Music

Music that Zornov composes is fitted to your film's length and to the moments you choose.

Add a track from the library

1. In the Library, open Audio and choose Music.
2. Hover over a track to hear it.
3. Click it to add it at the playhead, or drag it to a sound lane.

The music and sound effects come in a free library download. If the panel offers Download the library, click it once; the panel fills when the download finishes, without a restart.

Compose original music

The composer writes a new piece for your film: in a genre, key and tempo, played by synthesised instruments, exactly as long as you need. The music itself is made on your computer, with no music service or extra key. You use it through the AI editor: describe the music the way you would to a composer. An AI assistant connected to Zornov can use it the same way (see Use Zornov from AI assistants).

1. Open the AI editor.
2. Say what you want: the genre, the mood and who plays. For example:
   • "Score the whole video with noir jazz, sax and double bass, a rainy night."
   • "Hopeful acoustic folk under the first 40 seconds, slow build."
   • "Minimal electronic, no drums, 120 bpm, in D minor."
3. Read the reply. It names the genre, key, tempo and band, where the last chord falls, and where each cue landed.
4. Play it back. If you want another version with the same description, ask for another take.

The piece goes on the Music lane. Without a length it covers the whole video. It ends on a last chord that rings out into silence, so it doesn't need a fade. To end on a picture cut, ask for the music to end at that time.

When the film has narration, the music sits low and dips while someone speaks. If you ask only for a mood ("something calm under this"), the AI editor first looks for a fitting library track, and composes when the library has none.

Hit moments in the picture

Give the composer cues: times on your timeline where the music should do something. The tempo bends slightly so each cue lands on a beat.

For example: "Compose 40 seconds of cinematic score with a hit at 2 seconds and a resolve at 34 seconds."

Genres

There are 18 genres. Any of the words in the second column picks the genre, so you can describe the music in your own words.

You can give your own tempo and key ("84 bpm, G major") when they matter.

Moods

Mood words change how a genre plays:

• Minor and darker: dark, sad, tense, noir, mysterious, haunting, melancholy.
• Major and brighter: hopeful, happy, bright, cheerful, uplifting, warm, peaceful.
• Tempo: slow, calm and gentle slow it down; fast, driving, energetic and upbeat speed it up.
• Shape: build, rising or crescendo grows through the piece; fading or winding down falls away; steady, loop or background stays level.
• Thinner: sparse, minimal, restrained.
• Full strength: epic, big, huge, grand and intense keep the music at full strength, even alongside words such as dark, slow or quiet that would otherwise hold it back.

"Noir" also slows the music, makes it minor and swaps jazz drums for brushes.

Instruments

Name instruments and they take the lead, the bass or the chords. There are 29:

Common names work too: "sax", "upright bass", "fiddle", "Rhodes", "glockenspiel", "8-bit". For the drums, ask for drums, brushes, or "no drums".

Cut to the beat

To place markers on the beats of your music:

1. Select the music clip. With nothing selected, Zornov uses the earliest sound clip on the timeline, and prefers clips that are sound only.
2. In the Library, open AI.
3. On the Beat markers card, click Run.

Markers appear on the beats, and you can snap cuts to them. You can also ask the AI editor to do the cutting: "Cut the road trip to the music, a new place every two beats, the best shot on the first drop." It listens to the track for its tempo, sections and drops first.

Tips for cutting to music:

• Vary shot lengths between 1, 2 and 4 beats. Cutting on every beat turns into a metronome.
• Put the film's biggest moment on the first drop.
• Readability and story come before the grid: cut on a beat where a sentence or action ends near one.
• End on the song's own last hit or a 2 to 4 second fade, never a dead cut.
• To shorten a song, keep its start and real ending and take whole bars out of the middle, joined on matching downbeats with a short crossfade.

The Music video template on the start screen sets up a project with markers for the intro, verses, choruses, bridge and outro.

Related pages

• Audio and mixing
• Sound effects and voices
• The AI editor
• The timeline