A scratch track is temporary audio used during editing that will be replaced before delivery: a placeholder voiceover, a temp music bed, or rough sound recorded on set.
Editors cut to one because a piece with narration cannot be timed without the narration. Waiting for the final voice performance before assembling means guessing at durations, and every guess will be wrong by a second or two, which is a re-edit rather than a trim.
What gets scratched
Voiceover. The most common. Someone in the room reads the script so the edit has real timing to cut against.
Music. A temp bed standing in for a track that has not been licensed or composed yet.
Dialogue replacement. On-set audio that will be re-recorded cleanly later.
The temp love problem
The known hazard of scratch tracks: everyone hears the temp for three weeks and then hates the real version, not because it is worse but because it is different. Directors have lost good scores this way, and clients have rejected professional voice performances because they missed the producer's rough read.
The preventions are simple and rarely applied. Change the temp at least once during the edit so nobody bonds to a specific version. Say out loud, in every review, that the audio is temporary. And where a real performance is coming, do not make the temp so good that it sets an unfair reference.
How AI voices changed the practice
Generated narration sits in a genuinely new position: too good to be a scratch, not always right to be the final.
The practical use is timing. On 8frame, ElevenLabs TTS is 13 credits per 1,000 characters, so a full 60-second narration costs about $0.13 at pack rate and takes seconds. That gets you a properly paced read to cut against immediately, instead of a producer mumbling into a phone.
Two consequences. Editing starts earlier, since a usable narration exists before any talent is booked. And the temp-love problem gets sharper, because the scratch is now good enough that people stop treating it as temporary and start treating it as the deliverable, which is fine when it genuinely is and a problem when a human performance was the plan.
Related concepts
How to write a voiceover script covers writing the read that gets scratched. What is a rough cut covers the edit stage a scratch track exists to serve. How to pick music for a brand video covers replacing a temp bed with a licensed or generated track.
A generated read costs about as much as nothing and gives the edit real timing on day one. The 8frame canvas is free and unlimited, and generation is paid from $19/month.