Yes. Since the Visual editor there is a direct speed control for each segment, and you can place a pause by making room for it on the timeline. Both live in the visual editor. The older Simple and Advanced editors still work through the translated text alone — which is often enough on its own, so that route is described further down.
Open the dub, switch the editor at the top to Visual, and click a segment on the timeline to select it. The visual editor is not available while a lip-sync render is running.
Speed: the pace stepper
With a segment selected, the toolbar above the timeline shows a stepper: − 1.00× +. Each press changes the pace of that one segment by roughly 6 %.
Range: 0.70× to 1.30×. A segment can be stretched or squeezed by at most 30 % against its original length.
The block on the timeline carries its current pace as a badge, e.g.
1.15×.If nothing is selected the stepper is greyed out — pick a segment first.
Length and position: drag the block
You can also change a segment directly on the timeline:
Move it — drag the block along the timeline.
Shorten or lengthen it — drag its right edge. No segment can go below 0.8 seconds. If a segment is shorter than this threshold, it can cause re-rendering errors or delays, potentially stalling the process.
Split it — put the playhead inside a segment and press S. The playhead has to sit at least 0.8 s from both edges, so a segment is splittable from 1.6 seconds upwards.
Add one — N drops a new segment into the free space at the playhead.
Delete — ⌫ · Undo — ⌘Z
Moved, stretched and edited segments only become audible once you click Re-render in the change bar. That rebuilds the video, takes a few minutes, and editing is paused while it runs. However, if any segment is shorter than 0.8 seconds, the re-render process may stall or take significantly longer.
If a segment sounds rushed or too slow
When the translated speech feels hectic and rushed, or unnaturally slow and dragging, editing the translated text of that segment often helps:
Too fast / rushed: remove a few words, so the voice has less to fit into the same time.
Too slow / dragging: add a few words, so the voice has more to fill the time with.
Why this works: the voice fills each segment's time with natural-sounding speech. When the translation is too short for the time available, it stretches and drags to fill the gap — giving it a few more words lets it fill that time with real content instead, which sounds far more natural. (And trimming an overlong translation stops the voice from having to race to keep up.)
This works in every editor, including Simple and Advanced. It is not a speed setting, though: the text alone does not change the segment's length — for that, use the pace stepper or drag the block in the visual editor. What it does change is how natural the delivery sounds, and often that is the whole problem. Edit the segment and Save — the segment's new audio is ready to hear right away, so you can check it. When you're happy with your edits, rebuild the final video: in the Simple and Advanced editors that button is Update, in the visual editor it is Re-render. That's the step that actually puts your changes into the video you'll export, and it's free (no credits charged).
The character counter is a guide, not a rule
Each segment shows a green/red character counter that tells you roughly how well the text length matches the original timing. Use it as orientation, not a hard limit. You don't have to stay inside it — depending on what's off, going a little over or under the suggested count can be exactly what fixes the pacing. Trust your ear over the number.
Pauses
A pause is simply space between two segments. Shorten a segment, or drag the next one to the right, and the gap you leave stays silent in the finished dub. There is still no "insert a pause here" button — you make room for it instead.
Two limits to keep in mind: no segment can go below 0.8 seconds, and the space has to come from somewhere — the neighbouring blocks decide how far a segment can move. Segments shorter than this limit can lead to processing errors or delays during re-rendering.
In the Simple and Advanced editors there is no timeline, so punctuation remains the only lever there: a comma, period, or dash in the translated text can nudge the voice to breathe at that spot. Use it sparingly — too many punctuation marks tend to confuse the voice model rather than help. Add one at a time, Save, and listen to the result before adding more.
Why some segments are hard to pace
If a segment stays stubborn, it's usually not that your source audio is low quality. Far more often, it's that the source delivery itself is demanding to match — for example:
Rhetorically strong or fast speech — a punchy marketing video, an energetic presenter
Lots of natural pauses or dramatic timing in the original
Stylistically rich content like singing, ads, or performance
In those cases the target language simply needs more or fewer words than the original to land the same line in the same time — which is exactly what the text edits above are for. (Genuinely poor source audio — heavy noise, echo, clipping — can cause trouble too, but it's not the usual reason a segment is hard to pace.)
Still not sitting right?
If you've trimmed or padded the text and tried a punctuation tweak and a segment still won't sit right, ask Dubby in the chat (bottom right) and include the dub link and the timestamps that feel off, and we'll take a look.