Excluded count: When clips are excluded, the toolbar button shows how many, for example Pool (−3).
• Delete a clip: Use the delete control on its card to remove it from the project entirely. If the clip is used on the timeline, its segments are deleted too, and the app asks you to confirm first.

4.2 Placing a Clip by Hand

Drag a clip card onto the timeline to place it yourself. The clip goes on the row under your cursor:

• Dropped onto a clip on that row: The new clip replaces the old one and takes its exact position and length.
• Dropped into empty space: The clip is placed at its full length, or up to the next clip, locked clip or end of the song if that comes first. Anything it covers on the other row is shortened.

As with resizing an edge, one drop can shorten only one clip.

4.3 Clip Roles

Each clip card has a Role row:

Role	Use it for
Any	Clips that can appear anywhere in the edit.
Main	Your primary footage, such as a performance or close-ups of the artist. Main clips play in order and stay matched to their position in the song, so the performance stays in sync with the music.
B-Roll	Extra footage that plays between Main clips. The B-Roll slider in the Shuffle popover controls how much of it appears.
PIP	Footage used only for picture-in-picture. Shuffle leaves PIP clips out of the main edit and uses them first when it adds PIP. See PIP Shuffle.

When you set any clip to Main or B-Roll, the timeline splits into two rows.

4.4 Clip Moods

Give each clip a mood to tell Shuffle where to use it:

Mood	Color	Best for
Energy	Red	High-energy beats and drops
Bright	Yellow	Upbeat, happy sections
Moody	Purple	Mid-energy, atmospheric sections
Calm	Teal	Quiet, gentle sections
Dark	Muted purple	Dark, heavy sections
· (Neutral)	Grey	Anywhere (no preference)

Mood matching happens automatically whenever any clip has a mood. High-energy beats get Energy and Bright clips, mid-energy beats get Moody and Neutral clips, and quiet beats get Calm and Dark clips. Shuffle swaps a clip only when a better-matching one is available.

4.5 Clip Placement

The When row limits a clip to certain parts of the song: Intro, Mid or Outro.

• When all three are highlighted, the clip can appear anywhere.
• Click a part to restrict the clip to it.
• Clicking the last highlighted part removes the restriction.

4.6 Align Start

Align Start trims the start of a clip so that a chosen moment in it lands exactly at the start of its segment. Use it to line up a lyric or a hit. Nothing else on the timeline moves.

4.7 Rotation

If a clip appears sideways, use its rotation control. A clip that looks right in the Clip Pool also looks right in the rendered video.

4.8 Generating AI Clips

If you don't have the footage you need, you can generate a clip from a text description. Click + Layer ▾ → ✦ Generate Clip, type a prompt, choose a model and a length, and click generate. The finished clip is downloaded to your computer and added to the Clip Pool like any other clip.

AI clips use tokens. You need to be signed in to generate a clip. Your balance is shown in the toolbar (⬡). Click it to buy more tokens; payment opens in your web browser. Tokens never expire, and editing never uses tokens.

Model	Best for	5 s clip	10 s clip
Quick (MiniMax H3 Max Turbo)	Fast, low-cost b-roll, abstract textures and effects	10 tokens	20 tokens
Standard (Kling 2.6 Pro)	Realistic scenes and fluid motion	18 tokens	35 tokens
Cinematic (Kling 3.0 Pro)	Action, performance and camera moves	28 tokens	56 tokens
Premium (Google Gemini Omni Flash)	The sharpest, most detailed 1080p clips	40 tokens	80 tokens

The Generate window always shows the current price before you generate, and you're never charged more than the price it shows.

Token pack	Price
Starter, 100 tokens	$5
Creator, 300 tokens	$12
Pro, 1,000 tokens	$35

If a generation fails, its tokens go back into your balance automatically, even if you've closed the app. The same happens if a clip doesn't finish within 2 hours. Tokens for a clip that was delivered aren't returned.

Europe and the UK: Tokens can't currently be bought from the EU or the UK. Buying there may become available in the future. Everything else in Music Video Wizard is free to use.

Limits. To keep the service fair and protect it from abuse, each account can have 2 clips generating at once, and generate up to 10 clips an hour and 40 a day (10 on the first day after your first purchase). Failed clips don't count. If you reach a limit, the Generate window tells you how long to wait.

Paying. All token purchases are final and non-refundable, and the Buy Tokens window asks you to tick a box confirming that before you can buy. Your bank may ask you to confirm a purchase (for example with a code or in your banking app). That check protects you if your card is ever used by someone else.

