# Make a first cut

Turn a short spoken recording into a captioned MP4. Start with the
[Yapwing preview](https://yapwing.com) on an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 26
or later, and a recording you have permission to edit.

1. Open Yapwing and choose **File → New Project…** (⌘N). Save the project in
   a folder you want to keep.
2. Choose **File → Import Media…** (⌘I) and select the recording. Let local
   transcription finish. The words appear beside the preview, and the clip
   appears on the timeline.
3. Play the recording and select a passage you want to remove in the
   transcript. Delete the selected words. Their recorded audio and picture
   leave the cut together; the original file stays unchanged.
4. Play across the edit. Use **Edit → Undo** to restore it if needed. To bring
   back removed words later, select them in the transcript and choose
   **Edit → Restore Deleted Words**.
5. Correct any caption spelling in the transcript. A wording correction
   changes the caption, not the recorded voice.
6. Choose **File → Export…** (⌘E), pick a new destination and export the
   video. The first export is free; later exports need an active subscription.
   Open the resulting MP4 and check the cut and captions.

The first time Yapwing runs, it downloads its speech model in the background
and shows “Getting the speech model…”. A recording imported before the
download finishes is transcribed by a smaller built-in model, and its captions
update afterward.

The export's size follows the project's format (1080 × 1920 for the default
Portrait 9:16; see [Formats, silence and loudness](#formats-silence-and-loudness)),
at 30 frames per second, with H.264 video and AAC audio in SDR. A preview build has had less testing than a stable release;
inspect an export before publishing it.

For a project you will move to another Mac, use **File → Collect Assets**
before copying its folder. [Projects, originals and undo](/docs/project-model)
explains what to keep.

## Shorten pauses

Choose **Edit → Tighten Pauses** to shorten every pause longer than 0.4
seconds to 0.4 seconds. With a selection that contains a pause, it changes
only the selection. The change is one Undo step.

## Formats, silence and loudness

- **View → Format** and the toolbar's Format pop-up change the output to
  Portrait 9:16, Vertical 4:5 (1080 × 1350), Square 1:1 (1080 × 1080) or
  Landscape 16:9 (1920 × 1080).
- **Edit → Include Silence**, under Tighten Pauses, also removes silence
  measured in the recording's sound.
- Export levels the sound to −14 LUFS and keeps its true peak at or under
  −1 dBTP.