FOR MUSICIANS & PERFORMERS
Cut a performance to the beat, automatically.
Beat Sync reads the track and puts your cuts and punches on the beat, so a performance clip feels edited to the music rather than near it.
THE PAIN
- Cutting to a beat by ear takes hours and still drifts
- Phone audio of a live room sounds thin
- Vertical crops cut the instrument out of frame
THE WORKFLOW
Import the performance footage
Beat Sync places cuts on the beat
Grade, reframe to 9:16, export
FROM YOUR PHONE
Film the take on the phone at the venue and cut it on the way home. Per-band Beat Sync works there too.
Zella for iPhone →WHEN THIS OUTGROWS THE FREE TIER
Per-drum Beat Sync - putting cuts on the kick and accents on the snare separately - is part of the depth toolset, and a full song runs well past two minutes.
Everything else here is free forever: the complete editor, all the AI, unlimited recording, and watermark-free export up to 2 minutes at 1080p. Pro is $89 once and covers Mac and iPhone on a single purchase. See pricing →
A performance video has one job that most editing tools make oddly difficult: the cuts and the movement have to sit on the music. Done by hand it means scrubbing a waveform, dropping markers and nudging keyframes until it feels right, which is an evening for a two-minute clip.
Zella detects the beats for you. Beat Sync analyses the audio on your device, marks the beats, and punches a zoom on each one, with a Sensitivity slider for how many beats it catches and a Punch slider for how hard each pulse lands. Per-drum control is there when you want the kick and the snare doing different things.
It also handles the unglamorous parts: multi-angle takes on a timeline, captions for lyrics or credits, and export shaped for the platform rather than a single master you then have to re-crop.
WHAT YOU ACTUALLY SHIP
A performance clip cut to the beat
Detect Beats marks the track and the zoom pulses on each one, tuned live while the video plays.
A vertical cut for Reels and TikTok
Reframe from a horizontal camera take to 9:16 with face-aware tracking rather than a blind crop.
A lyric or credit overlay
Titles with 12 entrance animations, gradient fills, stroke and shadow so text reads over a busy stage.
A release teaser
Full-screen intro and outro cards with your own timing, and music that ducks under any voiceover.
THE HONEST ANSWERS
Does it work with quiet or beat-free music?
Less well, and the docs say so rather than pretending otherwise. Beat Sync needs a beat to find - a clear drum pulse gives cleaner, more reliable detection than a soft ambient bed. If the effect feels too busy, lower the sensitivity and re-detect.
Can I use my own multitrack audio?
You can add your own music file and record over a track. Zella is not a DAW and does not try to be - it mixes what you give it, ducks music under voice, and gets out of the way.
Is my unreleased music being uploaded?
No. Beat detection, transcription and export all run on your own device, and there is no account or upload path. For unreleased material that is not a nice-to-have, which is part of why the app is built this way.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Can Zella sync video cuts to music automatically?
Yes. Beat Sync analyses the audio on your device, marks the beats, and punches a zoom on each one. Sensitivity controls how many beats it catches and Punch controls how strong each pulse looks.
Does Beat Sync work on iPhone?
Yes. On iPhone it sits behind the Audio button in the timeline toolbar.
Can I control the kick and snare separately?
Yes, with per-drum control, which sits behind the Advanced Tools switch.
Is my music uploaded for analysis?
No. Beat detection runs entirely on your device.
CLOSE TO THIS