Disputes. In the rare case that a token purchase is refunded, the tokens from it are taken back, even if some were already spent, so your balance can go below zero. You can't generate clips until it's above the clip's price again. If a payment is disputed with your bank or reported as fraud, the tokens are taken back and the account is suspended. To protect against fraud, the app also sends a scrambled ID for your computer when you sign in, buy tokens or generate a clip (see the Privacy Policy). If you think your account was suspended by mistake, email support.

Receipts

Every token purchase, AI clip, refund and reversal (a purchase taken back after a refund or dispute) gets a receipt with its own number (for example MVW-20261001-000012). To see them, click your account button (the circle with your initial) and choose 🧾 Receipts…. Select a receipt to see its details, including the tokens, your balance afterwards, the amount paid for a purchase, and which receipt a refund belongs to. Click Save as PDF… to keep a copy. If you need help with a charge, quote the receipt number.

When you buy tokens, the app also saves the purchase receipt as a PDF in Documents/Music Video Wizard/Receipts and shows a green bar with a Show in Folder button. Stripe also emails you its own payment receipt.

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5. Shuffle

Click the ▼ arrow next to Shuffle to open Shuffle Options. These settings apply the next time you shuffle.

5.1 How Often It Cuts

The cut rate isn't in the popover. It's the Cut every N beats box in the toolbar, together with the Jitter slider (see Cutting to the Beat Manually). The smaller the number, the faster the cuts.

Effect rate, in the popover, sets how often speeds, transitions and datamosh change from one segment to the next. It doesn't change how often the clips cut.

5.2 Effects

Turn on Effects to have Shuffle add effects based on the energy of each beat.

• The chips below the checkbox turn each effect on or off: Zoom, Flash, Glitch, Grain, Vign, Scan, Blur, Shake, Pixel, Invert, Mirror, Kaleid, Sweep, Hue, Mono, Sepia, Fade, Poster, Solar, Bars, Vivid, Warm, Cool, Cine, Night, Ink, Emboss, Duo, Bleach, Punch, Sharpen, Swap, Xpro and Thermal. Sweep and the 21 after it are off by default, because each one restyles a whole clip. If both Warm and Cool are on, each clip gets one or the other, never both.
• Inten sets the maximum strength of the effects.

5.3 Other Shuffle Options

Option	What it does
Speeds	Gives some segments a different playback speed. Density sets how many, and the chips (¼× to 3×) choose which speeds can be used.
Transitions	Adds transitions at some cuts. Density sets how many, and the chips choose which types can be used: Dissolve, Dip Black, Dip White, Wipe (including Blinds and Wave Wipe), Slide (including Squeeze, Cover and Reveal), Zoom, Radial (including Spiral), Pixelize (including Checkerboard), Shapes (circles, barn door, diagonal, split, iris, box and diamond), Soft (fade through grey, blur dissolve and ripple), Streaks (slices, wind and glitch) and Heart. Heart is off until you click it. Every other transition in the CUTS lane menu can be picked.
Pattern Overlay	Adds animated pattern overlays to some segments. Density sets how many, and the chips choose which patterns can be used. Leave the color on random for a different color on each pattern, or choose one hue for all of them.
Section Pacing	When you've marked song sections, cuts come faster in the chorus and slower in the intro, breakdown and outro. On by default.
Sort	How clips are ordered: Random, Color (by hue), pHash (each cut goes to the clip that looks most like the last one) or Motion (high-energy beats get high-motion clips).
B-Roll	How much of the edit uses B-Roll clips. It appears only after you set a clip's role.
Modulate	Up to three modulators that change effect settings over the course of the song. Sections sets how strongly each kind of song section you've marked is affected.

5.4 Datamosh

Turn on Datamosh to add glitch-art distortion at the cuts. It recreates the look of datamoshing with video filters rather than actually corrupting your video file. There are five styles:

Style	Effect
Bleed	Bright pixels from the previous frame linger, and the color channels shift out of line.
Smear	A long motion smear with a color shift across the cut.
Stutter	A dark flash with a short burst of blocky distortion.
Dissolve	The frames blend into each other across the cut.
Fractal	Kaleidoscope-style mirrored tiles with changing colors.

Inten (1–5) sets the strongest the effect can be, and Density sets how many cuts get it. The style chips choose which styles can be used.

5.5 Auto Drop Detection

Turn on Auto Drop to add a datamosh at every bass drop the app detects. Sens (sensitivity) sets how strong a bass hit has to be to count as a drop. Drag it to the right (a higher percentage) to catch more drops, or to the left to catch only the biggest ones.

