Trimming clips and improving audio quality

Tidy up raw footage in Mozaik — trim and split clips on the timeline and let the AI audio enhancer clean up the sound — so finishing a video takes less manual editing.

Written By David Kettner

Last updated 9 days ago

Raw recordings are rarely ready to publish as-is. Mozaik gives you quick ways to tighten footage and clean up audio right in the web app, so getting to a finished video takes far less manual editing than a traditional video tool.

Trim by editing the transcript

For speech-heavy clips, the fastest way to trim is text-based editing. Select a clip on the timeline or in the preview, open Trim in the right-hand panel, and Mozaik shows the clip's transcript. Delete the words or sentences you don't want — like editing a document — and Mozaik cuts them from the timeline for you, with no scrubbing back and forth. You can also use Remove silences to strip dead air in one click.

Good to know: Text-based editing needs a transcript, so it works on real recordings with speech — not on stock footage or clips without one.

Good to know: Remove silences and automatic editing judge silence by the audio, so a deliberate pause — panning to a screen, a demo beat, a breath before a key point — can be cut along with genuine dead air. Play the clip through after any automatic cut, and use Restore all if a passage you needed went missing.

Bring back footage that was cut

Trimming in Mozaik is never destructive — nothing is deleted from your recording, it is only hidden from the cut. So if automatic editing (or Remove silences) dropped something you actually wanted, you can put it back in seconds.

Open the clip and go to Trim. In the transcript, removed words appear struck through and cut silences show as a [...] marker. Click a struck-through word and choose Restore to bring it back into the cut, or click Restore all to return the clip to its full, untrimmed recording and start again. You can also drag the handles on the clip in the timeline back out to re-reveal footage at either edge.

Good to know: This is the quickest fix when automatic editing trimmed a deliberate pause — for example a beat where the speaker stops talking to point at their screen. Restore the passage, then trim only what you actually want gone.

Trim and split clips on the timeline

Open your project in the editor and select a footage clip on the timeline. Drag the handles on either edge to trim the clip shorter. To cut a clip into separate parts, select it, move the playhead to where you want the cut, and use the Split tool — the scissors in the timeline toolbar, or press C.

Find your way around the timeline

The timeline toolbar along the bottom of the editor controls how you view and move around your video — separate from editing the clips themselves.

  • Zoom in and out. Drag the zoom slider next to the magnifier to zoom in for precise work or out to see more of the video at once.

  • Show the whole project. Open the settings gear at the bottom-right of the timeline and choose Show entire project to fit the full timeline in view in one step — handy for longer videos or a quick overview before export.

  • Magnetic snapping. Snapping is on by default: as you drag a clip up against another, its edges snap flush so you don't leave stray gaps or overlaps. Toggle Magnetic snapping under the same settings gear if you'd rather position clips completely freely.

Good to know: Leave snapping on for fast, clean alignment; turn it off only when you need to nudge a clip to an exact spot by hand.

Keep every recording to length

Each footage element has a Recording duration setting, found under the clip's Duration tab. It defines the minimum and maximum length a recording may have. Setting this keeps clips within the time the scene actually needs, so footage arrives close to the right length instead of needing heavy trimming afterwards.

Good to know: This is especially handy when other people record into your project — the limits guide them to capture clips that fit the scene.

Improve audio quality automatically

The quickest way to clean up a clip's sound is right in the editor. Select the footage clip on the timeline and open Audio in the right-hand panel, then run Audio quality — Mozaik's AI removes background noise, evens out the volume, and improves audibility, and saves the result as an optimized version of the clip so your original is never touched. The same panel has a Mute recording toggle if you'd rather drop the clip's sound entirely — handy when music or a voice-over carries the scene.

You can also run the same enhancement from the Recordings library: select a clip there, choose Improve audio quality under its Quick edit options, and pick an optimization intensity — low, medium, or high.

More one-click fixes

The same Quick edit options include two more fast adjustments:

  • Mute video — remove the clip's audio entirely, useful when music or a voice-over carries the scene.

  • Convert video to portrait format — turn a clip into 9:16 for vertical and social formats.

Less editing, more output

These tools are built for speed: trim and split take seconds, the AI does the audio work, and length limits keep raw footage tidy from the start. The less time each clip needs, the more finished videos your team can turn around — which is the whole point of building video on an automation layer.