New Year countdown video music: build to midnight with a timed prompt

A countdown video needs music that ends exactly where the number reaches zero. Google's music generation page, read on 2026-10-05, documents timestamp prompts for Lyria 3.5, so you can place the climax: "Instrumental, 124 BPM. 0:00 to 0:45 steady build with rising synth and snare roll. At 0:50 a big drop with brass and confetti-like sparkle. 0:50 to 1:00 celebratory resolve, ending on a final hit." On Sume a take costs $0.125 through the Music Router.

Make the zero land

Models do not always hit a timestamp precisely. Listen to the take, note the real time of the hit, and then set the picture to it: cut the video so the zero frame lands there, rather than trimming the audio, which would chop the climax. If the hit is a few seconds off in every take, change the timestamp in the prompt and generate again; Lyria 3.5 is single-turn, so there is no edit pass.

Render

Use a Timeline 1.0 render with fade_out_seconds of 2 to 4 after the final hit, and keep duck_db at its default 0 unless a narrator speaks over the countdown. A 1-minute video is $0.10 to render. Four takes to find a good midnight are $0.50, so the whole job is about $0.60. Google lists Lyria 3.5 at $0.08 per song on its pricing page, read on 2026-10-05; Sume bills $0.125.