5.6 Color Arc

Turn on Color Arc to shift the color of the whole video gradually from one color to another. For the full list of settings, see Color Arc.

5.7 Locking and Re-shuffling

To keep the segments you like, lock them before you shuffle again. Press L, or use the right-click menu. Locked segments have an orange ring. They stay the same when you shuffle, and Shuffle fills in around them.

Shuffle rebuilds the whole timeline (apart from locked segments). To change only part of it, select those segments, right-click one of them and choose Re-shuffle, Re-shuffle (color match) or Re-shuffle (motion match) to give them new clips, or ⚡ Reshuffle effects to give them new effects. Only the selected segments change.

5.8 Saving Your Settings

You can save your Shuffle settings as a Recipe, or export them as a portable .mvlook file. See Recipes and .mvlook Files. ↺ Reset puts every Shuffle setting back to its default.

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6. The Segment Inspector

Select a segment to open the inspector. Changes you make here apply to every selected segment at once, so you can grade or add effects to a whole group in one step.

If a field shows —, the selected segments have different values for it. Changing the field gives them all the same value.

6.1 Effects Panel (⚡)

Slider	What it does
Zoom	Zooms in on the beat (up to about 15%).
Flash	Brightens the image on the beat (up to +8% exposure).
Glitch	Splits the red, green and blue channels apart (up to ±20 px).
Trail	Adds a motion trail by blending up to 8 frames.
Grain	Adds film grain.
Vignette	Darkens the edges of the frame.
Scan	Adds CRT or VHS-style scanlines (up to 60% opacity).
Blur	Blurs the image.
Shake	Shakes the camera (up to ±30 px).
Pixels	Pixelates the image into a mosaic.
Sweep	Moves a colored band of light across the frame, in one of 8 directions.
Ghost	Adds a tape-ghosting effect: the image smears and lingers, and the brightest parts linger longest. In the preview it reacts to the music; the rendered video uses a fixed strength.
Hue	Cycles the colors through the rainbow. Higher is faster, up to one full cycle every 2 seconds. It runs on the song's clock, so the colors flow on smoothly across cuts.
Mono	Turns the image black and white.
Sepia	Gives the image an old-photo brown tone.
Fade	Washes the image out like a faded print, lifting the blacks and lowering contrast.
Poster	Posterizes the image into flat bands of color. Higher means fewer, bolder bands.
Solarize	Flips the brightest tones to their negative, like a darkroom solarize. Higher flips more of the image.
Bars	Adds black cinema bars at the top and bottom. At full strength each bar is 18% of the frame height.
Vivid	Makes colors stronger and richer. At full strength the saturation is doubled.
Warm	Gives a warmer, golden look: more red, less blue.
Cool	Gives a cooler, bluer look: less red, more blue.
Cine	The cinematic teal-and-orange look. Highlights turn orange and shadows turn teal.
Night	Night-vision green. At full strength the image is entirely green and grey.
Ink	Stark black and white, like a photocopy. The slider sets where black turns to white: slide up for more white, down for more black. Dark clips need a higher setting.
Emboss	A raised-relief look that brings out edges. Higher means stronger relief.
Duo	Duotone: shadows turn deep purple and highlights turn gold.
Bleach	Bleach bypass: muted color with harder contrast, a gritty film look.
Punch	More contrast: darker shadows and brighter highlights, with the mid-tones kept.
Sharpen	Crisper edges and detail.
Swap	Red and blue trade places. At full strength reds turn blue and blues turn red.
Xpro	Cross-processed film: punchy reds and blue-tinted shadows.
Thermal	Heat-camera colors, from black through blue, red and yellow to white. Slide up for hotter colors. Dark clips need a higher setting.

Each slider has a caption that explains what its lowest and highest settings do.

Toggles

• Invert reverses the colors.
• Mirror flips the image horizontally, vertically or both.
• Kaleidoscope has 9 modes: four quad mirrors, Left/Right Split, Top/Bottom Split, X Split, Triangle Split and Fractal.

Pattern Overlay

Pattern Overlay lays one of 38 animated patterns over the video: Rings, Grid, Plasma, Spiral, Waves, Cells, Flames, Vines, Triangles, Sine Lines, Checker, Dots, Stripes, Tunnel, Starburst, Ripple, Hexagons, Chevrons, Radar, Bubbles, Scanlines, Blobs, Diamonds, Rain, Twinkle, Warp, Petals, Zebra, Weave, Orbs, Contours, Bricks, Confetti, Whirl, Rosette, Scales, Tiles and Lasers. Each pattern has Hue, Size, Speed and Intensity controls. To turn the pattern off, choose Off or set Intensity to 0.

