Install it, say yes, cut your first DJ set.

What you need

1. A Mac with an Apple chip (M1 or newer). Intel Macs aren't supported, and there is no Windows version.
2. macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later.
3. Adobe Premiere Pro 2026 (26.3 or later; tested on 26.5.1) and/or DaVinci Resolve Studio (20.3.2 or later; tested on 21.0.4). Resolve must be the Studio version from blackmagicdesign.com: the free DaVinci Resolve and the Mac App Store version can't run plugins.
4. A DJ set filmed on two or more cameras, plus your set recording: the audio from the mixer or a recorder. Keep the whole night in one folder; subfolders per camera are fine.

Memory: 16 GB works for most sets; 32 GB is comfortable for long nights with many cameras. RaveCut works offline: it needs the internet only to activate a key.

Install in 3 steps

Get the download. On ravecut.com, either Try your first edit free (no card, just your email) or Get RaveCut. Lemon Squeezy, our store, emails you the download link, and your serial key with the receipt if you bought. The download is one zip with six files in it: 1 Install RaveCut Engine.pkg, 2 Install RaveCut Panel.ccx, 3 Install RaveCut for DaVinci Resolve.pkg, Uninstall RaveCut, Read Me First.pdf and Open-source licences.txt.

Only use one of the two apps? Skip the other one's installer.

1. Everyone: double-click 1 Install RaveCut Engine.pkg and follow the installer. It asks for your Mac password. That's normal. This puts RaveCut Engine in your Applications folder. You never open it yourself: it has no window, and the panel runs it for you.
2. Premiere Pro: double-click 2 Install RaveCut Panel.ccx. Creative Cloud opens and warns about installing a plugin from outside the marketplace. Click Install. Then open Premiere Pro and your project and choose Window → UXP Plugins → RaveCut. Dock the panel wherever you like; about 320 px wide is enough. Not in the menu? Quit Premiere fully and open it again.
3. DaVinci Resolve Studio: double-click 3 Install RaveCut for DaVinci Resolve.pkg and follow the installer. Then quit Resolve and open it again, open your project and choose Workspace → Workflow Integrations → RaveCut. RaveCut opens in its own small window.

Say yes to these prompts

Allow every one of these. Each prompt and what to click:

Clicked “Don't Allow” by mistake?

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders, find RaveCut Engine, and turn its switches on. Then choose the folder again. Still can't read your footage? As a last resort, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access and turn on RaveCut Engine (if it isn't listed, click + and pick it from Applications).

Your first edit in Premiere Pro

Open your project, then the RaveCut panel (Window → UXP Plugins → RaveCut). The top line shows ⌂ on the left, your project's name, the version, and ≡ on the right. The first time, the panel offers Try it once, free and Enter serial key; pick either and carry on. (Alpha testers see Start my free 30 days instead.)

Choose the folder

1. Press Choose folder… and pick the whole folder of the night: every camera and your set recording. You don't sort or rename anything. Only have the set recording so far? The link under the button takes an audio file on its own.
2. RaveCut listens to the recording first. The screen says Listening to your set while it reads the energy of the night, finds the beat and marks the big moments: a minute or two for a 2½-hour set. Stop takes you back to Start with nothing kept.

Your set: the graph and the time range

When it's done you're on Your set: the length of the recording, the BPM, the number of moments, and the energy graph with the drops, build-ups and breakdowns marked and RaveCut's own pick starred. Under it, Listened 15 Oct · Listen again says when, and Time range: Whole recording · Change lets you cut only part of the night, say your DJ's slot:

1. Press Change, click the graph twice (the start, then the end), then Done. The row shows the range, and moments outside it disappear from Highlights.
2. The whole-set edit then covers that range: the In and Out points sit on it, the cuts stay inside it, and clips outside it are still on their tracks, switched off.

Two cards do the rest: Make a highlight Beta and Cut the whole set. Each opens its own tab. Both can run at once; on a Mac with less than 24 GB of memory, ≡ → Memory use is set to Careful and one waits for the other.

