Change the look partway through a cut with markers

A marker splits a cut into stretches. Each stretch, from its marker to the next one, has its own look. Say your song opens with a guitar solo: drop a marker where the solo ends, hide the chords before it and show them after. Or move the lyrics to the top when the camera angle changes.

You never need a marker to style your video. Without markers, every setting applies to the whole cut. Once you add one, the stretch before the first marker is the Video default: what you change there applies to every marker that hasn’t changed that setting itself. A marker only holds its exceptions, setting by setting: a marker that made the tab bigger still takes the default’s new tab colour.

Markers belong to one cut. Other cuts of the project are not affected.

Before you start

• Open the cut you want to split in the editor (see Cuts).
• Know which settings a stretch can change: the chord style, colour, size and placement, whether chords, lyrics and tab show, the lyric and tab styles, the video’s framing, frame and filter, the song card’s style and timing, and the elements. A stretch keeps only the settings you change there; everything else comes from the Video default.
• Some things stay the same for the whole cut: the chords and lyrics themselves, the chord notation, the capo, the song’s name and cover, the files’ volume, and the cut’s window of the song.

Steps

Add a marker

1. Move the playhead to where the new look should start.
2. Press the Add marker button on the timeline, or press M.
3. A flag appears on the timeline’s ruler. The new stretch starts as a copy of the one before it.

Give a stretch its own look

1. Put the playhead anywhere inside the stretch you want to change.
2. Check the first line of the settings card: it names the marker you’re editing and the only time it covers. The switch that read In this cut now reads In this marker.
3. Change any setting — the chord style, the lyrics’ place, the tab’s size. Only that setting of this stretch changes. Each group of settings now says This marker only.
4. The video’s framing, size, frame and filter, and the watermark, are the exception: changed on a marker, they change for the whole video. To change them only in this stretch, choose Customize here first (see below).

To change the whole video instead, put the playhead before the first marker. The card then reads Video default, and your change also reaches every marker that hasn’t changed that setting. One kind of change is the exception: turning the chords, the lyrics or the tab on or off there changes only the part before the first marker, and the switch shows the marker’s time. So you can hide the tab before a solo’s marker and keep it after.

Choose where a change goes

On a marker, each group of settings — the chords, the tab, the lyrics, the video, the song card, an element — starts with a line that says whose its settings are: Video default or This marker only.

1. Put the playhead inside the marker’s stretch and open the group you want.
2. Open Where changes go (the ⋯ on the group’s line).
3. Choose what you need:
   • Customize here: the group stops following the Video default in this stretch, and your next changes stay here. Use it for the video’s framing or the watermark, which otherwise change for the whole video.
   • Use default: only this group goes back to the Video default. The rest of the marker’s changes stay.
   • Make default: this marker’s settings in the group become the Video default. Every marker that didn’t change them takes them too.

Move, rename, restore or delete a marker

1. To move a marker, drag its flag along the ruler. Hold Shift while dragging to land it on a bar or beat.
2. To rename it, open Options (the ⋯ beside its name at the top of the settings card) and choose Rename. Markers are called “Mark 1”, “Mark 2” and so on until you name them.
3. To give a marker’s whole stretch the video default’s look again, choose Restore default in the same menu. The marker stays where it is. To put back just one group, use Use default instead (see above).
4. To delete a marker, choose Delete marker in the same menu, right-click its flag on the timeline, or click its flag and press Delete. The stretch before it then carries on to the next marker. The chords, lyrics, tab and sync don’t change.
5. To go back to one look for the whole video, choose Remove all markers and confirm. Every marker goes, and the Video default covers the whole cut.

Clicking a flag without dragging takes the song to that marker.

Copy a layer’s look to another stretch

1. Open the mode of the layer you want to copy in the settings card: Chords, Tabs or Lyrics.
2. Put the playhead in the stretch whose look you like, open Options (the ⋯ at the top of the settings card) and choose Copy tab style (or Copy chord style, Copy lyrics style).
3. Put the playhead in another stretch, open the same menu and choose the matching paste item: Paste tab style, Paste chord style or Paste lyrics style. That layer now looks the same there: its style, size and place, colours, see-through, font and the rest of its options.

Pasting on a marker changes only that stretch. Pasting on the Video default changes the whole video, except the markers that changed that layer’s look themselves. Pasting never changes the chords, the lyrics, the tab’s notes or the sync, and never switches a layer on or off. You can paste in any cut of the project while the editor is open. The paste item stays greyed out until you copy that layer’s look.

Options

On a selected flag	What it does
Drag	Moves the marker exactly where you let go
Drag with Shift	Moves it onto the nearest bar or beat
← / →	Nudges it a tiny step
Shift + ← / →	Steps it along the beat grid
Delete	Removes it
Right-click	Opens its menu: go to it, restore the default look, delete it

Tips

• The new look starts exactly on the marker’s frame, never late, so put the marker right on the beat where the change happens. The change blends in just before it so it doesn’t jump.
• When a stretch has the chords, the lyrics or the tab switched off, that lane is hatched on the timeline over the stretch, with a crossed-out eye where it starts, so you can see at a glance what each part of the video shows. You can still edit it there.
• Faint dashed flags on the timeline are FlowChord’s suggestions, such as where the shot changes in your video. FlowChord never adds them on its own: press one and choose Add marker to add a marker there, or ignore it.
• Adding, moving, restoring and removing markers, and pasting a look, can be undone with ⌘ Z / Ctrl Z, like any change of look.
• If a lyric line is picked on the timeline, M merges it with the line before instead of adding a marker. Click an empty spot of the timeline first.
• Markers are kept when you duplicate a cut. The export draws each stretch exactly as the preview does. See Export your video.
• On a phone, markers work the same way: press the add button, drag a flag to move it, and rename, restore or remove it from its sheet. A suggestion tapped asks before it adds a marker.

Common problems

I see markers I never added. FlowChord doesn’t add markers by itself. Older versions added one with a single click on a suggestion’s dashed flag, which was easy to do by accident. Delete the ones you don’t want, or choose Remove all markers to go back to one look.

Nothing happens when I add a marker. A marker can’t sit right next to another one. Move the playhead a little further away and try again.

My change applied to the whole cut. Check the first line of the settings card: it names the stretch you’re editing. If it shows the wrong one, move the playhead into the right stretch first.

I moved the video or the watermark on a marker and it moved everywhere. That’s expected: the video’s framing and the watermark belong to the whole video. To change them only in that stretch, choose Customize here on the group first.

I changed a chord in one stretch and it changed everywhere. That’s expected: the chords and lyrics are the project’s. Only the look is per stretch.

The marker landed slightly off the beat. Drag it again with Shift held to put it on the bar or beat, or zoom in on the timeline for finer control.