Three more controls move the pattern away from the center of the frame:

Control	What it does
Dir	Sets the direction the pattern moves (0–359°) by rotating it around the center of the frame. Rotation doesn't change Rings, because they're circles, so use the offsets for Rings instead.
Off X / Off Y	Move the pattern left or right and up or down, as a fraction of the frame. For line patterns such as Triangles and Sine Lines, this moves the line away from the center. For Rings and Spiral, it moves the center point.

Click the ↺ next to a control to reset it to the center or to no rotation.

Modulator

The modulator adjusts Zoom or Brightness continuously as the clip plays.

6.2 Datamosh

Turn on datamosh for the selected segments, then choose a style and an Intensity from 1 to 5.

Duration sets how long the effect lasts after the cut. On Auto, the length depends on the style and intensity you chose. Drag the slider to set your own length, and click Auto to go back to the default.

6.3 Vibe Filters

The Vibe Filter strip applies a complete look in one click: Raw, VHS, Vaporwave, Cinema, Glitch, Lo-fi, Neon, Infrared, Dream and Kinetic. Each one sets both a color grade and effects for the selected segments.

• A vibe stays highlighted when all the selected segments use it. Click it again to turn it off.
• Choosing a different vibe replaces the first one's effects instead of adding to them. Effects you set yourself are kept.

6.4 Audio

Each segment has its own volume, fade in and fade out controls. A fade can be at most half the length of the clip.

6.5 Length and Position

• Extend lengthens the clip towards the full length of its source video. Like dragging an edge, it can shorten at most one following clip, and it stops at a locked clip or the end of the song. You can also double-click a clip's right edge to do the same thing.
• The Length controls grow or shrink the clip to the next or previous beat, or let you type an exact length.
• Align Start lines up a chosen moment in the clip with the start of the segment. See Align Start.

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7. Color Grading

7.1 Grading Segments

Select one or more segments and click Color in the inspector.

Control	What it adjusts
Hue	Color
Sat	Saturation
Bright	Brightness
Con	Contrast

The preview updates as you drag. Click Reset grade to go back to the default grade.

7.2 Color Arc

Color Arc is in the Shuffle popover. When you shuffle, it shifts the color of every segment gradually from one color to another over the length of the video.

Setting	What it does
From / To	The starting and ending colors. The color shifts the shorter way around the color wheel.
Sat	How saturation changes over the video: flat, rise, fall, peak or valley.
Depth	How much the curve affects saturation. It appears when Sat is set to anything other than flat.

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8. Text and Lyric Overlays

8.1 Text Overlays

Click + Layer ▾ → + Text, or press T, to add text at the playhead. To edit a text overlay, click its chip above the timeline. This opens the Overlay Inspector.

Settings you can change

• Text
• Position: drag the dot in the On Screen box to place the text anywhere in the frame
• Font: 29 font families, including a few deliberately silly ones such as Comic Sans, Papyrus and Zapfino
• Size, color, bold and italic
• Opacity, outline width and outline color, and a shadow
• Start and end time. Click ▶ beside a time field to set it to the playhead position.
• Fade in and fade out
• Animation: None, Slide, Wipe or Pulse. Pulse has a speed control that can be matched to the song's tempo.

You can copy and paste text overlays.

Beat React

Beat React animates text to the beat of the song:

Mode	Effect
Scale	The text gets bigger on each beat.
Bounce	The text bounces with the rhythm.
Flash	The text flashes on and off (visible 35% of the time).

8.2 Lyrics

Click + Layer ▾ → ♪ Lyrics and choose how to add lyrics:

Option	How it works
Import .lrc	Loads a standard karaoke (.lrc) file. Each line becomes a timed text overlay.
Auto-Transcribe	Uses speech recognition (Whisper) on your computer to write out the lyrics from your song. The first time you use it, it downloads a speech model of about 140 MB.

Both options show you the lines so you can edit them before they're added.

Lyrics appear on their own purple LYRICS track, separate from text overlays you add yourself, which are blue. Clear Lyrics removes all the lyrics at once.

8.3 Images and Logos

Click + Layer ▾ → + Logo and choose a PNG, JPG or WEBP file. Image overlays have the same position, timing and fade settings as text.

8.4 Extra Audio

• + Layer ▾ → + Track adds another audio file, such as a music bed or sound effects, on its own track with its own volume.
• + Layer ▾ → + VO adds a voiceover track. Turn on ducking on the VO track to lower the music automatically while the voiceover plays.

