Auto-sync lyrics in After Effects, without keyframing a line.
Stop scrubbing the timeline a syllable at a time. Time your own lyrics against your own track, then drop them in as real text layers you can animate.
- Count
- me
- in
- on
- the
- second
- bar
One text layer per cue, each trimmed to its own word, dropped into the composition you already have open. Real editable text, so your typeface and your animators still apply. Choose one layer per line or a single keyframed layer instead at export.
The part nobody wants to do by hand
A lyric video is not hard to design. It is hard to time. The design work is an afternoon and the timing pass is the rest of the week, spent stepping through a waveform deciding where the third word of a line actually lands inside a full mix. That pass is mechanical, it is the same job on every track, and it is the one part of the process that never gets better the more of them you do.
Forced alignment does that pass. You still choose the type, the motion and the cut. You just do not spend three days finding where the words are first.
What lands in your composition
Three layouts, chosen at export. All three build real, editable text layers, so your own typeface, your own animators and your own styling survive intact.
Layers
One text layer per cue, each with its own in and out point. What you want when every line is animated separately.
Source Text
One text layer for the whole track, with its Source Text property keyframed to each cue in turn. Fewer layers to manage, and at word level it reads as a word-by-word reveal on its own.
Karaoke
One text layer per line holding the whole line, with a Range Selector animator whose fill colour sweeps across the characters in step with each word. The wipe you would otherwise build by hand.
Not sure which timing level you need? Word-level vs line-level timing walks through when the extra detail earns its keep.
Two ways in
The panel
A free extension that docks in After Effects. Finish an alignment in the browser, hit send, and the layers appear in the composition you have open. Change the timing later and send again: the panel finds its own previous work and replaces it rather than stacking a second copy on top.
Install the panelThe script export
If you would rather not install an extension, export the alignment as a .jsx file and run it from File, Scripts, Run Script File. Same three layouts, same result in the comp, no installation and nothing running in the background.
How the import worksWhat it needs
After Effects 2021 or newer
Version 18.4 and up. No upper bound is declared, so a new release does not stop it loading.
Mac and Windows
One file for both. Nothing in the panel is compiled, so there is no per-platform build to pick between.
No subscription
The panel is free. You pay by the minute of audio you time, and those minutes do not expire.
Your own lyrics
We return timing, never words. LyriSync does not host, fetch or supply a lyrics database.
Not working in After Effects?
The same alignment exports as SRT, WebVTT, LRC, ASS, TTML, JSON or CSV, so it travels to Premiere, Resolve, Final Cut, a karaoke player or your own pipeline. One sync, exported as many times as you like.
SRT vs LRC covers which format goes where, and which conversion quietly loses your word timings.
After Effects questions
Does it build the text layers for me, or just give me a file?
Both routes exist. The After Effects panel sends a finished alignment straight into whichever composition you have open. If you would rather not install anything, export a .jsx script instead and run it from File, Scripts, Run Script File. Either way you end up with real text layers you can restyle, not a burned-in image.
Will it overwrite the composition I am working in?
It adds to the composition you have open rather than replacing it, on the assumption that a motion designer running this has already built the comp they want the lyrics in. It only creates a new composition when there is nothing open. Everything happens inside a single undo group, so one undo removes the whole thing.
Does it assume my comp is 1920 by 1080?
No. The text is laid out as a centered paragraph box sized as a fraction of the composition's real width and height, read at run time from whatever comp After Effects is actually working in. A line wraps inside the frame on a square or vertical comp the same way it does on a widescreen one.
Do I need an acapella or the stems?
No, the finished mix is all you need. The vocal is separated from the instrumental before anything is timed, and you can solo that isolated vocal in the editor to hear exactly what the model was working from.
Can I use it with Premiere, Resolve or Final Cut instead?
Yes, through the file exports rather than the panel. The panel is After Effects only, because it is a CEP extension. Every other editor takes one of the subtitle formats: SRT and WebVTT are the safe choices, and ASS carries word-level highlighting if your editor reads it.
What does the panel cost?
The panel is free. You pay for the timing itself, metered by the minute of audio, because every track runs on a GPU. Minutes do not expire.
Put it in your next comp
Time a track, install the panel, and the layers land in whatever you have open. Buy as few as ten minutes to start.
Align lyrics now