Highlights Beta: Pick, picks, Make

1. Pick a moment. The Highlights tab opens on Pick. The first time it says Lining up your cameras · 2 of 6 files with a Stop; stopped, every moment checked so far is kept and Carry on resumes. Each moment shows a still per camera, framed as the clip will be. Try another › moves on; Something different jumps away from that part of the night.
2. Choose the length and the shape. 15 s, 23 s or 60 s; Wide 16:9, Tall 9:16 or Square 1:1. For Tall and Square, check the framing box on each camera's still: a dashed box marked Framing guess means it isn't sure, so drag it where you want it.
3. Press + Add to my picks for each moment you want, then Make Highlight 1 (or Make Highlights 1 and 2). Stop after this clip keeps the rest in your picks.
4. Done: “Highlight 1 is in your project.” It's a new sequence called Highlight 1 (then 2, 3…). Open shows it, Make another goes back to Pick, and Cut the whole set › takes you to the other tab.

Whole set: Cut the whole set, Ready, Place the edit

1. Open Cut the whole set. Once RaveCut has listened, the whole set starts analysing by itself with the cameras it suggests (a folder that already has an edit offers that edit instead). To change them, press Change…, untick a camera and press Analyse again with these cameras; Back changes nothing.
2. Five stages, one moving bar: Reading the cameras, Syncing the cameras, Finding the beat, Judging the footage, Planning the cuts, with the minutes left under it. Most sets take 15 to 35 minutes on an M1 Max; Erik's 3-camera, 2 h 16 min set took 9 min 23 s. You can leave the screen; Stop stops it. Keep your Mac plugged in and awake, and don't unplug the footage drive.
3. “Your edit is ready.” Nothing is added to Premiere until you ask. Press Check and continue: the panel reads the plan and checks one cut before writing anything.
4. Ready. You see the number of cuts, the length and the median shot; the cameras with plain names (The room, The booth, The crowd, or Camera 1, 2… when it can't tell) and how many files each has; the pace, Relaxed, Standard or Hyped, picked to match the set and yours to change; Level the set audio, ticked; and Goes to Cut 1, new.
5. Press Place the edit. Footage that isn't in your project yet is imported for you. It usually takes a few minutes: about 1 minute for an hour of edit, about 6 minutes for a long set with nearly a thousand clips, on our test Mac. Don't click around in Premiere while it places, and let it finish.
6. Done: “Cut 1 is on your timeline.” A1 is your set recording. To undo, delete Cut 1 in the Project panel; nothing else changed. Open Cut 1 shows it; Place again places it once more, with another pace if you like.

⌂, ≡ and Stop

⌂ (top left) always brings you back to Your set, where each card says how its side is doing. ≡ (top right) holds the rest:

• Listen againListens to the set recording afresh. Your picks and the whole set come back as they were if you stop it.
• Analyse againAnalyses the whole set afresh, camera check first.
• Choose another folder…Another night. If something is running, it asks before stopping it.
• Open a plan…Places an edit RaveCut saved earlier (the RaveCut folder next to your footage).
• Save log file…Saves the log of what happened, for feedback. See Send feedback.
• Licence…Your free edit, your key, and Deactivate this Mac. See Your free first edit and your key.
• Open-source licencesThe open-source parts inside RaveCut and their licences.
• Update available: 1.0.1Only there when a newer version exists. It opens the release notes in your browser; nothing is downloaded by itself.
• Start overBack to the start screen. It asks first when picks or a running job would go; anything already in your project stays.

Stop is on every running job. Listening: back to Start. Lining up for Pick: Carry on resumes. Analysing: Start again. Placing: what's on the timeline stays. Close Premiere mid-analysis and reopen it, and Start says Still analysing Beat Room · 41% with Wait and Start again.

