Music in, motion out. Audio Effector listens to your song and moves the picture with it: pulse, strobe, spin, shake, tear, and glow, all locked to the music. Build the look yourself or start from a preset.
The short version
Drop Audio Effector onto a clip, hand it the song, and the video starts moving in time with the music. Nine effects are on board: a size pulse, a strobe, a spinner, two shakers, a zoom punch, an RGB split, a glitch, and a bloom. Run one, or stack all nine for full chaos. Every effect has a single strength slider, so building a look is fast.
One honest note up front: Final Cut does not let an effect listen to your timeline audio, so Audio Effector reads the song from a file you choose instead. Point it at the same song you cut into the timeline and the beats land in the same places. This manual covers the whole workflow, every control, and the presets.
First run
From download to a clean export. Here is the whole path.
Audio Effector does all its work on your Mac. Your video and your song never leave your computer.
Clip or section
Audio Effector comes as a regular clip effect and as an adjustment-layer Title. Same controls in both, different reach.
One clip? Use the effect. A run of clips cut to music? Either stretch the Title over all of them, or use the clip effect with Sync To set to Timeline, so the beat grid stays continuous across every cut instead of restarting on each one. More on Sync To below.
The layout
Everything lives in one inspector. From the top down it reads in five blocks, and the controls that do not apply to your setup hide themselves, so it stays tidy.
The Audio Effector inspector with a song loaded, so every control is showing. Controls that don't apply to your current setup hide themselves, so it stays tidy.
The audio engine
This is the part that makes Audio Effector tick. Give it the song once, and every effect knows where the beat is.
Once a song is loaded, these two sliders set the window the song's level is measured against. Audio at or below Min Level does nothing; audio at or above Max Level hits full reaction. Raise Min to ignore quiet ambience so only real hits move the picture. Lower Max to make a mellow track slam anyway.
With no song loaded, Audio Effector runs on a built-in metronome. Set BPM to match your track (30 to 300) and the beat-driven effects march along to it. Beat Nudge slides those hits within the beat, in both modes: 0 is right on the beat, 0.5 is the off-beat, 1 is a full beat late. Handy when the strobe should hit the snare instead of the kick.
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%. Audio Effector 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.
Every control, low to high
Each effect is a switch plus a strength slider. 100% is the designed amount, 0% is off, and most run up to 400% for when tasteful is not the assignment.
The master dial. It scales how hard every enabled effect reacts, all at once. If the look is right but it is all too much or too little, this is the one slider to reach for.
Nothing moves. The picture sits perfectly still.
Everything reacts at double strength.
100% is the designed amount. Ease this back before you start rebalancing individual effects.
How Audio Effector follows your song. Clip Head, the default, starts the song at the front of the clip. Timeline locks the song to the project timeline instead, so you can cut the clip into as many pieces as you like and every piece stays in sync, with nothing to re-line-up. Reach for Timeline the moment you start slicing to the beat.
Song starts at the clip's front. Simple, but each cut restarts it.
Song follows the timeline. Cut freely, it stays locked.
Where your song sits, so the picture matches what you hear. In Timeline mode, set it to how far into the timeline your song starts; in Clip Head mode, it slides the song against the clip. Put the seconds here, and if you need it frame-perfect, add the frames in Sync Frames just below. It reaches up to two hours in for feature-length projects.
Frame-accurate fine-tuning on top of Audio Sync, for when the reaction is off by just a frame or two. It counts in your project's frame rate, so a few frames means a few frames whether you are at 24, 30, or 60. Audio Sync gets you the seconds, Sync Frames gets the last little bit.
Load a song and Audio Effector finds its tempo for you and locks the beat to it. This popup rides on top of that, and it is the tempo row you get once a song is loaded. 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 movement stays locked and never drifts off, however long the clip runs. Pick a different song and it snaps back to 1× on its own.
Eases the reaction in from nothing at the clip's start. Set the seconds and everything that reacts climbs from still to full over that stretch, so a look arrives instead of snapping on. Your base framing stays put; it is the movement that builds. Leave it at 0 and the effects hit full strength from the first frame.
