Cut video to music: find a track, fit it and cut to the beat

Where do you find music for a video?

Ask for it the way you would describe it. Sharpy searches the shelves on your Mac first, then every source it may fetch from one item at a time, and ranks it all in one list. Related words count, so "upbeat" also finds "bouncy" and "energetic" finds "driving", and you can ask for a tempo or a length to rank by how near each track comes. Nothing downloads until you choose one. Ask the agent (find_assets, then get_asset), or browse the music shelf in the window's left panel.

Sharpy's own curated list holds 81 tracks across seven registers, the feel a piece asks for: hype, trailer, tech, pop, lofi, emotional and doc. Beyond that, these are the music libraries it searches or points you to:

Library	Licence in plain words	May it be cut?	Credit
Incompetech (Kevin MacLeod)	CC BY 4.0: free, monetised YouTube allowed, credit required	Yes	Each piece's own credit wording, in the description
Scott Buckley	CC BY 4.0: free, commercial use allowed, credit required in the description	Yes	His own credit format, in the description
Mixkit music	Free for online use, YouTube included; not for broadcast, discs or games, and not to be remixed	No: only its own last stretch is used	None required
Internet Archive netlabels	Each item has its own licence; Sharpy takes only CC BY and CC0	Yes	Title and artist of the file used
Pixabay music	Free, commercial use allowed, no credit required	Yes	Optional: "by [Contributor] via Pixabay"

Pixabay's terms forbid automated downloads, so Sharpy gives you the search link and imports the track you download, with a warning that some Pixabay tracks are registered with Content ID and can draw a claim even when used legally.

What licence and credit does each track carry?

Every search result carries its licence, its credit wording, whether it may be cut and what to know before posting. When you place a track, its credit line is written into the edit, and every render writes the credits it owes into a text file beside the video, ready to paste into the description. Sharpy puts no credit on the picture, and leaves out any source that demands one there.

CC BY music is credited with its licence link and the words "edited and synchronised to this video", because setting music to picture counts as adapting it under CC BY 4.0, and the licence asks you to say so.
Incompetech and Scott Buckley word their own credits, and Sharpy uses their wording exactly. Scott Buckley's own page warns YouTubers who leave the credit out, "If you don't, you will likely get a copyright claim from me", so Sharpy shows that warning on every one of his pieces.
Mixkit and CC0 beds owe nothing.
A licence Sharpy does not know is credited rather than risked.

Before a bed is used, Sharpy also listens to it for words. On its maker's own shelf, 3 of 12 beds turned out to have vocals sampled in them, and a piece should not carry words nobody chose to publish.

How do I make music fit the length of my video?

Re-arrange the track from its own material rather than loop it or fade it out early, so it ends on its real ending. That is the difference between music that fits the video's length and music that merely stops. Choose Clip ▸ Fit Music to the Edit's End, or ask the agent to fit the music (edit_clip). Sharpy jumps between places in the track that sound alike, a bar or more apart and at the same place in the bar, crossfaded on the beat, and always finishes on the track's own last two bars and their ring-out. A bed with no clear pulse, as most ambient and cinematic tracks are, is joined in longer steps with a one-second crossfade.

A woman's hands tap the beat on the edge of a wooden desk with a pencil while footage plays out of focus on a monitor behind them. — Tempo says how far apart the beats are; only the phase says where they fall, and a cut on the wrong phase lands half a beat out.

Every seam is reported with how unusual it sounds, and one likely to be heard is named. Do not like it? Ask for another arrangement: Sharpy finds one that shares none of the earlier seams. Eight library tracks fitted to 0.4, 0.7 and 1.4 times their length came out exact every time. Re-cut the edit, and fit again: the bed is re-fitted whole.

Some lengths cannot be reached, such as one shorter than the track's ending, and a track shorter than the edit is refused. Where a licence forbids remixing, as Mixkit's does, Sharpy uses the track's own last stretch at exactly the length, fades it in and tells you why.

How do you edit a video to the beat of a song?

Find where the beats fall, then put your cuts on them, usually every two or four beats so the shots have time to land. Tempo alone is not enough: 128 bpm says how far apart the beats are and nothing about where they fall. Sharpy measures both: on test clicks and kicks its beats land within 3.3 ms of the hit, with less than 0.3 ms of drift over a four-minute track. That is all beat sync video editing needs, and it is the same whether you edit video to music by hand or let Sharpy do it.

For a montage with nobody talking, Sharpy can cut video to the beat for you:

Add the footage and the music. Any clips, any track with a steady pulse.
Say how long and what shape. Sharpy decides the real length from what the footage can give, and shortens the piece rather than pad it.
Let it make the bed. The music is fitted to that length, ending on its own ending.
Let it cut. Shots change on the beats of the bed as made, keeping the order they were shot in.
Check the result. The finished file is measured back against the beats.

Five stock clips over an 80-second track, asked for 100 seconds, gave 61 seconds of usable footage; the bed was made 60.8 seconds long to end with the last picture, and all 37 cuts fell within two frames of a beat heard in the rendered file, a median of 10 ms off. A bed with no steady pulse is refused rather than cut to a grid fitted to nothing. Sound effects line up too: a whoosh is placed so its loudest moment, not its start, lands on the move.

How do you put music under a voice?

Keep it under the words and let it breathe between them. Pick a register that suits the voice, then duck the bed: Sharpy rides it 6 dB down under every line and back up between them, timed to the speaker's own pauses so it never pumps. Audio mixing for video covers the duck and the rest of the mix, and royalty-free music and sound effects goes through every free library, music and sound alike.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use a song from my own library?

Yes. A file that does not come from a shelf is treated as yours, used under your own rights, and Sharpy's reply says so.

Does Sharpy loop music to fill the length?

No. It re-arranges the track from its own bars and ends on the real ending, so there is no loop and no early fade.

What tempo should montage music be?

Whatever suits the footage: a steady pulse matters more than speed. Cut every four beats at 120 bpm and each shot runs two seconds.

Do I have to credit the music?

For CC BY tracks, yes, in the description; Sharpy writes the credit for you. Mixkit, Pixabay and CC0 tracks need none.

Is the music checked for copyright claims?

Sharpy shows each source's warnings, such as Scott Buckley's claim warning and Pixabay's Content ID note, before you post. Keep the credit in the description and a claim can be disputed.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.