ClutchCut Audio Help

ClutchCut Audio opens to an empty project. To begin, either import audio (toolbar → Import button or ⌘O), record from your mic (arm a track then hit Record), or generate speech with the TTS button.

• Import Audio / MIDI — accepts WAV, MP3, M4A, AIFF, FLAC, MID, MIDI. MIDI files create a MIDI track automatically.
• Add Track — adds a blank audio track. Arm (R button) to record into it.
• Save / Open projects — projects are saved as .clutchproject JSON bundles. Auto-save runs every 30 seconds.

All edits support unlimited undo/redo (⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z).

• Split clip — position playhead over clip, press S or right-click → Split.
• Trim — drag the left or right edge of a clip to trim. Hold ⌥ for ripple trim.
• Move clip — drag the clip body. Hold ⌘ to disable snap.
• Ripple delete — select clip, press ⌫ for regular delete or toolbar Ripple Delete to close the gap.
• Multi-select — click then Shift-click or drag a selection box. Nudge all selected with , / ..
• Snap to grid — enabled by default. BPM field in toolbar controls beat grid. Disable snap by holding ⌘ while dragging.
• Fade in/out — drag the small triangle handles at the top-left / top-right of a clip.
• Remove Silence — right-click clip → Remove Silence. Set threshold and minimum gap duration.
• Insert Silence — toolbar Media group or right-click → Insert Silence. Optionally ripple all tracks.

A built-in catalog of royalty-free music — open it from the Insert menu → Music Library (⌘⇧M) or the toolbar. It opens in its own window so you can keep browsing while you edit, and every track is free to use.

• Browse & filter — search by title, artist, or mood, and narrow by mood, genre, and length. Curated playlists (Vlog & Daily, Epic & Montage, Sleep, Focus & Study, and more) group tracks by use case.
• Preview — click the play button on any track to audition it before adding.
• Favorite & Recent — heart tracks you like and jump back to them via the Favorites and Recent filters; save your own playlists to reuse per chapter.
• Add to timeline — click + Add to drop a track onto your timeline as a new audio track at the playhead.

Click any track header to open the Mixer Inspector panel on the right.

• Volume / Pan — sliders at the top of the inspector. Volume automation is written to the yellow lane below the track in W/T/L modes.
• 3-Band EQ — low shelf, mid peak, high shelf with gain ± 12 dB and frequency knobs.
• Reverb — wet/dry mix and room size.
• Effects chain — serial Delay and Distortion nodes, add/remove/bypass individually.
• Pitch & Time — non-destructive pitch shift (±24 semitones) and playback rate (0.5×–2×) via AVAudioUnitTimePitch.
• Bus routing — (Pro) send the track output to Bus A, B, or C for shared reverb / compression.
• AUv3 Plugins — (Pro) click Add Effect → AU Browser. Loads third-party Audio Unit v3 plugins with up to 8 parameter sliders.

Auto-Ducking

Toolbar AI Tools → Auto-Duck. Select one or more trigger tracks (e.g. voice-over), set threshold, duck amount, attack/release. Generates volume automation on all non-trigger tracks.

Give any mix a finished, release-ready sound in one place — toolbar AI Tools → Mastering (⌘M). It opens in its own window. Turn on Master Processing, then dial in the halves below.

Character (the enhancement)

Layered on top of loudness, Character adds the “mastered” feel — presence + air (detail), stereo width (space), glue compression and warmth. Pick a preset and set Strength (0–100%):

• None — loudness only, no tonal change.
• Natural — transparent polish.
• Warm — fuller low end + gentle saturation.
• Bright — presence + air for vocal clarity/detail.
• Open — wider stereo image / bigger space.
• Punchy — glue + density for a louder feel.

Loudness target & Auto-Gain

Choose a target — Spotify / YouTube (−14 LUFS), Apple (−16), or Archival (none). Analyze Loudness renders the full mix offline (ITU-R BS.1770-4) and computes the exact gain to hit it; a true-peak limiter catches peaks at −1.0 dB.

Compare (A/B) & export

Click Render Preview, then toggle Original vs Enhanced to hear the difference, with before/after LUFS and peak shown. Turn on Match loudnessto cancel the “louder = better” bias so you judge tone, not level. When it sounds right, click Save Mastered WAV… for a 24-bit delivery file. Auto-master is also applied per-episode inside the Batch Podcast Builder.

Access TTS from the toolbar Media group:

• TTS button — generates a short clip (≤10,000 chars) placed at the playhead. Kokoro runs on-device with 54 voices; no internet needed for English.
• Batch Voice Generation — converts multiple .txt / .md / .pdf files to M4A or WAV in the background. Output folder is user-selectable; processing continues while you work and progress shows in the status bar.

Voice source — Local or Cloud (free)

Both single-clip TTS and Batch have a Voice Source toggle: Local — free uses the bundled on-device voices (no internet), and Cloud — freeuses a higher-quality cloud voice at no cost — no credits, no Pro. Cloud needs an internet connection and falls back to the on-device voice automatically if it's ever unavailable.

Engine priority

Azure TTS setup

In Settings, enter your Azure Cognitive Services API key and region (e.g. eastus). Azure takes priority over all local engines and supports all 25+ languages with neural voices.

Fix Pronunciation

In the Mixer Inspector → SOURCE TEXT panel, right-click any sentence → Fix Pronunciation. Enter a phonetic spelling and click Regenerate — the app splices in the new audio at frame-level precision.

Transcript Alignment

Import a .srt or .vtt file onto an external podcast track via Mixer Inspector → Import Transcript. For TTS drift correction, use Fix Drift — uses STT binary search to locate and correct misaligned sentences.

Turn a folder of narration into finished, publish-ready episodes in one unattended run — Insert menu / toolbar → Batch Podcast Builder (Pro). It opens in its own window; everything runs in the background with a progress bar.

• Narration — pick individual audio files or a whole folder (each file becomes one episode).
• Background music — from a local folder or the built-in Music Library; clips are looped and shuffled under each reading.
• Recipe — Music length (Fit to narration, or Fixed “thick music” for a set length), narration start offset, end fade, shuffle, Auto-fix transcript drift, and Auto-master to your loudness target.
• Output — WAV / M4A / MP3 with bitrate, and optionally save an editable .clutchaudio project next to every episode so you can tweak it later.
• Estimate — shows expected output size vs. free disk space before you start.

Each episode is assembled on its own throwaway project and rendered offline, so it never touches your live timeline. Transcript sidecars (.tts.json / .srt / .vtt) are written when a narration has a matching transcript.

Some AI features require external tools installed by the user. All of these apply to the Direct Download build only.

ClutchCut Audio can import session metadata from ClutchCut Video and Shadow via the .clutchmeta format.

• Import via toolbar — Media group → Live Link icon, then select a .clutchmeta file.
• Tracks, clips, beat markers, and timing data are imported with full undo/redo support.
• Export back to Video — Export → writes a mastered audio file plus a .tts.json transcript sidecar for the Video/Shadow transcript pipeline.

After purchasing ClutchCut Audio Pro:

1. You will be redirected to a page showing your CCA-… license key. Copy it (or click the key to copy).
2. Open ClutchCut Audio. Click the ClutchCut wordmark in the toolbar to open the About sheet.
3. Paste the key into the license field and click Activate Key.
4. The app validates the key against our server and unlocks Pro features permanently on that machine.

Your key is tied to your purchase, not to a specific Mac. You can activate it on any Mac you personally own. Contact support@clutchcut.studio if you need to transfer your license.