What's on the timeline: tracks, colours, A1

• Every camera on its own video track, named after what RaveCut took it for: The room, The booth, The crowd. The chosen shot is switched on; the others sit underneath, switched off. Change any cut by switching clips on or off.
• Orange, [CHECK SYNC]: a clip RaveCut couldn't line up for certain, placed from the camera's clock on a “needs a look” track at the top, switched off. Clips filmed before or after the set wait after its end. Slide each into place, or leave it out.
• Yellow, [QUICK LOOK]: switched on and in sync, but worth a glance before you export, for example a clip whose picture and sound are different lengths.
• Slow motion (as shot): a camera that filmed in slow motion goes on its own track, switched off, playing at the speed it was filmed. To use it, set its speed (Clip → Modify → Interpret Footage), line it up, then switch it on.
• A1 is your set recording, both speakers, levelled to a standard loudness when Level the set audio is ticked (a copy; your original is never changed). Camera audio is muted. The In and Out points sit around the edit, or on your time range.
• The sequence is 4K when any camera is 4K, and every clip is scaled to fill the frame. A portrait clip that would look soft filling it is placed switched off.
• “RaveCut check (delete me)” is a small test sequence RaveCut makes before placing. It's safe to delete. Switching projects? The panel follows whichever project is open.

Your first edit in DaVinci Resolve Studio

1. Open the project you want the edit in, then choose Workspace → Workflow Integrations → RaveCut. RaveCut opens in its own window. It can't dock, but it stays where you put it.
2. Choose how to unlock it: your free first edit, or Enter serial key. See Your free first edit and your key.
3. Click Choose your footage folder and pick the whole folder of the set. It lists the cameras it found and your set recording: untick anything you want left out, then click Analyse. The timings are the same as in Premiere. A folder you've analysed before offers Place that edit straight away.
4. Choose the pace (Relaxed, Standard or Hyped), then click Place the whole set. Stay on the new timeline and leave Resolve alone until it finishes. Stop stops it; what was placed stays in “Cut N (incomplete)”.
5. Done: “Cut N is ready.” A new timeline with every camera on its own track. Shots that aren't in the edit are switched off, so Resolve shows them dimmed.

• Nothing already in your project is changed. RaveCut adds a new timeline and a RaveCut bin with any footage it imported. To take an edit back, delete that Cut timeline.
• Frame rate: a Resolve project has one frame rate. A new project, or one with no timeline yet, takes your set's rate. If your project's timelines run at another rate, RaveCut says so: make a new project for the set and open RaveCut there.
• Highlights are in Premiere Pro only for now. Resolve is next.

Your free first edit and your key

The first edit is free

Choose Try it once, free and RaveCut works with no key, no card and no internet. The free edit is used when your first edit is placed, and until then nothing is used up: a run that fails, or that you stop, never counts. After it, your edits stay in your project, and placing the next one asks for a key: Placing this edit needs a licence key. Everything you've done so far is kept, with Activate, Where's my key? and Not now. Alpha testers have 30 days from their first placed edit instead.

Enter your key

RaveCut is $250, once, and $125 for the first 100 buyers with the code LAUNCH50. Your serial key comes in the receipt email from Lemon Squeezy, our store; search your inbox for “RaveCut” or “Lemon Squeezy” if you can't find it. Paste it on the key screen and click Activate, or open the screen yourself: in Premiere, ≡ → Licence…; in Resolve, Details → License. Activating needs the internet once; after that RaveCut runs fully offline and your footage never leaves your Mac.

Premiere and Resolve on one Mac

They share one licence record on that Mac: one free edit between them, and a key activated in either one works in both. Premiere Pro and Resolve on the same Mac count as one of your two activations.

Moving to another Mac

Your key works on 2 Macs at a time, say your laptop and your desk Mac. To move it, click Deactivate this Mac in ≡ → Licence… (Premiere) or License → Manage (Resolve) on the old Mac first, then activate on the new one. Lost or replaced a Mac? Email support@ravecut.com and we'll free the old one.

Refunds

30 days, no questions. Reply to your receipt email or write to support@ravecut.com with the email you bought with. You get the whole price back; your key is switched off; the edits you made are yours to keep. How refunds work →

Changing the pace, the cameras or the time range

• Another pace: on the Done screen press Place again, or open the Whole set tab, pick Relaxed, Standard or Hyped and press Place the edit. Cut 2 arrives in a minute or two, with no re-analysis. Every Cut is a new sequence; the earlier ones stay as they were.
• Other cameras: while the analysis runs, press Change…, tick or untick, and Analyse again with these cameras. Afterwards, ≡ → Analyse again runs the camera check first, so you can change the list there.
• Another time range: press ⌂, then Change on the Time range row. An edit made for a different range than the one on Your set says so and asks you to analyse again first.
• Highlights can be made at any time from the moments on Your set; a second pick of the same set is quick, because the cameras are already lined up.

