Music from iTunes

A clip can promote exactly one song from iTunes. You search for it, choose a design, done. In the player Apple's 30-second preview plays, next to the Apple badge that leads to the store.

Choose a song

1. In the editor, open the Music tab and switch to iTunes.
2. Type title or artist into the search field (from three characters). The results come with cover, album, year and price.
3. Click the right song. Pick another song takes you back to the search.

While a song is chosen, Apple's preview is the clip's sound. Your own soundtrack does not play along, and the clip length goes up to 30 seconds at most, as long as a preview lasts.

Design

Four variants are available:

• Label: your background and your layers stay, with a small label for the song on top. You can move, rotate and scale it on the stage like any other element. Three styles: Card (cover, title and artist on dark glass), Pill (one line with a round cover) and Text only. A title that does not fit the card or the pill scrolls calmly: it pauses, runs to its end, pauses again and starts over, the same in the editor, in the player and in the finished file.
• Cover: the cover sharp in front of a blurred copy of itself, title and artist below.
• Typography: the cover at the top, the title set large below.
• Music video: Apple's music video plays over the picture in the player. This variant can only be chosen if Apple has a video for this song. If the video cannot play, the cover design appears. Show title over the video lays artist and title as a graphic over the video, in the same three styles as the label; this graphic too can be moved, rotated and scaled on the stage.

For Typography you also choose the Font and the Colour of the block. Add a sentence of your own like any text in the Text tab.

At the bottom of the stage the editor keeps a strip free: that is where the player places the badge and the info button.

Adding a vote

A music clip may also ask a question, such as "Do you like this song?". Add a Vote in the Tools tab. The preview keeps playing and repeats until the viewer has voted. More under Votes on a clip.

What is fixed

Apple allows covers and previews only to promote exactly this song. That is why every music clip includes the following, and they cannot be switched off:

• the Apple badge, which leads straight to the song in the store,
• the info button next to it with song, artist, album, price and the note that preview and cover come from iTunes.

The preview is never rendered into the video file. It plays in the player directly from Apple, exactly as their terms require. For the same reason Apple's material never appears in advertising.

Previews and music videos arrive from Apple at very different levels. The player and the editor preview measure each file as it loads and play it at the same loudness, without clipping. There is nothing to set.