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9. Picture-in-Picture (PIP)

Picture-in-picture (PIP) shows a second video on top of your edit.

9.1 Adding PIP by Hand

Select a segment, open the PIP tab in the inspector, and set the following:

• Clip: the video to show on top
• Position and size
• Opacity
• Blend mode: Normal, Screen, Add or Multiply
• Feather: softens the edges (0–50%)
• Trim-in: where in the clip to start playing

9.2 PIP Shuffle

To have Shuffle add PIP to some segments automatically, turn on PIP Layer in the Shuffle popover.

Shuffle picks the PIP clips for you. It uses clips with the PIP role if you have any, otherwise clips with the B-Roll role, and otherwise any clip.

Setting	What it does
Density	The percentage of segments that get a PIP.
Size	The largest a PIP can be.
Max Op	The most opaque a PIP can be. It's never more than 50%, so the PIP never covers up the clip underneath.
Blend and Feather	The same settings as for PIP added by hand.

Each PIP added this way is randomly flipped or inverted, starts at a random point in its clip, and appears at a random position on screen.

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10. Hydra Visual Synth

Hydra creates animated abstract visuals. You can use them as clips on their own or apply them as effects on top of your footage.

10.1 Using Hydra

1. Open + Layer ▾ → 〜 Hydra.
2. Choose a mode (Digital, Analog or Clip FX) and a preset, and adjust the settings.
3. Click Bake to Clip Pool to record the visual as a video clip. The button shows the length it will record, which you set with the Duration slider.
4. After baking, you can drag the new clip onto the timeline like any other clip, or use Use as Visual Layer to blend it over your edit (Screen, Add or Multiply).

Clips you bake are saved in the Hydra Library (+ Layer ▾ → ☰ Library), so you can use them again later.

Every preset has at least a Speed slider and a Color setting, and most have more controls.

Note: Hydra needs graphics support (WebGL) that some virtual machines and very old graphics drivers don't have. If your computer can't run it, the preview says so.

10.2 Beat Sync

Turn on Beat Sync to make the visual pulse in time with the song's tempo (BPM). The rate buttons (1/16× to 2×) set how often it pulses, and the React slider sets how strongly it responds: 0 means no response, and 2× means twice the normal response.

Beat Sync follows the tempo, not the sound itself, so the visual keeps pulsing steadily through quiet parts and breaks.

10.3 Digital Presets

These presets create visuals from scratch and don't need a video clip.

Preset	Description
Plasma	Flowing color plasma made from three waves
Feedback	A distortion that feeds back into itself
Kaleid	A kaleidoscope with rotating colors
Rings	Pulsing rings that overlap and interfere
Warp	A scrolling, warped noise pattern
Glitch	Digital glitch patterns
Aurora	Shifting bands of light like the northern lights
Mandala	A rotating geometric mandala
Interfere	A moiré pattern made by two overlapping waves
Domain Warp	Three layers of warped fractal noise
Waveform	Oscilloscope lines that pulse with the bass
Nebula	Layers of drifting, cloud-like noise
Marble	Swirling veins like polished marble
Checker	A checkerboard that scrolls and turns
Stripes	Hard-edged bars at any angle and width
Hex Tiles	A drifting grid of hexagons
Halftone	Printed-style dots that grow and merge in drifting patches
Pixel Rain	Blocky pixels falling like digital rain
Pulse Orb	A glowing orb that swells and shrinks
Vortex	Cells twisted into a whirlpool
Moire	Two sets of rings overlapping into shimmering moiré
Wire Grid	A glowing wireframe grid that bends and warps
Equalizer	Jumping bars like a music equalizer
Polka	Offset rows of drifting polka dots
Crystal	Soft cells folded into a kaleidoscope
Ribbons	Wavy horizontal ribbons
Spotlights	Two soft beams sweeping around the frame
Diamonds	Concentric diamonds flowing out of the center

10.4 Analog Presets

These presets create retro, analog-style visuals.

