Score a video like an editor: beat-match cuts to the music, land SFX on transitions, pace the voiceover so it breathes, source royalty-free tracks safely, and duck the music so the VO sits clearly on top. Use when adding music, sound effects, or voiceover to a video, when asked to "sync cuts to the beat", "the music is drowning out the voice", "add whooshes on the transitions", "where do I get royalty-free music", "mix the audio", or "the VO feels rushed". Do NOT use when wiring audio into the Remotion timeline mechanically (Audio/staticFile/render) - that is remotion-compose and remotion-render; do NOT use when choosing the shot order or scene beats - use video-storyboard instead; do NOT use when tuning the visual look (color grade, lighting, contrast) - use motion-color-and-light instead.
Click to play with sound.
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name: Sound and Music Sync
description: Score a video like an editor: beat-match cuts to the music, land SFX on transitions, pace the voiceover so it breathes, source royalty-free tracks safely, and duck the music so the VO sits clearly on top. Use when adding music, sound effects, or voiceover to a video, when asked to "sync cuts to the beat", "the music is drowning out the voice", "add whooshes on the transitions", "where do I get royalty-free music", "mix the audio", or "the VO feels rushed". Do NOT use when wiring audio into the Remotion timeline mechanically (Audio/staticFile/render) - that is remotion-compose and remotion-render; do NOT use when choosing the shot order or scene beats - use video-storyboard instead; do NOT use when tuning the visual look (color grade, lighting, contrast) - use motion-color-and-light instead.
---
# Sound and Music Sync
Sound is half the video and the half people forget. A mediocre animation cut to the
beat with a clean voiceover reads as professional; a beautiful animation with cuts
that float and a VO buried under the music reads as amateur. This is the audio
taste layer. You decide where cuts land, where sound effects punctuate, how the
voiceover breathes, and how the mix sits - then you hand the concrete numbers
(beat frames, SFX timestamps, duck levels) to **remotion-compose** to wire onto the
timeline and **remotion-render** to export. You do not write the `<Audio>` JSX or
run the renderer; you make the creative decisions that feed them.
This pairs with the rest of the motion-video-direction pack: a **video-storyboard**
scene list and **motion-design-principles** timing decisions are your input - you
score against beats that already exist. If text is animating to the audio, sync it
with **kinetic-typography**; if the cut rhythm is carrying a product walkthrough,
coordinate with **product-demo-director**; if you are cutting a vertical/social
version, re-derive beats per platform with **social-video-formatter**. The audio
mix is its own layer - leave the visual look (color grade, lighting, contrast) to
**motion-color-and-light** and score against whatever it grades.
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