How long should a intro be in general?

[Fox]

Whether its for film, TV, or just a song being recorded. How long is too long before I have to "trim the fat" in other words.

On a song I'm working on now, the intro is 42 seconds long. Granted, its because the tempo is slower yet inviting however, I don't want it to be too long for radio airplay.

So as a rule of thumb, how long should an intro be?

[funsongs]

Whether its for film, TV, or just a song being recorded. How long is too long before I have to "trim the fat" in other words.

On a song I'm working on now, the intro is 42 seconds long. Granted, its because the tempo is slower yet inviting however, I don't want it to be too long for radio airplay.

So as a rule of thumb, how long should an intro be?

you'll probably get a variety of opinions in reply to this question.
I'll just address mine regarding songs; and even then, it may vary depending on genre.
IMHO - by 10 seconds in, I wanna start hearing the story you're gonna tell/sing.
GREAT songs hook you by the 2nd, or maybe, the 3rd note of the Intro.
One of the/our Taxi gang recently achieved that (again, just my opinion) with this offering:
https://soundcloud.com/paulbergren/i-ne ... k-from-you

(they actually have a 5-note riff... but it's an instant "hook"... they get you right "into it"!)

hth;
your mileage may vary.... or, you may need bigger thumbs, as a rule.

[hummingbird]

Instrumentals I try to keep to a 2 bar intro, possibly 4 at the most.
Same for songs

I suggest you take your intro and make it an instrumental break after your second chorus, and shorten the intro perhaps using bar 42-46 as a lead in.

Outside of TAXI screeners and peeps on P2P here, most music biz prof who might review your music will decide within a few seconds whether to go on listening. Best not to be ignored because you haven't gotten to the 'meat & potatoes' within a reasonable time.

JMHO
H.

[Casey H]

Keep 'em short. For a vocal song, you really don't want the singing to start much more than 10-12 seconds in. 4 bars is a general guide (# of bars is tempo dependent of course).

Vikki made a great point that intros should be even shorter for instrumental cues. Get to the meat. Just to add to that, often if I take the no-vocal backing track from a song to use as an instrumental cue, I'll remove the intro bars altogether since they often are identical to the verse.

Never pitch a song to a library or publisher with some 20 or 30 seconds of intro!!

Casey

[eeoo]

In general as short as possible while still making it work musically. There can be exceptions though. For example not long ago I did a series of Post Rock instrumentals as a work for hire for a publisher and he consistently wanted longer intros, I was keeping them short because I've always thought short intros were the rule but not in this particular case.

eo

[Fox]

I tested it at a bit of a faster tempo, came down to 35-36 seconds. I'm not sure if any of you are aware but this is concerning a pop punk song of mine that I had a slower tempo in mind, but then again I've seen 4 minute songs get airplay on FM stations, but a general rule of thumb I think is a 2 or 3 minute bracket.

[funsongs]

I tested it at a bit of a faster tempo, came down to 35-36 seconds. I'm not sure if any of you are aware but this is concerning a pop punk song of mine that I had a slower tempo in mind, but then again I've seen 4 minute songs get airplay on FM stations, but a general rule of thumb I think is a 2 or 3 minute bracket.

If you are asking regarding a specific song/piece of music, it would be helpful if you were to post a link to the item in question.
Likewise, if you are preparing something for a particular listing, it's always a good idea to include when posting here
the entire text of the the listing AND your track,
for proper review and comment.
hth,
cheers.

[funsongs]

The short answer: not any longer than it needs to be.

[sansharbour]

Keep it short and better still...... Unique

It can be an instant identifier to the listener
Treat this section as important

Don

[Fox]

I remember listening to Blink 182's Buddha demo, the first song "Carousel." had an intro as long as 40 seconds into the song.

But then again the song was short