How to make a lyric video people can read and sing.
Loopwalk · Published · Sources: YouTube Help, BBC Subtitle Guidelines, U.S. Copyright Office
- 01One sung phrase per line, every chorus written out
- 02Each line starts on its first sung word
- 03Two lines at most in 16:9, three in 9:16
- 04Big type, with an outline or a darker backdrop
- 0516:9 MP4, H.264 + AAC, 1920 × 1080 or 3840 × 2160
- 06Rights to the lyrics, and Content ID sorted before upload
Step 1
Prepare the lyrics before you touch the timeline.
Most timing trouble starts in the text. Fix the words first and every later step gets easier.
1.1
One sung phrase per line
Break where the singer breathes, or at a comma or full stop. The BBC's subtitle guidelines add what not to split across a break: an article from its noun ("the + night"), a preposition from its phrase ("in + the dark"), a pronoun from its verb ("we + run").
When our transcriber drafts lyrics, it starts a new line at a pause of 0.6 s and splits any line longer than 10 words at its widest pause. A good default if you're unsure.
1.2
Write every chorus out
A tool that times text to audio can only place what's written. Write the chorus out each time it's sung, rather than "Chorus x2". Keep the ad-libs you want on screen and drop labels like [Verse].
We measured what a loose paste costs. With every 10th line deleted and a stray line added every 8th, the share of words more than a second off went from 0.5 % to as much as 8.9 %.
1.3
Keep the words as sung
The BBC guidelines say song lyrics should generally be verbatim, even when that makes them faster to read than speech. Spell slang the way the artist would, and write repeated words out ("oh, oh, oh") instead of a count.
1.4
Mark the sections
Blank lines between verses and choruses cost nothing and help later: you can make the chorus bigger or move it elsewhere on screen. In Loopwalk a blank line starts a new verse, and [Chorus] and (x2) are understood and written out for you.
Line breaks and verbatim lyrics: BBC Subtitle Guidelines, version 1.2.5 (March 2026), §3.4 and §16.6, read 3 October 2026
Step 2
Time it: line by line, or word by word.
Line timing makes a readable lyric video. Word timing makes one that feels like the song. Decide which before you start, because word timing takes several times the work by hand.
Line by line
Each line appears as its first word is sung and stays until the next line, or a moment after its last word. The BBC puts it simply for songs: if it takes 15 seconds to sing a line, the subtitle stays for 15 seconds.
Word by word
Each word appears, or lights up, on its own sung time. You need a time for every word: tap them in, or use a tool that aligns your text to the vocal. Aligners work best on an isolated vocal; on ours, in our test on 7 songs (4 English, 1 Spanish, 1 German, 1 French, lyrics pasted exactly as sung), the median word start was 36 ms off and 98.4 % of words landed within 300 ms.
Tap along on the beat
- Play the song and tap a key at the start of each line, not the end. If your tool can play at 0.75×, start there.
- Your taps land late by your reaction time. Shift them all a little earlier; Loopwalk's tap mode subtracts 80 ms by default and lets you calibrate against a click.
- Check each start against the waveform, or better, the vocal on its own: a line begins where the voice does, not where the drums do.
- Many lines start on a beat. Snapping a line's start to a beat that's very close is fine (we snap within ±80 ms); snapping single words isn't, because singers don't sit on the grid.
- Play it through once without stopping and fix only what you notice. That's what a viewer will notice too.
The worked example, line by line
The clip at the top uses our four test lines over eight bars at 125 BPM: one word a beat (0.48 s), one line every two bars. Here is the timing it renders from, taken from the file.
| Line | On at | On screen |
|---|---|---|
| Turn the lights down low | 3.86 s | 3.72 s · 5 words |
| Let the bass come in | 7.70 s | 3.72 s · 5 words |
| Every word lands on the beat | 11.54 s | 3.72 s · 6 words |
| This is your song | 15.38 s | 3.72 s · 4 words |
Step 3
Make it readable on a phone.
Most lyric videos get watched small. Size, contrast and where the words sit matter more than the font.
| Rule | 16:9 (YouTube) | 9:16 (Reels, Shorts, TikTok) |
|---|---|---|
| Lines on screen at once | Two at most | Three at most |
| Longest line | 68 % of the frame's width | 90 % of the frame's width |
| Contrast | At least 4.5 : 1 for normal text, 3 : 1 for large | The same |
| Safe area | Fill the frame; don't add black bars | Keep words clear of the caption and buttons; the safe zone shrinks as the caption gets longer |
| Time on screen | As long as the line is sung | The same |
Contrast is hard over a moving picture, because the background changes under the words. Give the type an outline or a soft shadow, or dim the backdrop behind the line being sung. Bright type on a bright chorus is where most lyric videos become unreadable.
Design for one shape and lay the words out again for the other, rather than cropping. A 16:9 line cut down to 9:16 loses its ends. In 9:16, keep the words in the middle of the frame, clear of the feed's own caption and buttons; TikTok publishes safe-zone templates for exactly this.
