Music-reactive mirror & kaleidoscopeby Herbistry · for Final Cut Pro & Motion

Audio Effector: Mimic

Fold your footage into symmetry, then make it move to the music. Audio Effector: Mimic mirrors, kaleidoscopes, and tunnels your video, and the whole look spins, pulses, and reconfigures in time with your song, right inside Final Cut Pro and Motion.

The short version

What Mimic does

Drop Mimic on your footage, hand it a song, and the picture folds into symmetry that moves with the music. Pick a clean single mirror, a four-way split, or a kaleidoscope with up to 32 wedges, and bend it further with recursive Droste spirals or an infinity tunnel that pulls the image into depth. Six looks in all, and they stack. Then tell it what to follow, the beat or the loudness, bass, mid, or treble, and the mirrors spin, kick, and reconfigure in time with the track. Twelve presets get you a finished look in one click.

One thing to know up front: Final Cut does not let an effect listen to your timeline audio, so Mimic reads the song from a file you choose. Point it at the same track you cut to and the folds land on the same beats. No song at all? Set a BPM and it still moves. And when you just want the static, hand-driven symmetry with no music at all, Classic Mimic mode gives you the full manual rig. This manual covers the whole workflow, every control, and the presets.

First run

Install, add, and unlock Mimic

From download to a clean export. Here is the whole path.

Install it. Download the installer and open it. It is notarized by Apple, so there are no security warnings to fight. If Final Cut or Motion was open, quit and reopen it so it picks up the new plugin.
Add it to your timeline. Mimic shows up in two places: the Effects browser under Herbistry ▸ Audio Effector Mimic for a single clip, and the Titles browser as an adjustment-layer version that covers a whole run of clips. More on the difference just below.
Try it free. Every look, effect, and preset works right away, no time limit. The catch is a small Herbistry leaf watermark over the picture, so the trial is perfect for auditioning but not for a clean export.
Buy a license. Grab it from the Audio Effector: Mimic page on fordeetv.com. Checkout is quick, and your license key arrives by email in your receipt.
Activate it. In the inspector, find the License row (it reads "Enter License…"). Click it, paste your key from the receipt email, and hit Activate. The watermark disappears and your exports come out clean. It is a one-time thing, the plugin remembers.
On more than one Mac. One license covers two Macs. Need a third? Free a slot first: click the Licensed ✓ (Deactivate) row on a Mac you still have and deactivate. No longer have that Mac? Sign in at the Lemon Squeezy orders page with the email you bought with, click your license key to see its activations, and deactivate the one you want to free. That same page is where you look up your key if you ever lose it.

Good to know

Mimic does all its work on your Mac. Your video and your song never leave your computer. The only thing that ever goes out is the quick check that confirms your license key when you activate.

Clip or section

Two ways to apply it

Mimic comes as a regular clip effect and as an adjustment-layer Title. Same controls in both, different reach.

The clip effect

Effects browser · Herbistry · Audio Effector Mimic

Drop it onto one clip, like any other effect.
It folds that clip's own picture into symmetry.
Each clip gets its own settings and its own song.
Best for: a single shot, an intro, or a different look per clip.

The adjustment-layer Title

Titles browser · Audio Effector Mimic

Place it on a layer above your clips and stretch it across a whole section.
It folds everything underneath it, so a run of cuts becomes one continuous mirror.
Every cut reacts to one song with one set of settings.
Comes with a Mix slider to blend the whole treatment in or out.
Best for: montages, music videos, and anything cut to a song.

Rule of thumb

One clip? Use the effect. A run of clips cut to music? Use the Title and stretch it over all of them, so the beat grid stays continuous across every cut instead of restarting on each one. It works the same way in Motion, where the Title behaves like an adjustment layer over the group below it.

The layout

The inspector, top to bottom

Everything lives in one inspector, and it reads top to bottom. The controls that don't apply to your setup hide themselves, so it stays tidy: turn a look on and its options appear; load a song and the tempo controls swap over. Here's the map.

Song loaded

No song loaded

The same panel, two states (both with Advanced on). Controls that don't apply hide themselves: load a song and Song BPM appears just under it to fine-tune the tempo; with no song that row gives way to a manual BPM slider. Everything else stays put.

