How to use the MV Studio to make a lyric video

A walkthrough of the studio on this site: load audio, add lyrics, time them, pick a style, and export a video plus a poster frame.

2026-08-18 · updated 2026-09-14 · 8 min read

What the studio does

The MV Studio at /tools/lyrics-mv/studio/ turns an audio file and a block of lyrics into a lyric video. Everything runs in your browser: the audio is decoded locally, the visual is drawn on a canvas, and the export is captured from that canvas together with the audio track. Nothing is uploaded to a server for processing.

It exists because the auto-generated video export from a music platform is a static image with compressed audio, and that's rarely what you want on a channel you care about. Here you control the palette, the typography, the timing and the aspect the text arrives in.

Step 1 — load the audio

Use the file input for a track you already exported — the lossless file if you have it.
Or paste a public song URL; the page fetches it through the site's own proxy.
Wait for the waveform-free timeline and duration readout to appear; that confirms decoding finished.
Play a few seconds to check the audio is the take you intended before you invest time in timing.

Load the highest-quality audio you have. The export re-encodes once, and starting from an already-compressed file stacks a second generation of loss for no benefit.

Step 2 — get the lyrics in

Paste the lyrics into the textarea. Two modes work. If your lines already carry timestamps in [mm:ss.xx] form, the studio uses them directly and your timing is done. If they're plain text, lines are distributed evenly across the track's duration as a starting point.

Even distribution is fine for a steady song and obviously wrong for anything with an instrumental intro or a long outro. If you need real timing, the lyrics-timestamp tool on this site is built for that: play the track, tap each line as it lands, and export LRC. Paste that back here and everything snaps into place.

[00:12.40] The kitchen light is on at four
[00:16.10] You left your coat beside the door
[00:19.80] I count the cars that never stop

Step 3 — choose a look

Control	What it changes	Advice
Style preset	Gradient palette and overall mood	Pick one that matches the track's tone, not your favourite colour
Font size	Text scale on the canvas	Bigger than feels right — phone screens are small
Position	Where lines sit in frame	Centre or lower third; avoid edges that get cropped
Animation mode	fade, slide or karaoke highlight	Fade for ballads, karaoke for anything with a clear pulse

Step 4 — preview honestly

Play from the start, not from the middle; intros are where drift shows first.
Scrub to each chorus and confirm lines land with the beat, not after it.
Check the longest line still fits the frame at your chosen font size.
Watch the last thirty seconds — outros are where auto-distribution breaks down.
Look at the preview at a small window size to approximate a phone.
Fix timing in the lyrics, not by changing the animation to hide it.

Step 5 — export

Export produces a WebM captured from the canvas with the audio track muxed in, plus an optional poster PNG. Grab the poster while you're there — it's the natural thumbnail and it's already in the right style.

Two practical points. First, capture happens in real time, so a four-minute song takes about four minutes to export; leave the tab focused and don't let the machine sleep. Second, WebM is widely accepted by video platforms, but if a destination insists on MP4 you can convert the file afterwards without touching the audio quality.

Don't switch tabs or minimise the window during export. Browsers throttle background rendering, which produces dropped frames in the captured video.

Tips that make it look deliberate

Leave the frame empty during instrumental sections rather than holding the last line on screen.
Keep lines short — the same discipline that makes lyrics singable makes them readable.
Use one preset for a whole release so the videos read as a set.
Export the poster at the same time and use it as the cover everywhere.
Save your lyrics-with-timestamps file; it's reusable if you ever remake the video.
If the text is hard to read over a busy gradient, change the preset rather than adding a shadow.

The whole thing is fifteen minutes of work for a result that doesn't look automated. That's the entire pitch.

FAQ

Does my audio get uploaded anywhere?

No. Local files are decoded in your browser and the video is rendered and captured on your machine. Only a pasted public URL is fetched, and that goes through the site's own proxy.

Why is my export taking as long as the song?

Canvas capture records in real time. A four-minute track needs roughly four minutes of export with the tab in the foreground.

Can I get an MP4 instead of WebM?

The studio exports WebM. Convert afterwards with any standard tool if your destination requires MP4; a container change doesn't degrade the audio.

My lyrics drift out of sync. How do I fix it?

Auto-distribution is only a starting point. Use the lyrics-timestamp tool to tap real timings, export LRC, and paste the timestamped lines back into the studio.

Can I use this with audio I didn't make?

Only with permission. The tool doesn't check rights — that responsibility stays with you, and the same rules apply as for any other reuse of someone else's recording.