Readme
Smart ThinkSound: AI-assisted video-to-audio generation 🎵
An intelligent wrapper around ThinkSound that automatically analyzes your videos and generates expert-level audio prompts. No more struggling with complex prompting - just upload your video and get professional audio results.
Note:
The code, models, and dataset are for research and educational purposes only.
Commercial use is NOT permitted.For commercial licensing, please contact the original ThinkSound authors.
What Smart ThinkSound does ✨
Smart ThinkSound removes the complexity from video-to-audio generation by: - Automatically analyzing your video: Uses Claude 4 Sonnet to understand what’s happening visually - Generating expert prompts: Creates professional-grade audio descriptions that ThinkSound loves - Eliminating prompt engineering: No need to learn complex audio design terminology - Providing educational output: Shows you the generated prompts so you can learn - Delivering fast results: Leverages warm ThinkSound instances for rapid generation
The problem this solves 🎯
ThinkSound is incredibly powerful but requires very specific prompting to work well. You need to: - Use technical audio language (“soft crinkling”, “subtle cascading”, “breathy rhythms”) - Structure descriptions temporally (“Begin with…”, “followed by…”, “Add…”) - Understand sound design principles and atmospheric context - Know exactly how to describe audio textures and qualities
Smart ThinkSound handles all of this automatically.
How it works under the hood 🧠
Smart ThinkSound combines two powerful AI models in a streamlined process:
- Frame extraction: Extracts a representative frame from the middle of your video using FFmpeg
- Visual analysis: Claude 4 Sonnet analyzes the frame at high resolution (1.0 megapixel) to understand what’s happening
- Expert prompt generation: Claude generates both a simple caption and detailed chain-of-thought audio description using professional sound design principles
- Audio generation: ThinkSound takes these expert-crafted prompts and generates the actual audio with optimized settings
The system acts as an intelligent audio designer that understands both visual content and professional audio description techniques.
The Claude 4 Sonnet Integration
Smart ThinkSound uses Claude 4 Sonnet with a carefully crafted system prompt that teaches it to think like a professional sound designer. The AI analyzes your video frame and generates two types of descriptions:
- Simple caption: Brief description of what’s happening visually
- Chain-of-thought audio description: Detailed technical description using professional sound design language
Here’s the core system prompt used:
You are an expert audio designer who specializes in creating detailed, technical audio descriptions for AI sound generation. Your job is to analyze video frames and create two types of descriptions:
For the COT description, you must:
- Use technical audio language and specific textures ("soft crinkling", "subtle cascading", "breathy rhythms")
- Structure temporally with phrases like "Begin with...", "followed by...", "Add..."
- Include atmospheric context and ambient sounds when appropriate
- Describe sound qualities precisely ("smooth", "steady", "natural", "soothing")
- Focus on the natural sounds that would occur in the scene
- Keep descriptions realistic and physically accurate
Perfect for challenging videos 🌟
Some videos are particularly hard to prompt for manually:
Fireworks videos: Often show mostly darkness until the explosion - but with a context hint like “fireworks video”, Smart ThinkSound knows to generate explosion sounds and atmospheric effects even from a dark frame.
Abstract scenes: Complex industrial machinery, nature scenes, or unusual activities that are hard to describe in audio terms.
Subtle interactions: Quiet moments that need careful audio design to enhance the mood.
Key features 🚀
🧠 Intelligent visual analysis with Claude 4 Sonnet’s advanced vision capabilities
🎨 Expert prompt generation using profession# Smart ThinkSound: AI-assisted video-to-audio generation 🎵
An intelligent wrapper around ThinkSound that automatically analyzes your videos and generates expert-level audio prompts. No more struggling with complex prompting - just upload your video and get professional audio results.
Note:
The code, models, and dataset are for research and educational purposes only.
Commercial use is NOT permitted.For commercial licensing, please contact the original ThinkSound authors.
What Smart ThinkSound does ✨
Smart ThinkSound removes the complexity from video-to-audio generation by: - Automatically analyzing your video: Uses Claude 4 Sonnet to understand what’s happening visually - Generating expert prompts: Creates professional-grade audio descriptions that ThinkSound loves - Eliminating prompt engineering: No need to learn complex audio design terminology - Providing educational output: Shows you the generated prompts so you can learn - Delivering fast results: Leverages warm ThinkSound instances for rapid generation
The problem this solves 🎯
ThinkSound is incredibly powerful but requires very specific prompting to work well. You need to: - Use technical audio language (“soft crinkling”, “subtle cascading”, “breathy rhythms”) - Structure descriptions temporally (“Begin with…”, “followed by…”, “Add…”) - Understand sound design principles and atmospheric context - Know exactly how to describe audio textures and qualities
Smart ThinkSound handles all of this automatically.
How it works under the hood 🧠
Smart ThinkSound combines two powerful AI models:
- Claude 4 Sonnet analyzes a representative frame from your video and generates professional audio descriptions
- ThinkSound takes these expert-crafted prompts and generates the actual audio
The system acts as an intelligent audio designer that: - Extracts a key frame from the middle of your video - Analyzes the visual content with advanced computer vision - Generates both a simple caption and detailed chain-of-thought audio description - Passes these to ThinkSound using the exact prompting style it expects - Returns your video with perfectly matched audio
The AI Audio Designer Prompt
Smart ThinkSound uses a carefully crafted system prompt that teaches Claude to think like a professional sound designer:
You are an expert audio designer who specializes in creating detailed, technical audio descriptions for AI sound generation. Your job is to analyze video frames and create two types of descriptions:
1. A simple CAPTION describing what's happening visually
2. A detailed CHAIN-OF-THOUGHT (COT) audio description that follows professional sound design principles
For the COT description, you must:
- Use technical audio language and specific textures ("soft crinkling", "subtle cascading", "breathy rhythms")
- Structure temporally with phrases like "Begin with...", "followed by...", "Add..."