The other end: eases the reaction back out to nothing before the clip ends, for a clean landing out of the movement. Set the seconds and everything that reacts settles from full to still over the final stretch. If Build On and Build Off together do not fit the clip, they share it fairly. Leave it at 0 and the effects run full strength right to the last frame.
Your starting frame, before any effect moves it. Scale zooms in or out, Position X and Y slide the picture, Rotation tilts it.
Pro move: set Scale to about 110%. The shakers and spinner then have room to move without ever showing the edge of the frame.
When the picture shakes, spins, or zooms out, something has to fill the gap it leaves. Edge picks what: Repeat Edge, Mirror, Tile, Background Color, or Transparent.
Mirror is the invisible one. Background Color uses the BG Color well below it. Transparent lets layers underneath show through.
Pulses the size of the picture with the music. The classic bounce, and the only effect that ships switched on.
No pulse. The frame holds still.
Huge pumping zoom on every hit.
Flashes the brightness in time with the music. The Hard Flash switch picks the flavor: on for a hard on/off snap, off for a smooth swell and dim.
No flashing.
Full blackout-to-blast light show.
A strobe is a strobe: if photosensitive viewers will watch this, keep it gentle or use the soft flash.
Rocks the rotation of the frame with the music, from a gentle sway to a full twirl.
Maximum spin, counter-clockwise lean.
Maximum spin, clockwise lean.
Negative numbers flip the direction at the same strength. 0 is off.
Knocks the picture side to side on the hits. Your handheld-camera energy, minus the chiropractor.
Full shake, leading left.
Full shake, leading right.
Same knock, up and down. Stack it with Shaker Pan for a real rattle.
Full shake, leading down.
Full shake, leading up.
A fast zoom punch into the frame on each hit, like the camera takes the kick drum to the chest.
No punch.
Slammed on every hit.
Pairs beautifully with React To: Bass. This is the subwoofer-cam effect.
Tears the color channels apart on the hits, that chromatic music-video fringe. The RGB Split Rotation dial sets which direction the channels pull, with 0° being horizontal.
Channels stay glued together.
Full psychedelic separation.
Slices the frame into digital tears that jump on the hits, like the signal is fighting for its life. The Glitch Direction dial sets which way the slices travel.
Clean signal.
Total datamosh meltdown.
Blooms a soft glow out of the bright parts of the image on each hit. Dreamy at low strength, radioactive at high.
No glow.
The whole frame breathes light.
Pairs beautifully with React To: Treble for shimmer, or Loudness for swells.
Advanced
Any single effect is simple. The fun starts when you stack them. Here are starting points; trust your eyes from there.
Three questions, in order. What drives it? That is React To. What moves? Those are the effect switches and their strengths. How hard overall? That is Intensity. When a look feels like too much, ease Intensity back before touching anything else. You can almost always rescue it with one slider.
Scaler 100 · React To: Beat
The default for a reason. A clean size pulse on the beat reads instantly and works on literally any footage. When in doubt, start here.
Zoom Pulse 100 + a pinch of both Shakers · React To: Bass
The camera takes the hit. Zoom Pulse does the punch, the shakers at 15 or so add the rattle. Every kick drum lands in the viewer's chest.
Scaler 60 + Strobe 120, Hard Flash off · React To: Beat
A pumping frame with a soft strobe over it. The soft flash keeps it watchable for a whole section instead of exhausting after ten seconds.
RGB Split + Glitch · React To: Treble · directions 90° apart
Let the hi-hats rip the frame. Set RGB Split Rotation and Glitch Direction 90 degrees apart so the two tears pull different ways instead of stacking into one smear.
Transform: Scale 110 + Edge: Mirror · under any shake or spin
Not a look of its own: this one is the setup you add under the movers. A small pre-zoom plus mirrored edges means Shaker Pan, Shaker Tilt, and Spinner can hit as hard as they like without ever exposing the frame edge. Set it once, then stack any recipe on top.
Scaler 35 + Bloom 50 · React To: Loudness
For verses, ambient sections, and anything that should breathe instead of bounce. The picture swells gently with the energy of the mix.
One click, full look
A preset is a snapshot of every control at once: which effects are on, their strengths, what they react to. 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.
Scaler 100 · Beat
The factory state and the instant undo. One clean bounce on the beat, everything else off.
