In this video, I want to demonstrate the value of TimeBolt and how I use it as part of my video editing workflow to automate 80% of my jump cuts.

TimeBolt is a paid software that will automatically scan the audio waveforms inside your video clips for dead air and create a file that can use in Premiere or Final Cut.

As a course creator, this has been a complete game-changer for me and the way that I edit. Instead of wasting my time cutting through a twenty-minute video clip, I get to just add or remove a few frames and focus on deleting the bad takes.

So this video will break down two different approaches that I use: the first approach is when your audio and video are both recorded in-camera, and the second approach is when you’ve recorded your audio and video separately.

The first approach is a lot easier. If my audio and video were both recorded in-camera, all I have to do is drag the file into TimeBolt and adjust the silence detection settings.

A lot of this will be your personal preference when it comes to the speed of your video, but I generally produce good results by removing silences longer than 0.2 seconds. TimeBolt is pretty good at automatically figuring out what to set the filter level to, so I usually don’t touch this.

When it comes to padding, I set my left padding to 0.05, and my right padding to 0.15.

Aside from that, I usually don’t touch any of the other settings – I just scroll down and export an XML file to my project directory. And from there, all I have to do is import it into Premiere. All my cuts are automatically there, so I play it through and delete the bad takes and fix up any edits where TimeBolt cut me off.

Moving back to the second approach: what if you recorded your audio and video separately? Unfortunately, TimeBolt is not smart enough yet to work with multiple clips – but I found an efficient six-step workaround for Windows users.

Step one: I sync up my audio and video in Premiere.

Step two: I set an in point at the beginning of the video clip by hitting ‘I’, and an out point at the end of the video clip by hitting ‘O’ with the timeline selected. Make sure you DO NOT trim the video clip here!

Step three: I solo my good audio track by clicking the ‘S’, then I hit ‘CTRL + M’ with the timeline selected to bring up the Export window – or you can go to File, Export, Media.

Step four: I output an .mp3 audio file to my project folder, and I tack on ‘mux’ to the name of the file so I can identify it.

Step five: I open up a software called My MP4 BOX GUI, which is a pretty clunky piece of outdated software that you can download to replace the audio file in your video clip without having to re-render it. This is way faster than trying to encode a long video clip with new audio.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any suggestions for Mac users when it comes to using mp4 Box – but if you know of a program that can do it, please let me know.

Step six: I drop in my video clip, along with my newly exported audio file, then I hit ‘Mux’. And because I already set my in and out points in Premiere, both clips are now the exact same length and will sync up perfectly.

Once this process finishes, you’ll have a brand new video clip with your good audio embedded into it, and you can now move into TimeBolt and follow the rest of the instructions I shared earlier.

So that’s pretty much it – that’s how I use TimeBolt and how I use it as part of my video editing workflow to automate 80% of my jump cuts.

If you found this helpful and you’re going to pay for the program, I’m a TimeBolt affiliate and I would highly appreciate if you’re willing to use my affiliate code. Grab it from the description below.