Top of the panel

License activate your key, or free a seat
Presets load a full look, or save your own
Intensity the master: how hard the whole thing reacts
Song pick the audio file the folds follow

Audio & timing

Song BPM tempo multiplier, shown when a song is loaded
React To Beat, Loudness, Bass, Mid, or Treble
Pattern & Length how the looks move, and how often
Auto Cycle rotate through the patterns on their own
Build On & Off ramp the effect in and out at the ends
BPM manual tempo, under Advanced when no song is loaded

The Mirror Looks

Mirror Spin · Quad Kick fold the frame
Kaleido Breath · Kaleido Spin wedge kaleidoscopes
Droste Zoom · Tunnel Rush spiral and tunnel into depth

Extra effects

Strobe beat flash, with an optional Hard Flash
RGB Split & Glitch chromatic tear and digital chop
Bloom a glow that flashes on the beat

Transform & advanced

Scale, Position, Rotation your base framing
Edge & BG Color what fills the frame edge
Sync To, Audio Sync, Sync Frames line the song up (under Advanced)
Smoothing, Invert, Beat Nudge fine-tune the motion

Classic Mimic

Classic Mimic switch flips to the pure manual symmetry rig
Symmetry, Warp, Divider a whole static toolset, no audio

The audio engine

Feed it your song

Give it the song once and every fold knows where the beat is. This is the part that makes Mimic tick.

Click "Choose Song…" and pick the audio file. MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, AIFF, CAF, FLAC, anything your Mac can play. Use the same file you cut into your timeline.
Let it analyze. It reads the song once, the loudness, the bass, mids, treble, and the tempo, right there on your Mac. Takes a moment, and it only happens once per song. If the tempo comes in at half or double what you expect, the Song BPM multiplier puts it right in one click.
Pick what it reacts to. The React To menu decides which part of the music drives the folds. Beat is the default and the cleanest: a steady pulse on the detected tempo. The four band modes drive off the live audio instead, so the folds hit harder on a loud passage and ease off in a quiet one.
Line it up if needed. Under Advanced, set Sync To to Timeline and you can slice Mimic into as many pieces as you want and every piece stays locked to the song. If your song does not start at the very front of the timeline, set Audio Sync to how far in it starts, then Sync Frames for the last frame or two. Keeping it to a single clip? Leave Sync To on Clip Head and the song just starts with the clip.

React To, decoded

Beat

A steady pulse on the detected tempothe cleanest, most rhythmic option, and the default. The tempo sets the timing; Pattern sets the character

Loudness

Follows the overall energy of the mixorganic, swells with the song

Bass

The low end: kick and subthe thump. Made for drops

Mid

Vocals, synths, guitarsthe body of the mix

Treble

Hi-hats, cymbals, sparklefast, glittery movement

Beat vs. a band, in one line

On Beat, the tempo sets when the folds move and Pattern sets how. On a band, the live audio sets how big each hit is while Length still sets the cadence, so the mirrors pump with the actual sound instead of a steady metronome.

Song BPM, the tempo dial

Load a song and Mimic finds its tempo for you and locks the beat to it. The Song BPM popup rides on top of that. 1× (Detected) is the default and runs at the tempo it found. If the detection came in at half or double the real speed, which happens on plenty of electronic and hip-hop tracks, pick 2× or ½× to put it back on the money. Or drop to ⅓× or ¼× just because a slower pulse feels better on the shot. Every option is an exact slice of the song's own tempo, so the motion stays locked and never drifts off, however long the clip runs. Pick a different song and it snaps back to 1× on its own.

With a song loaded, Song BPM is the tempo dial: run at the detected tempo, or lock the motion to an exact double, half, triplet, or quarter of it.

No song? It still moves

No music in the project, or you just want a vibe? With no song loaded, Mimic runs on a built-in metronome. Turn on Advanced to reveal BPM, set it to your track's tempo (30 to 300), and the beat-driven folds march along. Beat Nudge, also under Advanced, slides the beat in both modes: 0 is right on it, 0.5 is the off-beat, 1 is a full beat late. Handy when the hits should land on the snare instead of the kick.

Mixing frame rates

Final Cut handles most frame rate mismatches invisibly. The exception is 23.98 or 24 fps footage in a 25 fps project, or 25 fps footage in a 23.98 or 24 fps project: there it changes the clip’s speed by about 4%. Mimic stays locked to your timeline, so the animation keeps matching what you hear and the picture is the thing that shifts. There is no setting to turn this off. Either match your project’s frame rate to your footage, or convert the clip before you bring it in.

