Beat grid
Also known as: tempo grid, beat map
The map of every beat position across a whole track, which becomes the set of legal cut points for an edit that is built to music.
Updated
What it means
A beat grid is the output of analysing a track: a list of timestamps marking every beat from the first bar to the last. It is the difference between knowing a tempo from BPM (tempo) alone and being able to edit against it.
Once the grid exists, cutting becomes a constrained problem. Shots are not trimmed to their natural length but to the nearest legal position, which is what makes a sequence feel locked to the music rather than merely accompanied by it.
The grid also encodes structure above the beat. Bars and phrases are derived from it, and those are what decide whether a cut feels like a step or a new section.
How it works in practice
Shots are fitted between grid positions rather than measured by duration. A shot that wants to run three and a half beats is trimmed to three or extended to four, and the choice affects Pacing more than its content does.
Not every beat needs a cut. Using every position produces a relentless sequence, so most edits cut on a subset and let the rest pass, which leaves room for a shot to breathe.
Strong positions deserve strong material. The first beat of a bar carries more weight than the others, so the better moments go there and the connective shots fill the gaps.
What to watch out for
A grid locked to the wrong tempo is confidently useless. Half or double the real rate is regular and therefore passes every sanity check, while producing an edit at the wrong rhythm entirely, which is a failure Beat sync cannot correct afterwards.
Tracks that change tempo break a single grid. A live recording or a song with a slow intro needs the grid rebuilt per section, and Beat detection run once on the whole file will not notice.
Rigid adherence also carries a penalty of its own. Forcing every shot onto the grid flattens variation, and an edit where nothing ever runs long reads as mechanical however well timed it is.
How RawClip handles it
Cut points come from the grid of the chosen track rather than from fixed shot lengths, and only a subset of positions is used so the sequence has somewhere to breathe. The strongest material is placed on the heaviest beats rather than wherever it was filmed.