Preset	Description
VHS Bleed	Bleeding colors that drift sideways
Phosphor	Glowing dots like an old CRT screen
React Diff	Organic patterns that grow like cells
Smear	A slow-moving organic smear
Signal	Flickering signal noise
Lava	Lava lamp blobs
Humidity	Slowly drifting haze
Julia	Fractal patterns inspired by the Julia set
Mag Field	A pulsing magnetic field shape
Lissajous	Oscilloscope figure-eights and knots
Tube Glow	A glowing CRT tube with burned-in patterns
Scope	An oscilloscope trace that leaves a fading glow
Zoom Diff	A shape repeated into an endless tunnel of outlines
Ink Drop	Ink spreading and swirling through water
Embers	Sparks drifting upward with glowing trails
Echo Kaleid	A kaleidoscope that keeps folding the last frame into itself
Static	TV snow with a bright band rolling through it
Ink Blot	A mirrored, Rorschach-style ink blot
Neon	A glowing neon outline that sometimes flickers
Light Pen	A glowing dot drawing loops with a long fading trail
Feedback Spiral	A spinning outline that leaves a spiral of copies
Spirograph	An orbiting outline whose trail draws a rosette
Waterfall	Bands of color pouring down like a spectrogram
Rainbow Trails	A wandering blob whose trail fades through the rainbow
Vertical Hold	A picture rolling up the screen like a TV losing its hold
Curtain	Swaying folds of light, like an aurora
Glitch Blocks	Blocks of broken signal that tear sideways

10.5 Clip FX Presets

These presets add effects on top of a video clip. Put a clip in the Source slot first.

Preset	Description
Melt	Smears the image over time so it looks like it's melting
Mirror	Mirrors the image like a kaleidoscope
Color Shift	Changes the colors, with saturation and brightness controls
Feedback	A zooming feedback loop
Pixelate	Pixel blocks that change size
Luma Warp	Warps the image based on its brightness
Scan Lines	Horizontal CRT scan lines
VHS Ghost	A faint double image that drifts sideways
Datamosh	Pixel distortion that keeps changing
Sidechain	Brightness dips and swells with the beat
Autofocus	Imitates a camcorder searching for focus
Track Error	Bands of interference like a badly tracked VCR tape
Carousel	A burst of flash and warping on each beat
Freq Split	Color fringing, with grain that follows the high frequencies
Cassette	A warm tape tint with sagging, drifting picture and hiss
Mycelium	Glowing threads that trace the edges in the clip
Arc Flash	Branches of lightning that trace the edges in the clip
Lens Pulse	Round zoom areas that pulse in and out, opposite each other
Bloom	Makes bright areas glow
Projector	A film projector look with dark corners and drifting dust
Night Vision	A night-vision tint with extra brightness and grain
Posterize	Reduces the picture to a few flat bands of color
Duotone	High-contrast black and white, tinted with the chosen color
Negative	Inverts the colors; with Beat Sync it flashes negative on each beat
Tile	Repeats the clip in a grid, optionally offset like bricks
Swirl	Twists the middle of the picture into a whirlpool and back
Neon Edges	Dims the clip and outlines its edges in glowing color
Zoom Punch	A quick zoom in that eases back out, on each beat or at a set rate
Wave Warp	Ripples the picture like it's under water
Shake	Handheld camera shake
Prism	Splits red, green and blue apart from the center, like a cheap lens
Stutter	Freezes the picture for part of each beat, then catches up
Light Trails	Bright things leave glowing streaks as they move
Bulge	A fisheye swell in the middle (a negative Amount pinches instead)
Comic Dots	Comic-book halftone dots in the clip's own colors
Drip	Bright areas run downward like wet paint
Hue Cycle	Turns every color around the color wheel; with Beat Sync it jumps on each beat
Iris	A round vignette that opens and closes like a camera iris
Pond	Ripples spreading out from the center like water

The newer Clip FX presets have a Tint slider that sets how much of the chosen color is mixed in. At 0 the clip keeps its own colors.

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11. Rendering

11.1 Rendering a Video

Click Render ▾ in the toolbar to open the render menu, choose your settings, and click ▶ Render. The app asks where to save the video and suggests a file name. If you cancel this, nothing is rendered. A progress bar shows how far along the render is. When it's done, the Preview panel switches to RENDERED and plays the video.

Pausing and cancelling. While a video renders, two small buttons appear next to the progress bar:

• ❚❚ (Pause) stops the render and frees up your computer for other work. The percentage changes to Paused. Click ▶ to carry on from where it stopped.
• ✕ (Cancel) stops the render and deletes the unfinished video, after asking you to confirm. When you're rendering several formats, formats that already finished are kept and the rest are skipped.

Overlaps and gaps: If clips on your timeline overlap or have gaps between them, the app tells you before rendering and offers to fix them. Overlaps are a problem because the app renders segments in time order, so two clips at the same moment throw off the timing of everything after them.

11.2 Render Scope

The FULL / SEL / RNG buttons next to the Render button choose what gets rendered.

Option	What gets rendered
Full	The whole edit
Sel	Only the selected segments
Rng	Only the segments between the in and out points. Set them with I and O.