Scaler 35 · Loudness
A gentle breathing pulse that follows the energy of the mix. For when the music should be felt, not seen.
RGB Split 35 + Bloom 35 · Mid
No size movement at all, just soft color fringing and glow riding the body of the mix. Dreamy without being busy.
Scaler 100 + Glitch 15 · Beat
The full-strength bounce with a flicker of glitch on every hit. Default's louder cousin, and the go-to for anything upbeat.
Scaler 60 + Strobe 120 (soft) · Beat
A pumping frame under a soft strobe. The club-wall look, tuned to stay watchable for a whole section.
Zoom Pulse 100 + Shakers 15 · Bass
The kick drum hits the camera. Zoom punch plus a light rattle, driven entirely by the low end.
Spinner 100 + Zoom Pulse 25 + RGB Split 75 · Bass
The frame leans, breathes, and fringes with the bassline. Wobbly in the best possible way.
RGB Split 25 + Bloom 80 · Treble
The top end of the song turns into light. Hi-hats and cymbals make the frame sparkle and glow.
RGB Split 80 (90°) + Glitch 40 · Treble · Intensity 75
Vertical color tears and digital slices flickering with the hi-hats. The one preset that eases Intensity back, because the top end is busy.
Scaler 50 + Zoom Pulse 100 + Bloom 75 · Loudness
Pulse, punch, and glow, all riding the overall energy. Big without tipping into chaos.
Strobe + Spinner + Shaker + Zoom + RGB + Glitch + Bloom · Beat
Seven effects at once, locked to the beat. The full warehouse-at-2am experience. Use responsibly, or do not.
Spinner 180 + RGB Split 400 (45°) + Glitch 150 + Bloom 50 · Loudness
RGB Split pinned at maximum while the frame spins and tears. For when the video should look the way the drop feels.
Make it yours
Built a look you love? Save it and reuse it anywhere.
Each preset you save is a small file on your Mac under Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Herbistry ▸ Audio Effector ▸ Presets in your home folder. (That Library folder is hidden by default: in Finder, hold Option and open the Go menu to see it.) Because presets live there and not inside one project, your looks follow you across every project, and you can hand a preset file to a teammate so they get the exact same look.
Two kinds of "preset"
This trips people up, so it is worth being clear. There are two separate places a preset can live, and they save different things.
Use an Audio Effector preset when you want to reuse a look anywhere. Use a Final Cut preset when you want Final Cut to remember the entire setup on a clip so you can stamp it onto the next one.
Cheat sheet
Every slider at a glance, from one end to the other.
| Control | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 0%: nothing moves | 200%: everything at double strength |
| Sync To | Clip Head: song starts with the clip | Timeline: cut freely, stays locked |
| Audio Sync | 0: song starts at the front | Higher: song starts that many seconds in |
| Sync Frames | Fewer: nudge earlier by frames | More: nudge later by frames |
| Min / Max Level | Min up: quiet parts ignored | Max down: full blast comes sooner |
| BPM | 30: slow march | 300: hummingbird |
| Song BPM | ½ / ⅓ / ¼: slower multiples | 2×: double the detected tempo |
| Beat Nudge | 0: on the beat | 1: a full beat late (0.5 = off-beat) |
| Build On / Off | 0: no ramp, full from frame one | Seconds: reaction eases in / out |
| Scaler | 0%: still | 400%: huge pumping zoom |
| Strobe | 0%: no flash | 400%: full light show |
| Spinner | -400%: max spin, counter-clockwise | +400%: max spin, clockwise |
| Shaker Pan | -400%: full shake, leads left | +400%: full shake, leads right |
| Shaker Tilt | -400%: full shake, leads down | +400%: full shake, leads up |
| Zoom Pulse | 0%: no punch | 400%: slammed every hit |
| RGB Split | 0%: channels glued | 400%: full separation |
| Glitch | 0%: clean signal | 400%: datamosh meltdown |
| Bloom | 0%: no glow | 400%: the frame breathes light |
Before you install
Audio Effector is a Mac video effect. Here is what you need.
Get help
Trouble installing, syncing, or unlocking Audio Effector? Reach out and we'll sort it.