The idea in one paragraph
The timeline decides where music goes; the cue window decides what it does there. You mark the moments the music must answer (hits: a door slams, she says yes), make a cue over a stretch of shots, say how it should rise and fall (its sections and arc), and render eight takes of it. seriesmith fits the tempo so the hits fall on bar lines, measures every take (does something happen at each hit? does its loudness follow the arc?) and ranks them. You listen to the top two or three, Pick one, and it lands on the Music track with its level already shaped to the arc. A cue stays tied to its shots: trim or move them and it moves with them, and tells you when the change means it should be made again.Before you start
- Lock the picture first, mostly. A cue is written to the cut’s timing. Small changes later are fine (it follows its shots, and tells you what moved); re-cutting a whole scene means re-rendering its cues.
- Open the sound lanes: Sound in the timeline’s header. Under the clips you get a Hits lane and four tracks: Dialogue (each clip’s own sound), Effects, Ambience, Music. Scoring, beside it, opens the scoring window on its Spotting tab: the whole episode’s music on one sheet (below), where scoring starts.
- Decide where the music goes before what it is. Watch the scene with the sound on and note where music would help and where silence is stronger. A comedy played straight, like ep03, wants the music to be sincere and to stop dead on the deflating beats, so the jokes land in silence.
The spotting sheet
Scoring in the timeline’s head opens the scoring window, one window with four tabs: Spotting (the episode’s view, where scoring starts), then the selected cue’s Score, Arc and Orchestration & takes (steps 3 and 4; they open the cue selected on the map, and with no cue in the episode yet they ask for a new one, its span and kind, and open it on that tab). The Spotting tab is a large picture of the cut playing with its mix, and under it the music map, a row per sequence with its cues, ambience, effects and hits. It’s where you do the first two steps below, and come back to between cues:- Watch and decide. Play the cut and note where music would help and where silence is
stronger. Stop on the frame (
,and.step one) and + Hit at playhead marks a moment the music must answer; ◀ Hit / Hit ▶ ([]) jump between them. Name a hit and set its kind on the timeline’s Hits lane (step 1). - See the whole score at once. Each cue on the map says whether it’s placed (the take in the mix) or stale; click one to see it on the right, then a tab (or a double-click on it) to shape it; the Spotting tab comes back.
- Check a cue against its hits. The right side’s table has each hit’s bar and beat, how far the tempo fit leaves it off its line, and how far each take’s music is from it (frames, orange past 2). Click a row to see the frame. Under it, the tempo: what was asked, what it was fitted to, the worst must-hit, and the nearest other tempos that land the hits; a click holds the cue at one (fixed), and its takes need rendering again.
- Hear a take against the picture. ▶ beside any take plays it under the picture from the cue’s in point, in the cue’s place, without changing the mix; Back to the mix ends it. It’s the way to choose between the top two or three.
- Render what’s stale. When the cut has moved under a cue’s take, the foot of the sheet lists it: Render it, or Render all stale.
- Right-click to add. Right-click a row of the map (its head, or a lane at the frame you want) for New cue here (to the end of that shot), New cue over the row’s sequence, New cue from here to the end of it, Mark a hit here, Make effects for the sequence, and its place’s ambience bed. Right-click a cue for Open in Score, its arc, its orchestration and takes, Render its takes, Plays in the mix or Delete cue… (below).
1. Mark the hits
A hit is a moment the music must answer. Make one on the Hits lane: double-click where it goes (or + for one at Play all’s playhead), then right-click it to name it and set its kind:
Must land (on by default) means the tempo is fitted to put it exactly on its line; turn it
off for a hit that’s nice to land but not essential. Two must-land hits a distance apart that no
nearby tempo divides into whole bars can’t both land; the window tells you how far off each is.
A hit is anchored to a shot and a frame of its take, so trimming or moving the shot carries it.
Tip: an onscreen sound (a door, a footstep) is easiest to place by finding it in the take’s own
sound on the Dialogue lane’s waveform.