Known limits

The rule everywhere: nothing is quietly wrong, nothing is left out.

• Files that won't line up go on “needs a look” tracks at the top, switched off and flagged orange [CHECK SYNC]. Ones filmed before or after the set wait after its end. Slide each into place, or take it out before you export.
• Highlights are a beta, in Premiere Pro only. Framing is RaveCut's best guess; where it says Framing guess, check the box and drag it. In a Wide highlight a portrait shot can still show black bars: swap that shot. Highlights in DaVinci Resolve Studio come later.
• Both at once. The whole set keeps analysing while you make a highlight. On a Mac with less memory, ≡ → Memory use → Careful pauses the whole set until the highlight is made.
• RAW video: Blackmagic RAW .braw is read straight from the clip (in Premiere, .braw needs the free Blackmagic RAW plugin to play). Canon RAW .crm uses the _P.MXF proxy the camera records beside it. Other RAW (RED .r3d) and 360 files (.insv, .360) aren't supported yet: make a working copy of each clip, an H.264 or H.265 export of the whole clip with its sound, named exactly like the original, in a folder called Proxies next to the camera folder. RaveCut lines the clip up using the copy and puts the original in your edit. A clip it can't read still lands in the edit, switched off and flagged, placed by its clock.
• Drones and other cameras with no usable sound can't be lined up by sound, so they're placed by their clock, switched off and flagged, for you to slide into place.
• Slow-motion clips aren't sped back up yet. They're placed switched off on their own track, playing at the speed they were filmed; set the speed in Interpret Footage, line it up, then switch it on.
• Portrait (vertical) clips are placed in the whole-set edit switched off when filling the frame would make them look soft. Switch one on if you want that angle anyway. Highlights use them as usual.
• Level the set audio writes a levelled copy of your set recording into the RaveCut folder next to your footage when it needs a limiter (in Resolve, always). Your original is never changed. Untick it to place your recording as it is. Sets with very big jumps between quiet and loud end up a little under the standard loudness, on purpose, so they keep their dynamics.
• [QUICK LOOK] clips (yellow) are switched on but worth a glance: for example, picture and sound of different lengths. Scrub through once before you export.
• Very short moments may have no camera shot. If you spot a gap, switch on any camera there.
• Check the camera list (Change…) when something looks off: a camera missing, split in two, or with too few clips. Some naming schemes (GOPR/GP names, two DJI models, date-stamped phone clips) can split one camera into two; untick the duplicate and send us the log file. Footage in folders named Uploads, Masters, Finals or Delivery is skipped.
• A switcher's program recording (ATEM) is left out by default, because it's already a live edit. Tick it on the camera list to use it anyway.
• Online-only files (iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive placeholders) can block the analysis with no message. Download the footage first. External drives and SD cards are fine: keep them plugged in for the whole run.
• One night per folder. A folder holding two nights can put the other night hours off.
• The beat is tuned on house first. On some Afro house the downbeat can land one beat early. Try your genre on the free edit.

When something goes wrong

RaveCut isn't in Premiere's Window menu.

Quit Premiere fully and open it again. Still missing? Double-click 2 Install RaveCut Panel.ccx again.

RaveCut isn't in Resolve's Workspace → Workflow Integrations.

Quit Resolve fully and open it again. Check it says DaVinci Resolve Studio. Still missing? Run 3 Install RaveCut for DaVinci Resolve.pkg again.

I opened RaveCut Engine and nothing happened.

That's normal. It has no window. Use RaveCut inside Premiere or Resolve.

The bar sits on “Waking the engine”.

Check that RaveCut Engine is in your Applications folder (run the engine installer again if not) and that you clicked Open or Allow when your Mac asked. See Say yes to these prompts.

It can't read my footage.

You probably clicked “Don't Allow” once. Turn it back on in System Settings, as described above.

The progress bar hasn't moved for a while.

