What "auto cut to the beat" looks like in practice
The classic music-video edit is rhythmic: a kick lands, the shot changes; a snare hits, the shot changes again. Building that by hand in DaVinci Resolve takes hours of scrubbing and razor-blade work. Auto-cut tools shorten that to a few minutes by deciding the cut points for you, then placing the next clip at each one.
On DR Studio, plugins used to do this directly through the scripting API. On DR Free, that route is closed since version 19.1. The way it still works is by generating a complete timeline outside Resolve and importing it as an OTIO file.
How Pulse Edit handles the cuts
Behind the scenes, Pulse Edit runs three passes:
- Beat tracking. The audio goes through the beat_this transformer model. It returns a list of beat times and the inferred bar structure.
- Cut pattern application. The pattern (Every Beat, Every Bar, Energy Map, Wedding…) decides which subset of those beats actually becomes a cut. Wedding cuts only on downbeats; Every Beat takes them all; Energy Map adapts to the loudness of each section.
- Clip layout. Your media pool is walked through the cut grid. Sequential, random, or mood-weighted ordering — your call.
The output is an OpenTimelineIO file that contains: clip references (pointing back to your original media), in/out points, cut positions, and timeline markers at every detected beat.
Step-by-step on DR Free
Open Pulse Edit and load your music
Any standard audio file — MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC. Pulse Edit reads it directly. No need to bounce, transcode or pre-render.
Point it at your clips
Drag a folder, or hand-pick the shots. Set the order: sequential (clip 01 first), random (every regenerate shuffles), or guided by the mood preset you pick later.
Pick a cut pattern
Five patterns to choose from: Energy Map, Every Beat, Every Bar (4/4), Beat + Upbeat, and Half Time. Every Beat fits trap and EDM; Energy Map adapts cut density to the song's dynamics; Half Time breathes for slower, emotional edits. Prefer to let the song decide? Pick "Auto pattern from mood" and Pulse Edit chooses the shape for you. The waveform preview shows the cut positions before you commit.
Export OTIO
Click Export. Pulse Edit writes a .otio file in seconds. The file is tiny — it just describes the timeline.
Import in DaVinci Resolve Free
File → Import Timeline → OpenTimelineIO. Resolve creates a new timeline with the clips already cut and placed. Markers appear at every detected beat.
Where it shines
- Wedding highlight reels — Half Time and "Auto pattern from mood" cut on the downbeats, breathing for emotional shots. Chronological ordering can lay clips in the order they were filmed — it reads each clip's recording time, and two cameras interleave correctly as long as their clocks were synced.
- Travel montages — Energy Map adapts cut density to song dynamics: slow intros breathe, choruses cut tight.
- TikTok / Reels edits — Every Beat + Humanize gives the snappy feel without the robotic on-grid stiffness.
- Music videos — "Auto pattern from mood" catches the build-up and drop that actually matter in EDM and trailer tracks.
Things to know before you start
- Your clips aren't touched. The OTIO file references them by path. No re-encoding, no copying. If you move the source files later, re-link them inside Resolve as usual.
- FPS conform. Pulse Edit uses floor() (not round()) to align beat positions to frames. You stay perfectly in sync on 23.976, 25, 29.97 — the trickier rates.
- Manual override. Don't like one cut? You're in Resolve now. Move the clip, change its length, swap it for another. Pulse Edit gave you a starting timeline; the final polish is yours.