Record a voiceover straight into your DepCut timeline

Your own voice is the quickest voiceover to make. DepCut records it inside the editor. You press record, talk, press stop, and the take is on your timeline.

Set up the take

1. Move the playhead to the spot where the narration should begin. The recording is added to the soundtrack at the playhead.
2. In the top bar, open Record and choose Record audio.
3. Allow the microphone if your browser asks.
4. If your computer has more than one microphone, pick the right one from the pill at the bottom of the level display. DepCut remembers your choice for next time.

Talk for a moment before you record. The waveform moves with your voice, so you can see whether the level is healthy and whether the room is quiet.

Record

1. Press the red Start recording button. The waveform turns red and a timer starts.
2. Read your lines at a steady pace.
3. Press the stop button, Stop and use recording, when you finish.

The dialog closes and the take is on the soundtrack as an audio clip. The file is named Voice recording, followed by the time you made it. The recording itself happens in your browser, with the microphone you picked.

Tidy the take

Select the new clip. Its tabs appear in the right panel.

• Trim or drag the clip's edges on the timeline to cut the quiet at the start and end.
• Fade in and Fade out soften those edges. A short fade hides the point where the clip starts and stops.
• Volume sets the level against your music and the sound in the video.
• Speed changes the pace of the take without changing the pitch of your voice.

To fix a stumble, put the playhead on it and press Split in the right panel, or use the keyboard shortcut ⌘B or S. Split again after the mistake, select the middle piece and press Delete. Then drag the later piece back to close the gap, or set its Starts at time in the Move tab.

Keep or reuse the recording

A recording lands on the timeline and stays out of the Media panel. To keep it with your uploads, open the clip's Clip options menu (the three dots on the bar) and choose Add to Media. Choose Add to Library to reuse it in other projects.

Use Record camera from the same menu when you want video with sound. It records the same way, with a camera picker next to the microphone picker, and the clip lands at the end of the main video track.

Get a cleaner recording

• Record in a quiet room. Soft furnishings take the echo out of a small space.
• Keep a steady distance from the microphone so the level stays even.
• Leave a beat of silence before your first word and after your last one. It is easy to trim and gives the fades room to work.
• Record in short takes. A short take is quicker to redo than a long one, and you can place each line where it belongs.
• Read the script aloud once before you record. The lines that make you stumble are the ones to rewrite.

If you want the voice to quiet the music under it, select the take and open the Duck tab. Set Duck others to a level below Off, and everything else drops while your recording plays.

Try it on your own footage

Open DepCut, put a clip on the timeline, and record a line of narration over it. Play it back, then adjust the level until your voice leads.