In ep03: I choose you (arrive, sh020), Oh. (drop, sh030), the door shuts (drop, sh100 frame
111, found from the take’s sound), What did I get chosen for? (turn, sh130).
2. Make a cue
Select the shots the music plays over (Ctrl-click), right-click one and choose Sound ▸ New music cue, or right-click the Music lane: New cue…. On the spotting sheet, right-click a row: New cue over its sequence, or New cue here. Or the Refs tab’s Music + Cue: its first and last shot (or a sequence), and Score or Song. The scoring window opens on its Score tab. A cue is Score (instrumental, under the picture: the usual) or Song (sung; its sections take lyrics). Set it top right in the inspector, with:- Label: how it’s listed (“1M3 The Proposal”: reel 1, music cue 3, a name).
- Model: empty uses the kind’s default: Stable Audio 3 for score (it follows a rise and fall best), YuE2 for a song (it plans the song, then sings it); ACE-Step sings too, and is the one when a cue must sit exactly on a bpm.
- Theme: a melody carried from cue to cue (below: Carrying a theme).
- Tempo in bpm (the fit may move it up to 8 % to land the hits; tick fixed to stop that), Meter (4/4, 3/4, 6/8, 7/8, or your own), Key (pick one, or leave it to the model), Style (the sound: “romantic period strings, solo horn, no percussion”), Tail (seconds it rings on past its out point), Takes per render.
[Verse], a chorus as [Chorus], a bridge, intro
or outro as theirs, any other name as a verse; a section with no lyrics isn’t sung (YuE2 plays
its own intro and breaks). A song with no lyrics at all won’t render: YuE2 sings words. Each take
is made in two steps in one job: YuE2 first plans the song (its sections and bars, written
as ABC music notation), the plan’s tempo is set to the cue’s, and then it sings to that plan, so
it holds the cue’s tempo (within 1-2 %) where the tempo written in the style doesn’t. The song is
as long as its plan (often a minute or two for two sections), not the cue: the cue plays its span
of it, from the in point. Each take keeps its plan beside it (tNN.abc), and the takes list says
what it planned: Plan: 44 bars of 2/4, intro, verse, chorus · 0.6 s short of it, with its
sections drawn along the bottom of its waveform on the bar grid, so you see where the verse and
chorus land against your hits. YuE2’s weights are for non-commercial use (CC BY-NC 4.0);
ACE-Step (MIT) is the one for a commercial song.
Carrying a theme. A cue can carry another’s melody, the way a film’s love theme comes back
in a later scene: the inspector’s Theme is none, another cue’s take (pick the cue; its
take is the take in the mix unless you name one of its finished takes) or a sound file
(inside the episode or the show’s folder: a gallery item, a recording; type its path or
Browse…). The take in the mix follows that cue: whichever of its takes is in this pass’s
mix (picked, muted or not) when a take of this cue is rendered, else its best finished take
(the best measured, else the first finished) while none is picked. Each take of this cue says
which it heard (“theme m02 t03”), and picking another take of the theme’s cue makes this cue’s
takes stale, so the leitmotif can be re-rendered to match. Name a take instead to keep it fixed
whatever is picked. Each model hears it its own way:
- YuE2 sings its melody to this cue’s lyrics and tempo. A YuE2 take’s own plan is used as it
is; any other sound is transcribed first (SheetSage2, in the same job; it needs
sheetsage2_bf16.safetensorsinmodels/audio_encoders). - ACE-Step hears its sound as the timbre reference: the instruments and voice, not the tune.
- Stable Audio 3 takes none: the inspector says so, renders without it, and offers Use ACE-Step for the theme (score) or Use YuE2 for the theme (song).
3. Shape it: the Score tab
The Score tab is the cue on one bar grid, top to bottom:- Picture: the shots it plays over, with the pre-roll before (music that starts before its in point, so the first hit falls on a bar line) and the tail after.
- Hits: each one, the bar and beat it lands on, and how far off its line the fit leaves it (frames). A drop on the cue’s out point is its end: the music is cut there, so it isn’t fitted.