The main event

Six ways to fold the frame

These are the Mirror Looks, the heart of Mimic. Each one is its own on/off switch, not a menu, so you can run one or stack several at once. Turn a look on and it reveals a Strength slider plus one character control. Mirror Spin is on out of the box; the rest start off. Every look leans into one musical move, the dimension it animates on the beat.

Mirror Spin

The fold axis

A single mirror fold of the frame, the clean, classic symmetry. Its signature move is the spin: the fold axis rotates and snaps on the beat, so the mirror line sweeps around. Mirror Spin Angle sets where the axis starts.

Quad Kick

The four-way pop

Two folds at once for a four-way, kaleidoscopic quad. It rides the kick: the center hops and the whole thing pops in size on the beat, a punchy, physical hit. Quad Kick Rotation sets the base angle.

Kaleido Breath

Wedge count

A many-wedge mirror kaleidoscope. This one breathes: the number of wedges swings wider and tighter on the beat while the spin stays gentle, so the pattern blooms and contracts. Kaleido Breath Segments sets the base wedge count.

Kaleido Spin

Wedge rotation

The same many-wedge kaleidoscope, but here the wedge orientation is the star: it rotates and snaps on the beat while the count holds steady. Breath changes how many wedges; Spin turns the ones you have. Kaleido Spin Segments sets the count.

Droste Zoom

Recursive spiral

The Droste effect, a picture inside itself inside itself, winding inward forever. It drives off scale: a steady inward zoom with an extra surge on every hit. Droste Zoom Twist spirals the recursion so it corkscrews as it descends.

Tunnel Rush

Infinity tunnel

An infinity tunnel of concentric rings pulling the image into depth. The rings rush inward continuously with a push on each hit. Tunnel Rush Depth sets how many rings deep the tunnel goes, from a shallow funnel to a long dive.

Stacking is where it gets wild

The looks chain, so a Kaleido Spin folded through a Droste Zoom, or a Quad Kick pulled down a Tunnel Rush, gives you something no single look can. Strength runs past 100% for overdrive when you want it heavy. Start from a preset to see a few good combinations, then add or drop a look to make it yours.

How the looks move

The beat engine: Pattern, Length, Auto-Cycle

The Mirror Looks give you the shape; this is what gives them their groove. Three controls decide the character of the motion and how often it happens. They appear once at least one look is on.

Pattern, the motion character

Same fold, ten completely different feels. Pattern picks the archetype the looks perform on the beat, from a lazy drift to full chaos.

Smooth & flowing

Drift a slow, constant turn, the default. Nothing snaps
Breathe swells in and out with the beat, one breath per beat
Sway the center swims in a slow figure-eight
Mirage everything dreamy: slow spin, drift, and ping-pong at once

Snappy & rhythmic

Pinwheel snaps a quarter-turn and punches in on every beat
Pendulum alternates: spins on one beat, hops on the next
Facets steps to a new wedge count each beat over a slow spin

Glitchy & intense

Stutter tight little snaps and double-pops, a glitchy jitter
Warp fast spin with scale and center ramping over bars
Frenzy everything random-snaps on the beat, big throws

Length & Auto-Cycle

Length

1/4 Beat to 4 Bars

How often the look reconfigures. On Beat it is the cycle period, how long one full move takes. On a band mode it is the hit cadence, from rapid-fire at 1/4 Beat to one slow swell at 4 Bars. The choices run 1/4 Beat, 1/2 Beat, Beat, 2 Beats, Bar (4), 2 Bars, 4 Bars.

Auto Cycle

Hands-off variety

Set it and the effective Pattern advances on its own, stepping through all ten on a bar cadence: Every 1/16 Bar, 1/4 Bar, 1/2 Bar, or Every Bar. Two extras appear with it: Shuffle Patterns jumps to a random one each step instead of going in order, and Cycle Length evolves the speed as it goes too.

Build On & Build Off

Ramp the ends

The whole effect can assemble in at the clip head and out at the tail over a few seconds, so it grows out of clean footage and settles back into it. Set the seconds for each end. Leave both at 0 and the effect is full-strength start to finish.

Smoothing & Invert

Advanced

Two fine-tuners for the extra effects' beat pulse (Strobe, RGB Split, Glitch, Bloom), and they only apply with React To set to Beat. Smoothing rounds a hard, steppy pulse (from Patterns like Pinwheel, Stutter, or Frenzy) toward a gentle sine swell, so the effects breathe instead of snap. Invert flips the pulse to the off-beat, so the effects settle on the beat and swell between the hits. Both live under Advanced; neither changes the Mirror Looks' own motion.