- Include atmospheric context and ambient sounds when appropriate
- Describe sound qualities precisely ("smooth", "steady", "natural", "soothing")
- Focus on the natural sounds that would occur in the scene
- Avoid mentioning music unless it's clearly present
- Keep descriptions realistic and physically accurate
Perfect for challenging videos 🌟
Some videos are particularly hard to prompt for manually:
Fireworks videos: Often show mostly darkness until the explosion - but with a context hint like “fireworks video”, Smart ThinkSound knows to generate explosion sounds and atmospheric effects even from a dark frame.
Abstract scenes: Complex industrial machinery, nature scenes, or unusual activities that are hard to describe in audio terms.
Subtle interactions: Quiet moments that need careful audio design to enhance the mood.
Key features 🚀
🧠 Intelligent visual analysis with Claude 4 Sonnet’s advanced vision capabilities
🎨 Expert prompt generation using professional sound design principles
📝 Context hint support for challenging videos (e.g., “fireworks video”, “cooking scene”)
🎓 Educational output - see exactly what prompts work with ThinkSound
⚡ Optimized performance - leverages warm ThinkSound instances for speed
🎛️ Full parameter control - all ThinkSound settings available
🔄 Reproducible results with optional seed control
Usage examples 🎬
Basic usage (no prompting required):
- Upload your video
- Smart ThinkSound automatically analyzes and generates audio
- Get professional results without any audio expertise
Advanced usage with context hints:
- Fireworks video: Use context hint “fireworks video” for dark scenes
- Cooking scene: Use “cooking video” to emphasize kitchen sounds
- Nature documentary: Use “wildlife sounds” for better ambient audio
- Machinery: Use “industrial sounds” for complex mechanical scenes
Example generated prompts:
For a plastic handling scene: - Caption: “Plastic Debris Handling” - Chain-of-thought: “Begin with the sound of hands scooping up loose plastic debris, followed by the subtle cascading noise as the pieces fall and scatter back down. Include soft crinkling and rustling to emphasize the texture of the plastic. Add ambient factory background noise with distant machinery to create an industrial atmosphere.”
For a fireworks display:
- Caption: “Lighting Firecrackers”
- Chain-of-thought: “Generate the sound of firecrackers lighting and exploding repeatedly on the ground, followed by fireworks bursting in the sky. Incorporate occasional subtle echoes to mimic an outdoor night ambiance, with no human voices present.”
Performance advantages ⚡
Smart ThinkSound is designed for efficiency: - Warm instance utilization: When ThinkSound is already running, Smart ThinkSound gets instant audio generation - Single frame analysis: Only processes one representative frame to keep costs low - Optimized GPU usage: Leverages existing ThinkSound compute without additional overhead - Batch-friendly: Perfect for processing multiple videos efficiently
Parameter controls 🎛️
context_hint: Optional text to help with challenging videos (e.g., “fireworks video”, “cat playing”)
cfg_scale (1.0-20.0): Controls how closely ThinkSound follows the generated prompts. Higher values stick closer to descriptions, lower values allow more creative interpretation.
num_inference_steps (10-100): Quality vs speed balance. More steps generally mean higher quality but take longer.
seed: Set a specific number for reproducible results, or leave empty for random variations.
Best use cases 🎯
Smart ThinkSound excels at: - Content creators who want professional audio but lack sound design expertise - Rapid prototyping of video projects with placeholder audio - Educational content where you can see and learn from expert audio prompts - Batch processing of multiple videos with consistent quality - Challenging videos that are hard to describe manually (dark scenes, abstract content) - Learning tool for understanding professional audio description techniques
What you’ll learn 📚
Every Smart ThinkSound run shows you: - The exact visual analysis Claude performed - The generated caption and detailed audio description - Professional sound design terminology and structure - How to effectively prompt ThinkSound manually in the future
This makes Smart ThinkSound both a production tool and an educational resource for learning advanced audio prompting techniques.
Technical implementation 🔧
Smart ThinkSound combines: - FFmpeg for intelligent frame extraction from video midpoint - Claude 4 Sonnet with high-resolution image analysis (1.0 megapixel) - ThinkSound with professionally crafted prompts - Automatic parameter handling including optional seed management
The system is built for reliability and follows best practices for AI model chaining, with clean error handling and informative logging.
Limitations to consider ⚠️
- Analyzes only a single frame (middle of video) - very dynamic videos might need context hints
- Inherits all ThinkSound limitations regarding content types and quality
- Processing time includes both Claude analysis and ThinkSound generation
- Best results come from clear, well-composed video content
- Context hints are crucial for videos where key action isn’t visible in the middle frame
Research background 📚
Built on top of the ThinkSound research by the FunAudioLLM team, enhanced with intelligent visual analysis and automated prompt generation.
Original ThinkSound research: ThinkSound: Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models for Audio Generation and Editing
Important licensing note 📝
This model is for research and educational purposes only.
Commercial use is NOT permitted without explicit licensing from the original ThinkSound authors.
For commercial licensing, please contact the original research team.