Any tips for commercial edits?

[waveheavy]

Good info on this thread!


Do you guys use your DAW's scrub tool to find exactly where the music/tail stops? That's the only way I can fathom how to get the music to end exactly 0.5 seconds prior to the cut down time.

I can see using time-stretch just a little; enough so as to not change the mood, if all else fails.

I like the idea of having the edits saved in the same full project session, maybe just not linearly on the timeline.

Presonus Studio One 3 has a Scratch Pad feature where you can drag any piece or the whole song over into it, and test different arrangements, and save each one.

Since I'm dealing mostly with MIDI, I don't see anything wrong with tweaking the arrangement a little to makeup the edit timing, and to give a more natural feel to the edit. My Berklee instructor suggested doing this separate arrangements if possible to make cut downs sound more natural. This of course would take up a lot more time. But... seems to me that it would make one's cues more attractive to music libraries.

[edmondredd]

HI Edmond,

Sorry I didn't see this response. If I can remember to make a video I will post it. Otherwise there might be something on YouTube that deals with it.

Cheers,

Andy

hehe, no worries Andy. I was just hoping for a video capture of the cue shown in the picture in order to grasp what is happening there.

[andygabrys]

Good info on this thread!


Do you guys use your DAW's scrub tool to find exactly where the music/tail stops? That's the only way I can fathom how to get the music to end exactly 0.5 seconds prior to the cut down time.

Since I'm dealing mostly with MIDI, I don't see anything wrong with tweaking the arrangement a little to makeup the edit timing, and to give a more natural feel to the edit. My Berklee instructor suggested doing this separate arrangements if possible to make cut downs sound more natural. This of course would take up a lot more time. But... seems to me that it would make one's cues more attractive to music libraries.

Here's my opinion:

Scrub tool? Never honestly. There is usually reverb in the tail and if it's acoustic recordings I am always forcing a fade on the last hit. Even if the instruments fade naturally I tailor the fade with automation.

So I never have to scrub and find out where the sound dies.

Second point:

Usually a library is going to hear your full produced piece as an audition. Not a cut down.

And if they want to sign your piece - they will either ask you for cut downs, or in some cases do them theirselves often from the full length 2 mix which makes for some interesting results.

But the cut down is a convenience for their end users. So they make it work for what they need.

Send me a PM if you want an example.

[waveheavy]

Andy,

I understand what you mean. I always put a short fade at the very end of the cue too. But I can't always tell if I'm leaving 0.5 seconds of silence just before the end.

My question was based on Robin Frederick's book Shortcuts to Songwriting For Film and TV where she said an edit meant the audio always ends 0.5 seconds prior to the end. So with a 30 second edit, the audio has to end at the 29.5 second mark, leaving 0.5 seconds of silence. She was actually that precise about it in her book.

Her quote from page 234:

"In fact, a 30-second music cue must end at 29.5 seconds to be used in this market. That means the reverb has tailed off and there is complete silence at exactly 29.5 seconds. If the cue ends earlier than that, it will be too short for a standard 30-second commercial; if it ends later than that, it will have to be edited. Unless the cue is very desirable or unique, the music editor will simply use a different cue. The same holds true for all standard cue lengths. For instance, a 60-second cue must end at 59.5 seconds, a 90-second cue at 89.5 seconds." (the italics stressing "at exactly" is in the book).

[mojobone]

If you're using reverb, make sure the reverberation time is more than .5 seconds; a dump fade can always make the ringout shorter. If it needs to be longer, you place the cursor at the 29.5 second marker and slide all the audio left until the ringout stops there. After that step, if any of the leftward-moved audio overlaps the start point, cut it off, or cut somewhere in the middle to make it fit. I'm not kidding but I might be laughing a little, inside. Time was, these calculations included transfers between 7.5 and 15 IPS reels of audio being laid to 30FPS and 30FPSd film and 20 whatever the hell it was video. OK, I'm laughing, now, I can't help it. Back then, sync fees were awesome and synchronization was a nightmare. This is why we all had to get digital pocket calculators in the first place, leading inexorably to our present state of digital audio utopia. You're welcome, I guess.