# Bad-take removal and aggressiveness > What the AI editor pass proposes, what the three aggressiveness levels change, and the review layer that keeps every proposal reversible. > > Verified against the current RoughCut app on 28 August 2026 > https://www.roughcuteditor.com/docs/bad-take-removal Bad-take removal is the optional AI editor pass. It reads the transcript and proposes removals: verbatim and reworded retakes, false starts, tangents, filler, and noise. It is on by default and needs an AI provider key. Turned off, RoughCut still produces a silence-only cut with no key required, and the finished job says so. Bad-take aggressiveness sets how boldly the editor proposes removals, with Conservative, Standard, and Aggressive available and Standard as the default. The pass proposes; it does not decide. Every proposal arrives in Review with a category, a confidence score, its transcript text, and an audio preview, and one click keeps or removes it. Your source file is never edited. ## What the pass is `Bad-take removal` is a toggle in `Cut controls`, on by default. When it is on, RoughCut runs one AI editor pass over the transcript after transcription finishes and before the timeline is built. Silence removal always runs. The editor pass is the optional stage on top of it. The app states the split on the screen itself: silence removal always runs; the AI editor pass is the optional stage. The pass is **not** Pro-gated — it is part of the core app. What it does require is an AI provider key of your own, because the transcript has to be read by a model. See [Choose an AI provider](/docs/choose-ai-provider). ## What it proposes The editor reads the transcript with word-level timing and proposes spans to remove. Each proposal carries a category, and those categories are what you will see in Review: | Category | Shown in Review as | What it means | |---|---|---| | Verbatim retake | `Retake (verbatim)` | You said a line, stopped, and said the same line again. The earlier attempt goes. | | Reworded retake | `Retake (reworded)` | You made the same point again in different words. The weaker attempt goes. | | False start | `False start` | A sentence abandoned partway — "So the thing about— actually, let me…" | | Tangent | `Tangent` | A digression away from what the video is about | | Filler | `Filler` | Verbal padding that carries no content | | Noise | `Noise` | Non-speech audio the transcript picked up as words | Two of these deserve a note. **Tangent** is the category most sensitive to context — what counts as a digression depends entirely on what the video is for, which is why [writing a video goal](/docs/video-goal) helps. **Filler** is the category most sensitive to taste; some speakers' rhythm depends on the small words another editor would strip. > ! RoughCut does not detect every bad take, and not every proposal it makes is correct. It is a *rough* cut: a first pass that removes the obvious, presented for your judgement. Treat the review list as a proposal from an assistant editor, not as a finished decision. Keep your originals and check the output before you rely on it. ## Turning it off Switch `Bad-take removal` off and you get a **silence-only cut**. The app's own help text on the toggle is exact: ```text Off = silence-only cut, no API key needed. ``` That is a genuinely useful mode, not a degraded one: - No AI provider key is needed. Nothing is sent to any AI provider. - No transcript text leaves your Mac for editing. - No per-job AI cost. - It is much faster, because the editor pass is skipped entirely. The finished job records what happened, so you are never guessing later which kind of cut you are looking at. A silence-only job shows: ```text LLM editor: skipped — silence-only cut. ``` A job that ran the pass shows the provider, the model, and how many spans were proposed instead. If you leave the toggle on but have no key saved, the job fails at preflight with an explicit message and an explicit way out: ```text No API key for provider ''. Add it in Settings, or disable bad-take removal for a silence-only cut. ``` ## Bad-take aggressiveness `Bad-take aggressiveness` lives inside the collapsed `Fine-tune` section. It has three levels: | Level | Behaviour | Use it when | |---|---|---| | `Conservative` | Proposes fewer removals, and only where the case is clear | The material is dense, every sentence matters, or you would rather do the trimming yourself | | `Standard` | **The default.** A balanced pass | Almost always. Start here | | `Aggressive` | Proposes more removals, including more marginal cases | The recording is loose and rambling, and you would rather reject a few good takes than sit through the bad ones | The default is `Standard`. Only these three values are valid; anything else is refused with: ```text Aggressiveness must be conservative, standard, or aggressive. ``` Move one level at a time, and judge the change on the same recording. Moving from `Standard` to `Aggressive` does not make the editor more accurate — it makes it more willing to act on a weaker signal, which means more true removals **and** more false ones. Whether that is a good trade depends on how much reviewing you would rather do. ## The review layer is the safety net The editor pass proposes. You decide. This is the design, and it is why an imperfect pass is still useful. Every proposed removal arrives in the review list with: - **A category**, from the table above, saying why the editor wanted it gone. - **A confidence score**, shown as a percentage pill. Below 70% the pill turns red and is labelled as worth a look; at or above 70% it is green. Sorting by `Low confidence first` puts the shakiest proposals in front of you first. - **The transcript text** of the span, so you can read what would be removed without playing anything. - **Audio playback** of exactly that span. One row plays at a time; press the play control on a row to hear the passage in question. - **A `Keep` / `Remove` button** that says what it will do. One click flips the decision. Two viewing modes support two different review habits. `Timeline` shows the cuts chronologically, so you can follow the recording as it was performed. `By category` groups them, so you can accept all the verbatim retakes quickly and spend your attention on the tangents. `Kept Segments` starts collapsed in that view because it is usually the group you do not need to read. When you have made your changes, `Recompute Cuts` re-applies them and rewrites the timeline. It does not re-transcribe and does not run the AI editor again — it applies your decisions to the analysis that already exists. See [Recompute cuts after review](/docs/recompute) and [Review the timeline](/docs/review-timeline). ## Your source file is never edited Nothing in this pass touches your footage. RoughCut does not transcode, re-encode, trim, or copy the original file. What the editor pass produces is a list of decisions, and what the export produces is an FCPXML that references your original media in place. That is also why an incorrect removal costs you nothing permanent. The material is still in the file; the timeline simply does not reference it. Keep the proposal, recompute, and it comes back. ## Common mistakes - **Turning the toggle off because a cut was wrong.** A wrong cut is a reason to review the list or move to `Conservative`, not a reason to lose the pass entirely. - **Reaching for `Aggressive` to fix missed takes.** More removals is not the same as better removals. If specific retakes are being missed, a [video goal](/docs/video-goal) and a review pass will do more. - **Skipping the review list.** The pass is designed on the assumption that you will read it. Exporting unread is where surprises come from. - **Ignoring the low-confidence sort.** It puts the proposals most likely to be wrong at the top of the list, which is exactly where your attention is worth most. - **Expecting a silence-only cut to remove retakes.** With the toggle off, no transcript is read by any model. Only silence goes. ## Troubleshooting | Symptom | Cause | Fix | |---|---|---| | `No API key for provider ''. …` | The toggle is on and no key is saved | Save a key, or switch the toggle off for a silence-only cut | | `LLM editor: skipped — silence-only cut.` on a job you expected an AI pass on | The toggle was off when you processed | Process again with `Bad-take removal` on | | Too much removed | Aggressiveness too high, or the material is more repetitive than it felt | Move to `Conservative` and process again; in the meantime, restore spans in Review and recompute | | Too little removed | Aggressiveness too low, or the editor lacks context | Try `Aggressive`, and add a [video goal](/docs/video-goal) | | Good content cut as a tangent | The editor could not tell what the video is about | Add a video goal describing the deliverable | | `cut plan kept nothing — refusing to export an empty timeline` | The combination of silence and editor removals left nothing | Loosen the settings and process again — RoughCut refuses to export an empty timeline rather than writing one | For a second AI read of what survived this pass, see [Use Second Look safely](/docs/second-look).