The line under the bar says what it's doing; some stages (lining up a long camera, judging a big file) run for minutes with little to show. If RaveCut says it stopped, that's real: save the log file and send it.

It says “RaveCut couldn't finish”, or stopped with a problem.

Save the log file (≡ → Save log file…) and press Try again. If it happens twice, send the log with a line on what you did and which set it was. ⌂ and the other tab still work from the problem screen.

Everything looks out of sync.

Check which recording is on A1. If RaveCut used a camera's sound or the wrong file, untick it (Change…) and analyse again. A camera that filmed in slow motion looks out of sync by design and is placed switched off.

Premiere or Resolve looks frozen while the edit is being placed.

It's working, not stuck. Give it a couple of minutes and don't force-quit it.

My key won't activate.

Check you're online for that one moment and that the key is pasted exactly as it appears in the receipt email. “Activation limit” means two Macs already use it: deactivate one. A refunded key is switched off for good. Still stuck? Email support@ravecut.com with the email you bought with.

Media Encoder says “This file requires the HEVC codec…” when I export.

That's Adobe's HEVC install, not RaveCut; the edit is fine. In the Creative Cloud app, go to Apps, click the ⋯ next to Media Encoder and choose Repair. Or export straight from Premiere (File → Export) instead of sending it to Media Encoder.

The clips look small, or a little soft, in the sequence.

Premiere's Settings → Media → Default Media Scaling is set to Scale to Frame Size. RaveCut reads this setting and makes up for it, so the framing is right but the picture is a little softer, and it tells you once. Don't untick Scale to Frame Size on those clips: they would become far too big. For full sharpness, set Default Media Scaling to None before you import. Only when Done says some clips look small (RaveCut couldn't read the setting): select them, right-click and untick Scale to Frame Size.

“RaveCut couldn't open its engine”, or “You can't open the application because it is not responding”.

On an older version, update: the engine now answers macOS straight away. Still happening? Save the log file and send it (see Send feedback).

My set recording stops early on the energy graph.

Your recorder split the night into several files, maybe each in its own folder, and only the first was heard. Now the parts are joined by themselves. On older versions, put the parts in one folder and listen again.

Where's the log file?

In Premiere: ≡ → Save log file… saves it to your Downloads folder. In Resolve: Details → Show log file. Send it to support@ravecut.com with a line on what happened; it holds file names and timings, never video.

Anything else.

Save the log file (see Send feedback) and send it with a line on what happened.

Updating and uninstalling

• Newer RaveCut: download it again from the link in your Lemon Squeezy email, then install the new engine .pkg, and the new .ccx and/or the new Resolve .pkg, over the old ones. No uninstall needed. Quit and reopen Premiere Pro and Resolve so they load the new version; the panel's top line shows it. Every version 1 update is free. Once a day, when you're online, RaveCut checks whether a newer version exists and, if so, adds Update available to ≡; it never downloads anything by itself. What changed in each version: release notes.
• Coming from Beatjump or Downbeat (the older names): open Uninstall RaveCut first, then install as above.
• Removing RaveCut: open Uninstall RaveCut, click Remove RaveCut and type your Mac password. It removes the engine, the Premiere panel and RaveCut in Resolve, and any old Beatjump or Downbeat versions. It never touches your footage, projects or edits. The RaveCut folder next to your footage (the plan, the beat cache, the levelled copy) is yours to keep or delete; the next run just takes longer without it.

Send feedback

The log file is how we see what happened. It holds file names and timings, never video, and it's only shared if you send it. Your footage never leaves your Mac.

1. Get the log file. In Premiere, open ≡ (top right of the panel) and click Save log file…; it saves to your Downloads folder as RaveCut log 2026-10-16 21-05.txt. The panel also saves one there after every placed edit, and keeps ravecut-last-run.log in its data folder in case a run ends badly. In Resolve, open Details at the bottom of the RaveCut window and click Show log file; Finder opens with it selected.
2. Send it through the feedback page, forms.gle/EbzjoS6cBk8rPPJAA, or to support@ravecut.com. A line on what you were doing, which set it was, and a screenshot of any message helps. For a cut you'd change, the time in the sequence is enough: the engine finds the moment by sound.