After Effects and Premiere Pro

Sonic Weaver writes a script for After Effects from your export and its song. Run in After Effects, it makes a folder named for your project with a composition at the export's size, frame rate and length, the export on top and the song under it, lined up to the moment the export starts, with the export's own sound switched off so the song plays once at its own quality.

Every beat, every phrase of 8 bars and every section of the song becomes a composition marker with its name, from Sonic Weaver's own analysis of the song (the one the editors move your visualizer to). From After Effects 16.0 each kind of marker has its own colour. It is one step to undo.

A composition can be up to 3 hours long and a script carries up to 20,000 markers; for a long mix, choose phrases and sections only.

In Classic, under every finished export: press After Effects script, choose the markers, and it is saved for that export.

On the After Effects page, for any video you exported from Sonic Weaver: choose the video and its song, the frame rate it was exported at and, if it starts partway into the song, how far.

From SW Agent: ask "make an after effects script with beat markers for this export" with the export and the song attached, or in Classic after an export (after_effects_script). It makes the same file.

• Make the script
• Open Classic

Save the script in the same folder as your export and the song, then in After Effects choose File, Scripts, Run Script File and pick it. No plugin is needed. If a file is not beside the script, After Effects asks where it is; if you cancel, the composition and its markers are still made.

Every script is written from Sonic Weaver's own template. Your project's name, the file names and the song's section names go in as text that can never become code, and the script calls only what is on Sonic Weaver's checked list, each call checked against Adobe's published scripting reference. It never runs a program, deletes, renames or writes a file, or reaches the internet.

What a script may call in After Effects: Application.project, Application.version, Application.beginUndoGroup, Application.endUndoGroup, Project.items, Project.importFile, ItemCollection.addComp, ItemCollection.addFolder, Item.parentFolder, CompItem.layers, CompItem.markerProperty, CompItem.openInViewer, LayerCollection.add, AVLayer.startTime, AVLayer.property, AVLayer.audioEnabled, Property.setValuesAtTimes, MarkerValue.label, File.openDialog, File.exists, File.parent, Folder.fsName and $.fileName, with File, Folder, ImportOptions and MarkerValue.

A free panel for After Effects is in testing. Docked beside your project, it opens SW Agent in your browser, reads a script you saved, checks it against the same list, shows what it will make, and runs it in the open project only when you press Run. It runs on your computer.

Premiere Pro runs plugins rather than script files, so the After Effects page also saves a Premiere Pro plan: plain data naming your export, the song and every marker, never code. The free Sonic Weaver plugin for Premiere Pro (in testing) reads it, makes a sequence from your export at its size and frame rate, adds the markers and sets the song to start where the export does.

Classic's Timeline can also export its cut as an EDL or FCPXML that Premiere Pro opens.

• Files from and for other programs

Adobe, After Effects and Premiere Pro are trademarks of Adobe. Sonic Weaver is not made by or affiliated with Adobe.