- Bars, then Sections: blocks of whole bars. Drag an edge to move it; click one to edit
it in the inspector: its name (a score’s: intro, build, climax, release, drop, turn,
sting, transition, outro; a song’s: verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, break, instrumental,
solo; or Other…, your own; ACE-Step hears it as the section’s tag, Stable Audio doesn’t
hear names), words (what plays: “strings enter, timpani roll”), and
its energy from and to (1 sparse … 5 fortissimo). With no sections given, they’re worked
out from the hits (a build into an arrive, quiet after a drop); a cue with no arrive, drop or
turn hit starts as one section over all its bars.
- Add one: double-click the lane where it should start. The section there splits at the nearest bar line, both halves keeping its words and energies, the second named after it (“build 2”); rename it in the inspector.
- Remove one: right-click it, Merge with previous or Merge with next. The earlier one’s name and words stay, with the bars of both.
- The right-click menu also has Split at bar N (where you clicked), Edit, and Reset sections from the hits, which clears your sections (it asks first: their names and words go) so they’re worked out from the hits again.
- Intensity: the arc, the energy you want bar by bar (green). Drag its points, double-click to add one, right-click to remove one. A drawn arc sets the sections’ energies, so what the model is told follows it.
- Takes (below; see step 5).
music: notes for the shots it covers, which go in too.
4. Optional: the Arc and Orchestration & takes tabs
Arc is the intensity lane large, for drawing the shape first:- Draw freehand, edit Points, or Smooth them.
- Presets: slow burn, build and release, sting, pulse (and one from the script’s notes).
- Snap peaks to hits: moves the arc’s peaks onto arrive hits and its lows onto drops.
- Sections from the arc: cuts the sections where the arc turns, on bar lines (it asks first: it replaces your sections’ names and words).
- The readout says what each section will be told, and flags detail the model can’t follow: a dip inside one section won’t happen (models follow sections, not bars) — Split at bar N keeps it.
- The grid: a row per instrument family, a column per bar, each cell off, under, present or lead. The step brush (the one it opens on) moves a clicked cell up a level (off, under, present, lead, off) and Shift-click down; a drag gives every cell it crosses the first one’s new level. The other brushes paint their level: click a cell, or drag across bars and rows. Keys 1-5 pick the brush (off, under, present, lead, step). Each section is told its families, loudest first (“solo horn present, strings under”). A family that changes inside a section is marked: the strongest level wins.
- The rows start as an orchestra’s families; + Family adds one, and a row’s name can be any sound (celesta, fiddle, 808 bass, analog synth pad, gospel choir): it goes to the model as written, so name it as you’d describe it.
- The takes on the same bars, for fixing part of one (step 6).
5. Render and choose a take
Render 8 takes in the window’s bar. Each lands in a few seconds (Stable Audio 3, about 2-4 s a take on a 5090) and is measured as it does:- Its waveform, from its first bar line.
- The white dotted line: its loudness per bar; the faint green under it is your arc. The closer they run, the better it follows the shape.
- Hit chips: at each hit, how far (frames) the nearest real event in the music is; orange past 2 frames, — when nothing happens there.
- Shape (0 is your arc exactly), the tempo heard, and a stale badge if the cut has moved since it was made (hover it for what moved).
6. Fix part of a take
On Orchestration & takes, drag across bars on a take:- Comp bars a-b from… another take: a new take, this one with those bars from the other, spliced on bar lines. It’s measured and ranked like the rest.
- Lower bars a-b with breakpoints… (the take in the mix): volume points that dip those bars, shown on the timeline lane.
- Repaint bars a-b: those bars made again on the take’s own model, the rest of the take kept exactly (spliced back at the bar lines). A new take, queued; it lands in a second or two, noted “repainted bars a-b from t03”, and is measured and ranked like the rest. By default it plays the same music again in those bars, on the take’s beat (a new performance of them); tick new music for something different there, which can drift off the beat over four bars or more: the take shows on the beat n/m against the original’s count, so render a couple and keep the one that stays on it. ACE-Step takes only: YuE2 and Stable Audio 3 can’t repaint (comp from another take instead). After updating seriesmith, restart ComfyUI once so it loads the node a repaint needs. A repaint can’t change what the bars are (new words, other instruments): inside a take, ACE-Step follows the bars around them, not new words. For that, change those sections’ words in the inspector, render the cue again, and Comp the bars from the take that follows them.