Sources, read 3 October 2026: BBC Subtitle Guidelines §3.1, §3.3, §16.7 · WCAG 2.2, 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) · YouTube: avoid padding or black bars · TikTok safe zones
Step 4
Three ways to build it.
Same steps, different amounts of your time. Pick by how much control you need over the picture and the timing.
A
By hand in a video editor
CapCut, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or any editor with text layers.
- Import the song and a background: a still, a loop or your own footage.
- Mark each line's start while the song plays (Step 2).
- Add one text layer per line, from its mark to the next one.
- For word by word, split each line into words or animate a highlight across it.
- Export with the settings in Step 5.
CapCut adds an auto lyrics feature: pick the song's language and a lyric template and it syncs the lines for you. Read every line against the song afterwards. CapCut's help says auto captions include Pro-only parts, which it checks when you export.
B
A template tool
Pick a designed lyric template, paste the lyrics and let the tool place them, then fine-tune. Videobolt, for example, says its sync sets an initial time for each line and that a few fixes are normal in fast sections, harmonies and unclear vocals.
Faster than by hand, and the design is done for you. The trade-off: the picture is the template's, and it moves on the beat rather than with each part of your song. Check the export size and watermark on the plan you pick.
C
Loopwalk
- Upload the song. It's split into stems (drums, bass, vocals, guitar, piano and the rest).
- Paste the lyrics in Branding → Lyrics, or have them written down for you (1 a day on Free).
- Press "Time them to the vocals". Each word is aligned to the vocal stem.
- Pick the Lyric Video template and one of its 12 styles. The kick punches the word being sung and the chorus goes bigger.
- Fix any line marked "check", then export 16:9 and 9:16.
The preview at full quality is free. The video file and stills are Unlimited exports. More on the lyric video maker page.
Step 5
Export settings for YouTube.
YouTube publishes its recommended upload settings. Match them and YouTube has less to re-encode.
| Setting | YouTube recommends |
|---|---|
| Shape | 16:9 |
| Size (4K) | 3840 × 2160 |
| Size (1440p) | 2560 × 1440 |
| Size (1080p) | 1920 × 1080 |
| Size (720p) | 1280 × 720 |
| Container | MP4, moov atom at the front |
| Video | H.264, high profile, 4:2:0 |
| Frame rate | The one it was made at (24–60) |
| Audio | AAC-LC, 48 kHz, stereo 384 kbps |
| Bitrate, 1080p | 8 Mbps at 24–30 fps · 12 at 48–60 |
| Bitrate, 4K | 35–45 Mbps · 53–68 at 48–60 |
Which size? A lyric video is mostly the sharp edges of type, and blocky edges are easy to spot. Export 1080p at least; 4K if your tool renders text at that size rather than scaling it up.
Shorts. A vertical or square video up to three minutes long is a Short. Cut the chorus out at 9:16 rather than posting the 16:9 file.
No bars. YouTube asks you not to add padding or black bars yourself; its player fits the frame to the screen.
Read 3 October 2026: YouTube recommended upload encoding settings · YouTube video resolution and aspect ratios · Understand three-minute YouTube Shorts
Step 6
Before you upload.
Three things to settle, so the video stays up and people can find it.
6.1
Name it so it's found
Use the pattern people search for: Artist – Song (Lyric Video). Keep the official video, the lyric video and the visualizer as separate uploads with their own labels, so each one answers its own search. Put the full lyrics in the description too.
6.2
Have the rights to the words
The U.S. Copyright Office says a musical work is "a song's underlying composition along with any accompanying lyrics", and that the recording and the lyrics are separate works, "commonly owned and licensed separately." Your own song: the words are yours and your co-writers'. Anyone else's: you need permission for the lyrics as well as the recording.
U.S. Copyright Office, read 3 October 2026
6.3
Sort out Content ID first
If your distributor registered the song in Content ID, YouTube can claim your own upload: it may block it, run ads on it, or track it. A claim isn't a copyright strike, and you can dispute one if you hold the rights.
Easier: ask your distributor to put your channel on its allowlist before you upload. YouTube says claims made before that aren't released automatically. And a Short longer than one minute with an active Content ID claim is blocked worldwide.
Planning more than one video for the release? What an official visualizer is explains how it differs from a lyric video, and the YouTube visualizer page shows the 16:9 upload made from the same stems.
Skip the keyframes. Keep the timing.
Upload your song and paste the lyrics: each word is timed to the vocal and moved by the song's drums and voice. Preview it free at full quality; the video file comes with Unlimited.
Sources · read
- YouTube recommended upload encoding settings
- YouTube video resolution and aspect ratios
- Understand three-minute YouTube Shorts
- How Content ID works
- Exempt channels from Content ID claims
- Learn about copyright claims
- BBC Subtitle Guidelines, version 1.2.5 (March 2026)
- WCAG 2.2, 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
- U.S. Copyright Office: What musicians should know about copyright
- TikTok in-feed ad specifications
- CapCut: How to make a lyric video (22 January 2026)
- CapCut help: Why am I prompted to join CapCut Pro? (3 April 2026)
- Videobolt help: How to sync lyrics with AI
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