11.3 Quality

Setting	Resolution	Best for
Draft	720p	Quick checks (fastest)
Standard	1080p	Everyday use (a balance of speed and quality)
Final	1080p	Your finished video (slowest, highest quality)

11.4 Rendering Several Formats at Once

Under Format in the render menu, check any combination of 16:9 (landscape), 9:16 (vertical) and 1:1 (square), then click ▶ Render All. Vertical and square videos are cropped to fill the frame. The app asks for a folder (starting in your song's folder) and renders the formats one after another, each with its own progress bar. Each file name includes its format.

11.5 Hardware Encoding (Mac)

On a Mac, the app can use the Mac's built-in video hardware to render faster. If you have trouble rendering, uncheck Hardware Encode (Apple VideoToolbox) in the render menu to use software encoding instead. The app also switches to software encoding by itself if hardware encoding fails.

11.6 Watermark

Check Add Watermark to put a watermark on your video. Choose MVW logo for the Music Video Wizard logo and name, or My image… to use your own logo. Place it in any of the four corners. The app remembers your own image for next time, but you need to tick Add Watermark and choose the corner each time you open the app.

11.7 Long Projects

Projects with more than 40 segments render in sections that are joined automatically, so progress on a long render moves in stages. You don't need to do anything differently.

After each render, the app checks that the video file isn't damaged and has everything it should. If something is wrong, it warns you, even if the render appeared to finish normally.

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12. Saving Your Work

12.1 Sessions

A session saves your whole project, including:

• The song, beats and song sections
• Segments, effects, color grades and PIP
• Overlays
• Clip roles, placements, rotations and alignments
• Fades

The app saves your session automatically about half a second after you stop making changes.

Click Sessions in the toolbar to Load a session, Rename one (double-click its name), Delete one, or start a new one with + New Session. The + New button in the toolbar also starts a new session.

12.2 Undo and Redo

Press Cmd+Z to undo and Cmd+Shift+Z to redo. You can undo up to 30 steps, including:

• Shuffling and re-shuffling
• Dragging, resizing and deleting clips
• Changes to effects and beat markers
• Changes to overlays and song sections

The toolbar shows how many steps you can undo (↩ N) and redo (↪ N). To go back to a particular point, open the History panel (🕐 History).

12.3 Recipes and .mvlook Files

Recipes save your Shuffle settings, such as beat step, effects, datamosh and color arc, separately from your session. They're stored on your computer.

• Click 💾 Save Recipe and give it a name.
• Click 📂 Load Recipe to use a saved recipe.
• To delete a recipe, click its × and then Sure? to confirm.

.mvlook files hold the same settings in a file you can share with others or keep as a backup.

• ↑ Export .mvlook saves your current settings to a file.
• ↓ Import .mvlook loads settings from a file. Use it to give a new song the same look.

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13. Settings and Updates

Click ⚙ Settings in the toolbar to open the settings menu.

13.1 Appearance

Choose a theme:

Theme	Description
Dark	The default theme, easy on the eyes in low light
Light	Plain neutral greys
Parchment	A soft, warm paper look

The app remembers your choice. The theme changes only the app itself. Your clips' colors, your effects and the video preview look the same in every theme, so the preview always matches the rendered video.

13.2 Privacy

Four switches control what the app sends to help us improve it. None of them include your files, your videos or what you type.

Setting	What it sends
Send automatic error reports	Crash details, your operating system and computer type, with file paths and names removed.
Count me as an active user	Once a day: an anonymous ID, the app version, your operating system and whether you're signed in.
Count my renders	When a render ends: whether it finished, failed or was cancelled, its length, quality and how long it took. Never file names. Linked to your account if you're signed in.
Send anonymous usage stats	Which features get used, such as app opens, shuffles and renders. Off unless you turn it on.

In Europe (including the UK and Switzerland), error reports, the daily count and the render count are also off unless you turn them on. The first time you open the app there, it asks you. For full details, see the Privacy Policy at musicvideowizard.com/privacy.

13.3 Updates

The app checks for new versions by itself. When one is available, a small card in the bottom-right corner shows it downloading.

• When it's ready, click Restart now to update straight away, or Later to install it the next time you quit.
• If you're in the middle of a render, the card waits until the render has finished.
• If an update can't be downloaded or installed, the card says so, with Try again and Download from website buttons.

To check for an update yourself, open ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check for updates. To see what changed in each version, visit musicvideowizard.com/changelog.

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14. Your Account

You don't need an account to edit or render videos. You need one only to generate AI clips and buy tokens.