7. Levels
- Faders: one level per track. Music starts at -12 dB, under the lines. In ep03, at 0 dB the score was louder than the dialogue it sat under; at -12 it sat 5-10 dB under the lines and level with them on the swell.
- Ducking: music dips 9 dB (ambience 6) whenever someone speaks, automatically, in Play all and in the export alike.
- Score forward, where the music should carry the scene over the lines (a reveal, a montage with a voice-over, the swell under the last line): right-click a lane over the shot (or select the shots first) ▸ Duck region here. In that stretch the music doesn’t dip under the lines; the dialogue is lowered 4 dB instead. It shows as a green striped span down the lanes with a “Score forward” tab on the hits lane; drag the tab’s edges to fit it, right-click the tab to change how far the dialogue is lowered, to give it its own dip instead (a deeper one, say -18 dB, where a busy cue fights the lines), or to delete it. Shift+drag along the hits lane makes one over just the stretch you drag. It follows its shots when the cut changes.
- Fades: drag the white square at a block’s top corner inwards (the menu’s numbers do the same).
- Volume points: the pink line on a block. Drag a point up or down, double-click to add, right-click to delete. Picking a take adds them (the fit to the arc); the block’s menu clears them. A crescendo the music doesn’t have can’t be made with points; that’s what the arc and the words are for. Points shape the level of what’s there.
- Mute / solo a track on its lane’s head.
- Under the score, the Ambience lane carries each place’s room tone (its location’s
ambiencewords, made into a bed in the Refs tab’s Ambience), looped under its shots. It sits well under the lines at 0 dB; right-click a place’s block for its own level or to mute it. - Effects for a shot whose take has none of its own (a dubbed line, a model with no sound): right-click its clip, Sound ▸ Make effects, and pick the take on the Effects lane when it lands. They follow the shot’s trims; if the shot’s take changes they go stale and drop out until you make them again (EDITOR.md, Sound).
- Voices only, when the takes’ own music fights the score: H3, Seedance and FastH3 Omni bake music and room tone into each take, different at every cut. The Dialogue lane head’s ⋮ ▸ Voices only plays each clip’s voices alone (split off by Demucs: Make voice stems there, about a second a shot), so the score, the beds and the effects are all that’s under the lines. A shot with no lines goes silent on Dialogue; a shot whose stem isn’t made plays whole (a mark on its clip says so). With the takes’ effects gone too, make effects for the shots that need them. A shot can keep its whole sound: right-click it, Sound ▸ Keep its whole sound.
Muting or deleting a cue
Two ways to take a cue out, for two different wishes:- Mute it to try the scene without it, or keep it for later: untick plays in the mix on its row in the Refs tab’s Music, in its block’s menu on the Music lane, or in its menu on the spotting map. It stays where it is, its take and its levels kept, drawn faint; Play all and the export leave it silent (the music stem and the loudness too, and the Premiere / Resolve XML lays it switched off). Ctrl+Z undoes it, like any mix edit; tick it to hear it again. It’s per pass: muting it in the proxy mix leaves the final as it was. Picking a take in the cue window puts it back in the mix playing.
- Delete it when it’s not wanted at all: Delete cue… (the trash in the cue window’s
head, on its Refs tab row, or its menu on the spotting map). It asks first, saying what goes
(“m03 and its 5 takes go to the episode’s _history folder; it’s taken out of the proxy and
final mixes”), then moves the cue’s folder, its spec and every take, to the episode’s
_history/cue-m03.<date-time>/and takes it out of both passes’ mixes. Ctrl+Z can’t bring it back: to restore it, move that folder back tosound/m03/and pick its take again. A cue with a take still queued or rendering can’t be deleted (cancel it in Jobs), nor one another cue uses as its theme (give that cue another theme first).