Editing stereo tracks to :60 & :30

[timbutler]

Hey Gang!

I've recently bought a new Mac with Logic 9 for recording music for TV & Film. On my old Mac, I simply used Garage Band and did my :30 & :60 edits in Sound Studio, which came with my Mac.

Well, my new Mac doesn't have Sound Studio, and I haven't been able to successfully install the old Sound Studio program from the old Mac to the new one.

I'm wondering what you other Mac users use to edit your stereo mixes to :30 and :60? Is there a practical way to do that in Logic? I'll admit I'm still in the early learning stages of using Logic, so it may be staring me in the face and I don't see it.

Thanks!

[pboss]

Hi Tim,

I think that, while you can edit a stereo mix in a stereo Mac editing program like Peak, which is a fantastic program, many times you need to make the edit more smooth so it's transparent. In order to do this, use your normal multitrack editing program, Logic, Pro Tools, whatever you are most fluent in audio edting, and then you can utilize more of the tracks for crossfades.

In other words, say you want to chop out one minute of the middle of a song, and paste the beginning to the ending. Using more (stereo) tracks, you can take that first part on the first track and put the ending part on the next track, but play around a little with fade-ins / fade-outs so that it sounds seamless. It really depends upon the content of the track, because sometimes it will be an easy edit, in Peak, for example, but sometimes you really need the first chunk of audio to kind of fade out and the beginning of the ending part to be fading in, so the listener can't tell, hopefully. Doing this also gives you some space to move things around and try different approaches.

This would all be in the context of a new project file, where you don't use plugins and stuff, just import your one stereo mix, and export whatever you need. (I guess mastering could be done before or after this process).

That's just my two cents, maybe someone else has a better way of doing it. I think that ideally you would go from your original multitrack project file and that would definitely give you the most control, and the best sound choices. But sometimes you may not have time, and you may just need to do a quick edit and deliver the stuff.

[mazz]

Like Patty says, you can do it in Logic in the multitrack window (or whatever Logic calls it). Having the same mix on several tracks is a good way to get good fades and to experiment with different edits as well because you can slide things around.

BTW: Peak has a playlist function where you can do crossfades easily, I use it fairly often. The new version, which I don't have yet, is supposed to have multi track editing. It is a great program but not inexpensive.

Cheers!

Mazz

[timbutler]

Thanks Patty & Mazz. I have done it the way you've described, and you're right, it does allow for more flexibility with cross-fades, etc. I'll work with this approach some more. Thanks for the advise!

Tim