Woven

How to make a lyric video

Last updated 2026-10-20

To make a lyric video, start with the final mix of your song and its lyrics. Time each line to the vocal, choose a readable text style, and set a background such as the cover art or your own footage. Export 16:9 for YouTube and 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts. Woven Video, a Mac editor, times the words to the vocal from the song's audio, and you fix any misheard word.

What a lyric video is

A lyric video puts a song's words on screen in time with the vocal, over a background. It is simpler to make than a music video: you need the song, the words, a look for the text and something behind it.

Lyric videos usually take one of three forms. The whole line shows at once and stays until the singer finishes it. The words appear one at a time as they are sung. Or the words move and build across the frame, often called kinetic type. Choose one style and keep it for the whole song, as switching styles mid-song looks like a mistake.

The workflow in any editor

The steps are the same in any editor that can show timed text. Only the amount of hand work changes.

  • Song file. Use the final master, the same file you release. A rough mix with different timing will put every line in the wrong place later.
  • Lyrics. Type them exactly as sung, with every repeat, ad-lib and changed word in the last chorus. Break them into the lines you sing in one breath, because each of those becomes one caption.
  • Timing. Each line should appear as the singer starts it and clear soon after it ends. You can set every line by hand against the waveform, or let a tool with automatic captions transcribe the vocal and then correct it.
  • Look. Pick the font, size, color and position before you fine-tune timing, since a bigger font changes where lines break.
  • Background. The cover art, a still you made, footage you shot or generated visuals. One strong image with slow motion often works better than many cuts.
  • Export. Make a wide version for YouTube and a vertical version for Reels, TikTok and Shorts.

Timing sung lyrics

Expect more fixes than with speech. Held notes, harmonies, backing vocals and effects on the voice all make words harder to transcribe, whether a tool does it or you do it by ear. Do one full pass with your lyric sheet open and check every line.

Keep one sung line per caption. If a caption runs two lines together, split it where the singer breathes. If a short phrase sits alone for a split second, join it to its neighbor. Watch the transitions between sections, where a line can hang over an instrumental break.

Typography and readability

Many viewers will see your lyric video on a phone, so check every choice on a real phone.

  • Size. Large enough to read at arm's length. A vertical video needs fewer words per line and bigger text than a wide one.
  • Lines. One or two lines on screen at a time. A full verse on screen makes viewers read ahead of the singer.
  • Fonts. One heavy, simple font for the words, and at most a second for the title. Thin script fonts disappear over busy footage.
  • Contrast. W3C's accessibility guideline asks for a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and background, or 3:1 for large text. Over a bright or busy background, add an outline or shadow, or darken the image.
  • Position. Keep the words clear of the platform's buttons and captions. Meta's Reels ad guide advises leaving at least 14% at the top, 35% at the bottom and 6% at each side free of text.

Choosing a background

Still art is the simplest choice. Album covers are usually square, so on a 16:9 or 9:16 frame you either show the whole cover with space around it, or fill the frame and crop it. Filling the frame with a square cover keeps only a little over half of it, so check that the crop does not cut through the title or a face.

A slow zoom or pan keeps a still from looking frozen for three minutes. The Ken Burns effect guide covers the options. Footage of you performing, or b-roll you shot, gives the song more life. Generated images and clips are a third option when you have no footage, though AI generation usually costs money or credits.

Sizes for YouTube, Reels, TikTok and Shorts

Plan two versions. A full song suits a 16:9 video on YouTube. A vertical 9:16 clip of the chorus or the hook suits Reels, TikTok and Shorts, where YouTube says a Short can be up to 3 minutes long.

Make the vertical version a fresh layout, not a crop of the wide one. Narrow the lines, enlarge the text and reframe the background so it fills the tall frame.

Lyric video shapes and what each platform's own pages say
WhereShapeWhat the platform says
YouTube16:9, such as 1920 by 108016:9 is the standard on a computer; MP4 with H.264 is recommended
YouTube ShortsVertical, such as 1080 by 1920Vertical video up to 3 minutes, at up to 1080p
Instagram Reels9:16, such as 1080 by 1920Meta's Reels ad guide lists 9:16 at 1440 by 2560, in MP4 or MOV
TikTok9:16, such as 1080 by 1920The ad specs recommend vertical 9:16; TikTok's developer docs recommend MP4 with H.264

Rights: use songs and lyrics you own or have permission for

A song is two works. The US Copyright Office treats the musical composition, which is the music and its lyrics, as separate from the sound recording of a performance. Composers, lyricists and songwriters are the authors of the first, and performers, producers and sound engineers of the second. A lyric video uses both, so you need the right to each.

If you wrote, performed and produced it yourself, you likely hold both. A co-writer, producer, engineer, label, publisher or beat license can each hold part, so check those agreements first. A lyric video of someone else's song needs permission for the lyrics as well as the recording.

On YouTube, the copyright holder decides what happens to a video with claimed music. YouTube's help page says the holder may run ads on it, mute it or block it, and that YouTube cannot grant you the rights.

Make a lyric video in Woven

In Woven, the song itself is what gets captioned. Add your song and choose Generate captions, and Woven times the words to the vocal from the song's audio. It does not align a pasted lyric sheet, so read along and fix any misheard word. Captioning uses credits; the pricing page has the rate. Keep the song the only voice in the reel, because Woven also captions any other speech it finds, and a song added as background music by chat is captioned only when nothing else speaks. Woven has no stock library. The background is your own art or footage, or images and clips the agent generates on credits, which land in the workspace's generated folder for you or the agent to place. Captions are burned into the exported MP4.

Ask in chat

  • Caption the song and keep one sung line per caption.
  • Change 'fire' to 'higher' in the second chorus.
  • Use the Progressive reveal look in a heavy white font with an outline.
  • Fill the frame with my cover art, run it the length of the song and add a slow zoom.
  • Switch the canvas to vertical for Reels and make the lyrics bigger.

Or do it by hand

  1. 1Pick the canvas. Open the Format menu in the toolbar (it shows the current shape, such as 16:9) and choose Horizontal 1920x1080 for YouTube or Vertical 1080x1920 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts.
  2. 2Add the song. Choose Add, then Audio, and pick the master. Woven reads MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC and FLAC, and the song arrives as an audio clip at full volume.
  3. 3Add the background. Choose Add, then Image or Video. An image arrives small: 35% of the canvas width, set to Fit, for 3 seconds. In its Crop tab, set Aspect to the canvas shape, switch Fit to Fill and raise Scale until no edge shows, then ask in chat to make it run the length of the song. For motion, pick Slow Zoom from Loop on the Animation tab. If you use footage with its own sound, turn its volume down to 10% or less so only the song is captioned.
  4. 4Time the words. Choose Add, then Generate captions. Read every caption against your lyric sheet. Ask in chat to change a wrong word, or fix it yourself; a corrected word keeps its timing. Right-click a caption on the timeline for Split at Playhead or Join with Next to get one sung line per caption.
  5. 5Style the lyrics. With the captions selected, open Caption style on the Style tab and pick Highlight, Subtitle, Word by word, Word in place or Progressive reveal. Set Font, Weight and Size on the Edit tab, add an outline or shadow under Effects on the Style tab, and drag the captions clear of the platform's buttons.
  6. 6Export. Click Export and choose 1080p or 1440p. You get an H.264 MP4 with the lyrics burned in, which you upload yourself. For Shorts, 1080p is YouTube's maximum.

Common questions

Sources

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Related

Add captions to a videoAdd music to a videoText animationKen Burns effectSafe zone checker for Reels, TikTok and ShortsYouTube video resolutionWoven guide: captions