Layers
The Studio layer stack — adding, selecting, moving, aligning, grouping, hiding, locking, and deleting the elements on your canvas.
Everything on the Studio canvas is a layer. The rail on the left is the stack, drawn topmost first, and the settings rail on the right always belongs to whatever you have selected.
Adding a layer
ADD LAYER at the bottom of the left rail:
| Button | What lands on the canvas |
|---|---|
| LOGO/IMAGE | A file picker, then your image as a placeable layer |
| ICON | Opens a searchable icon library first |
| TEXT | One extra text line, styled to match your artist line |
| LYRICS | The lyrics layer and its timeline. If you already have one, this jumps to it |
| VISUALIZER | Another visualizer layer — you can stack more than one |
| AUDIO ANALYSIS | Opens the analysis-graph picker first |
| UI STATS | Opens the UI STATS widget picker first: dials, panels, charts and strips that move with the music |
| PLAYHEAD | Opens the playhead-style picker first |
| TIMER | Opens nine timer styles, including the reusable WORKOUT interval card |
The five that open a picker replace the ADD grid with a style list in the same rail; click a style to place it, or click the same button again to close the picker without adding anything.
Selecting and moving
- Click a row in the rail, or click the element on the preview, to select it.
- Shift-click or Cmd/Ctrl-click additional layers to select several at once. Layers selected together move together.
- Drag on the preview to move. Drag a corner of an image to scale it.
- Every layer has POSITION X / Y, ROTATE, and OPACITY in its settings if you would rather type an exact value than drag.
Aligning
Select one or more layers and an alignment toolbar appears above the preview.
- Align left · center horizontal · right
- Align top · middle vertical · bottom
- CENTER — center the selection on the canvas
- Distribute horizontally · vertically — even the gaps across three or more layers
- Group — keep the selection moving as one
- Lock — hold the selection in place
Hiding, locking and deleting
- The eye hides a layer from the preview and the render, without losing its settings. Useful for trying a version without throwing anything away.
- The padlock stops a layer being dragged or nudged. Locked layers still render.
- DELETE LAYER at the bottom of a layer's settings removes it. Delete or Backspace deletes the current selection.
- Undo (Ctrl/Cmd + Z) reverses any of it.
Layer types at a glance
| Badge | Layer | Documented in |
|---|---|---|
| IMG | Image, logo, cover art, icon | Brand |
| VID | Video plate | Look |
| VIZ | Visualizer | The visualizer layer |
| TXT | Title and artist, or an extra line | Brand |
| LYR | Timed lyrics | Lyrics |
| AUD | Audio analysis graph | Analysis layers |
| PLAY | Playhead | Analysis layers |
| TIME | Timer | Analysis layers |
| UI | UI STATS widget | Analysis layers |
Starting over
RESET CANVAS at the bottom of the settings rail clears the composition back to the default layout. It does not touch saved projects — see Projects and templates.
2 · Look
Fill the Studio frame with a color, stock image, AI-generated backdrop, or video, then shape it with crop, scale, kaleidoscope, and glass blur.
The Visualizer Layer
Choose any BeamTracer visualizer for your Studio canvas, apply presets, save your own, and place it over a photo or video backdrop with a transparent background.