On top of the fold

Four effects on top

Layered over whatever looks you're running, four classic beat effects. Each is its own switch that reveals a Strength slider (typeable past 100% for overdrive), and each reacts to the beat in its own way.

Strobe

+ Hard Flash

Darkens the whole frame on the beat, the club strobe. Hard Flash, on by default, gives you one crisp blink per beat; turn it off for a smooth dim that rides the pulse instead of snapping. Its timing follows the same tempo as everything else, so it lands with the folds.

RGB Split

+ Rotation

Splits the red and blue channels apart for a chromatic-aberration edge that widens on the hit. RGB Split Rotation aims the split, 0° is a horizontal offset. A nice touch: with Pattern set to Drift, the split width pulses on its own on the Length grid, no audio needed.

Glitch

+ Direction

Chops the frame into bands and jerks them sideways with scanline noise, a hard digital tear. It reacts as a hard cut, snapping on and off on the beat rather than fading. Glitch Direction aims the tear.

Bloom

Glow on the beat

Lifts the exposure and blooms the bright areas so highlights glow and the frame flashes on the beat. Rides the smooth pulse, so it swells and settles rather than blinking. Great for making a drop feel like it's glowing from inside.

Framing

Transform and edges

Your base framing, applied before the folds. These sit near the top of the panel and stay put in both modes.

Intensity

Master

The master dial for how hard everything reacts. It scales every look and every effect at once, so if the look is right but the whole thing is too much or too flat, this is the one slider to reach for. It sits at the top of the panel, right under Presets.

Low

Subtle. The folds barely move off their base pose.

High

Everything reacts hard. Big hits, deep folds.

Scale, Position, Rotation

Base transform

Scale zooms the picture in or out before it's folded, Position X and Y slide it, and Rotation turns it. Handy for choosing which part of the frame ends up at the mirror line, or for pushing in so the symmetry lands where you want it.

Edge & BG Color

Frame fill

When a fold or a zoom exposes area past the picture, Edge decides what fills it: Repeat Edge, Mirror, Tile, Background Color, or Transparent. Pick Background Color and BG Color sets the fill. Transparent lets whatever is underneath show through. (On the clip effect; the Title uses its own edge handling.)

No music required

Classic Mimic mode

Flip the Classic Mimic switch and the whole panel changes. The audio rig steps aside and you get a pure, hand-driven symmetry toolset, no song, no beat, just the static look and its own animation. This is the full manual mirror rig for when you want to build a symmetry by hand.

Symmetry

Mirror / Quad / Kaleidoscope / Off

The core fold. Mirror is a single reflection you aim with Mirror Angle and Mirror Center; Quad folds it four ways; Kaleidoscope opens up a Segments control for 1 to 32 wedges plus a Rotation. Off skips the fold so you can use just the warp and divider.

Source placement

Offset · Scale · Rotation

Where the picture sits before it's mirrored. Source Offset slides it, Source Scale zooms it, and Source Rotation turns it. Move the source and you change which slice of the frame the symmetry is built from, a whole different pattern from the same shot.

Warp

Droste · Liquid · Infinity Tunnel

Bend the symmetry further. Warp Mode adds a recursive Droste spiral (with Twist), a Liquid mirror ripple, or an Infinity Tunnel (with Depth). Warp Amount and Warp Scale dial it in, and Warp Blend smooths the ring seam on Droste and Tunnel.

Animation

Spin · Breath · Flow

Classic runs on its own clock, no music. Animate Spin turns the symmetry, Animate Breath pulses a kaleidoscope in and out, and Animate Flow moves the warp. Animation Speed sets the pace for all of them. Leave them off for a dead-still frozen look.

Divider

The seam line

Draws a clean line along the mirror seam, the way a classic kaleidoscope shows its edges. Divider Width, Divider Color, and Divider Opacity style it, from a hairline accent to a bold graphic band.

Edge Mode

Reflect / Repeat / Wrap / Color

Classic's own edge handling for area the fold exposes: Reflect, Repeat, Wrap, or a solid Color you pick. Reflect keeps the mirror seamless; Color gives you a clean border around the pattern.

One click, full look

Presets

A preset sets every control at once: the looks, the pattern, the effects, the framing. Pick one from the Presets menu at the top of the inspector, then tweak anything you like. One thing presets never touch is your song. The look changes, the music stays. Twelve to start from.

