Drop the Music So One Line Can Land in Silence

Sound that stops makes people listen. A beat of silence before a key line, or after a punchline, gives the moment weight. In DepCut you make that silence by cutting a gap in the music clip and softening its edges.

Pick the moment

Choose one moment in the video. It can be the sentence the whole video is built around, the reveal of a result or the second after a joke lands. Keep the gap short, about a breath or two, so it reads as a deliberate pause.

The picture can help. Hold on a face or a still shot while the music is out, and give the next cut a clear reason to arrive when the music returns. A title that appears at the moment of silence draws the eye to the same place as the ear.

Cut the gap in the music

1. Click the music clip on its audio row to select it. With a sound clip selected, S cuts that clip.
2. Press Space to play, and press it again at the end of the sentence before your line. Use the Left and Right arrows to step a frame at a time until the playhead sits where the music should stop.
3. Click the scissors button in the timeline toolbar, or press S with the pointer off the timeline. The clip splits at the playhead and the right piece is selected. With the pointer over the timeline, S cuts at the pointer instead.
4. Move the playhead to the point where the music should return, keep the pointer off the timeline and press S again.
5. Click the middle piece and press Delete. Deleting a sound clip removes only that piece, so the clips, titles and captions on the other rows stay where they are.

Soften the edges

1. Click the piece before the gap and open the Fade out tab in the right panel. Set a short fade, such as half a second, so the music thins as the gap arrives.
2. Click the piece after the gap and open the Fade in tab. Set a fade so the music returns gradually.

Each slider goes up to half the length of its piece.

Dip the music under a voice clip

When the key line is a recorded or generated voice clip, you can lower everything else for exactly the length of that clip. Select the voice clip and open the Duck tab in the right panel. The Duck others slider sets how loud all other sound plays while the clip is on the timeline. Pulling it down to 0% silences the rest, and the music returns when the voice clip ends.

Check the gap

1. Click the skip-back button beside the play button, or place the playhead about five seconds before the gap.
2. Press Space and listen to the stop and the return.
3. If the music clicks or stumbles back in, lengthen the fades. If the gap feels long, pull the right piece earlier with the Move tab, which sets where the clip starts.
4. Press ⌘Z or Ctrl+Z to undo any attempt you want to try again.

Place one silence

Pick one line in your next video in DepCut and cut the music around it. Watch which line it lifts.