14.1 Creating an Account and Signing In

Click the person icon in the toolbar to open the sign-in window.

• Create an account: Click Sign up free, then enter your email address and a password and click Create Account. The app emails you a link to confirm your address. If you try to sign in before confirming, the window offers Resend confirmation email.
• Forgot password? Click it and then Send Reset Link. You'll get an email with a link to choose a new password.

When you're signed in, the person icon becomes a circle with your initial, and your token balance (⬡) appears beside it.

14.2 The Account Menu

Click the circle with your initial to open the account menu:

Item	What it does
Buy Tokens	Opens the Buy Tokens window. Payment opens in your web browser. See Generating AI Clips.
🧾 Receipts…	Shows a receipt for every purchase, AI clip and balance change. See Receipts.
Delete Account…	Permanently deletes your account.
Sign Out	Signs you out on this computer. Your sessions and clips stay on your computer.

14.3 Deleting Your Account

Delete Account… shows how many unused tokens you'd lose before you confirm. Tokens can't be refunded or moved to another account, so spend them first if you want to use them. Deleting your account doesn't delete your sessions, clips or videos, which are stored on your computer.

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15. Getting Help

Click the ? button in the toolbar:

Item	What it does
Report a Problem…	Describe what went wrong and send it to us. You can tick a box to attach the log from your last render, and View log shows exactly what would be sent. The log is attached only if you tick the box.
Request a Feature…	Tell us what you'd like Music Video Wizard to do.
Join the Discord…	Opens the Music Video Wizard Discord community in your browser.
Open Source Licenses…	The licenses for the open-source software the app uses.

Messages: the 🔔 button next to ? shows news from us, such as new tutorial videos and releases. A red number on it means there are messages you haven't seen; opening it marks them read. A message with a link has a button that opens it in your browser. Click × on a message to delete it from your inbox. The app checks for new messages when it starts, about once an hour, and when you switch back to it. Nothing is recorded about which messages you read.

You can also email support@musicvideowizard.com. If your question is about a charge, include the receipt number (for example MVW-20261001-000012).

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16. Keyboard Shortcuts

On Windows, press Ctrl wherever this list says Cmd.

16.1 Playback and Navigation

Key	Action
Space	Play or pause
Enter	Move the playhead to the start
I	Set the in point at the playhead (sets render scope to Range)
O	Set the out point at the playhead

16.2 Editing

Key	Action
Cmd+Z	Undo
Cmd+Shift+Z	Redo
Cmd+S	Save session
Cmd+A	Select all segments
Cmd+C / Cmd+X / Cmd+V	Copy, cut or paste segments or the selected overlay
Cmd+D	Duplicate the selection
S	Split the segment under the playhead
Delete / Backspace	Delete the selected segments
T	Add text at the playhead
Shift (while dragging)	Turn snapping off

16.3 Segment Controls

Key	Action
1 – 5	Set speed to ¼×, ½×, 1×, 1.5× or 2×
F	Turn freeze frame on or off
V	Turn reverse on or off
L	Lock or unlock the segment

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17. Tips and Best Practices

Set clip roles before you shuffle. Set your main performance footage to Main and your cutaways to B-Roll before you click Shuffle. This keeps the artist in sync with the song.

Lock the parts you like, then shuffle again. Locked segments stay the same when you shuffle, so you can keep what works and change the rest. To change only a few segments, select them, right-click and choose Re-shuffle.

Use song sections to shape the energy. Mark the Intro and Outro to get clean cuts, and mark the Chorus to get heavier effects. This alone makes a big difference to how the edit feels.

Slice a single long take. Put the take on the timeline, set Cut every N beats, and click ✂ Slice. You get a beat-synced edit from one clip that you can then rearrange.

A resize or a Clip Pool drop shortens at most one clip. If dragging an edge or dropping a clip from the pool didn't cover as much as you expected, this rule is why. Repeat the edit, or delete the clip that's in the way. Dragging a whole clip has no such limit.

Hold Shift to stop snapping. If a clip keeps snapping where you don't want it, hold Shift while you drag.

Preview a few segments instead of the whole song. Select a segment and use the preview in the inspector. The ×1 / ×5 / ×10 / All buttons render just that segment, or that segment plus the next 5 or 10, as a quick low-resolution render.

Save a Recipe when you find a look you like. You can then use it on your next song without setting everything up again.

Render a Draft first. Check the edit in Draft quality before spending time on a Final render.

Render all your formats at once. If you need landscape and portrait versions, check both boxes and render them together.