Start here

Default

Mirror Spin · React to Beat · Drift

The factory state and the instant reset. A single mirror fold drifting slowly to the beat. When a look gets away from you, this is the way back.

Mirror & Kaleido

Double Identity

Mirror Spin · Pendulum

A single mirror fold that rocks side to side on the beat, the fold axis swinging like a pendulum. Clean and hypnotic.

Sugar Glitch

Kaleido Breath · reacts to Loudness · Strobe + RGB + Glitch + Bloom

A breathing eight-wedge kaleidoscope under a full sugar rush of strobe, chromatic split, glitch, and glow. Bright and busy.

You Got Me Twisted

Quad Kick · Breathe · RGB + Bloom

A four-way quad fold that kicks and swells on the beat, with a colored split and a soft glow. A bold, physical hit.

Warp & Space

Rabbit Hole

Droste Zoom · Warp pattern · Strobe + RGB + Glitch

A Droste spiral winding inward with a slow mirror turn underneath and a grit of glitch and strobe. Down you go.

Cosmic Hypnosis

Droste + Tunnel · reacts to Bass · Strobe + Bloom

Droste and Tunnel stacked into a slow, bass-driven pull with a soft strobe glow. Deep-space drift.

Infinite Rave

Tunnel Rush · reacts to Bass · Auto-Cycle · full RGB

An endless tunnel that auto-cycles its pattern under a full chromatic tear, strobe, and glow. Made for the drop.

Glitch & Strobe

Disco Fire

Strobe + RGB · Drift

A smooth strobe dim with a vertical color split that pulses its own width on the grid, no fold needed. Pure light and color.

Glitched Matrix

Mirror Spin · reacts to Mid · Stutter · heavy Glitch

A vertical mirror that takes turns left and right behind a heavy digital tear. Broken-screen energy.

Classic

These three switch Mimic into Classic mode, the pure hand-driven rig with no audio, so they hold a still, sculptural look you can let breathe.

Fishbowl

Classic · Mirror · Liquid warp

A watery, swimming mirror distortion that ripples gently on its own. Calm and dreamlike.

Altered State

Classic · 8-fold Kaleidoscope · Droste

A slow eight-fold kaleidoscope spiraling through a Droste warp, the whole frame breathing. A gentle trip.

Acid Bath

Classic · 8-fold Kaleidoscope · Droste · orbiting center

An eight-fold kaleidoscope melting through a Droste spiral with its center slowly orbiting. Full, liquid psychedelia.

Make it yours

Saving your own presets

Built a look you love? Save it and reuse it anywhere.

Dial in the look until it is right.
Open the Presets menu at the top of the inspector and choose Save Current Settings….
Give it a name. It shows up under My Presets, right below the factory ones, and you can Rename… or Delete it from there.

What a saved preset keeps

It saves the whole look, every control at once, but not your song, so one preset works across every project and every track. Your saved looks live on your Mac, not inside a single project, so they follow you everywhere you edit.

Cheat sheet

Quick reference

The main sliders at a glance, from one end to the other.

Control	Low end	High end
Intensity	Low: barely moves off the base pose	High: big hits, deep folds
Strength (per look / effect)	0: off	Past 100: overdrive
Build On / Off	0: full-strength start to finish	Seconds: ramps in and out at the ends
Audio Sync	Lower: song reads later	Higher: song reads earlier
Sync Frames	Negative: nudge back a frame or two	Positive: nudge ahead a frame or two
Beat Nudge	0: on the beat	1: a full beat late (0.5 = off-beat)
BPM	30: slow march	300: double-time
Smoothing	0: hard, stepped motion	1: rounded, sine-like motion
Kaleido Segments	Few: bold, chunky wedges	Many: fine, detailed rosette
Tunnel Rush Depth	1: a shallow funnel	16: a long deep dive
Scale	Low: pulled back	High: pushed in
Mix (Title)	0: original footage	100: full treatment

Before you install

System requirements

Mimic is a Mac video plugin. Here is what you need.

Operating system

macOS 13.5 or later

Ventura and up.

Works in

Final Cut Pro 10.8.1 / Motion 5.8 or later

Added as a clip effect or a Title.

Mac type

Apple Silicon Mac

Runs natively on M1, M2, M3, and later.

Installing

A notarized installer

Download from fordeetv.com, then unlock with a license key.

Get help

Stuck on something?

Trouble installing, syncing a song, or unlocking Mimic? Reach out and we'll sort it.

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