Preparing 30 and 60 second clips

[cameron]

Hi gang,

I'm preparing some clips of existing song demos for placement in a film/TV library. These are mostly country songs, and they have asked me to prepare full length alt. versions with the vocals removed and also 30 and 60 second clips and "stings", (whatever that means):

I have a couple of questions:

1. In trying to decide which 30 or 60 seconds of a song to use, any suggestions?

2. Is something with a defined beginning and ending good, or just fade in/fade out?

Thanks!

Cam

[orest]

I try to make it so natural as possible, never use any unnatural fade in/out.

The hook of the song is the strongest part. I may have a part of the verse and pre-chorus before the chorus/hook begins when I do a 60 sec edit. The 30 sec and 15 sec is all about the chorus/hook when I do those edits.

I also try to use the stinger, I cut it out from the end of the song and use it on my edits.

Hope this helps a little.

[marcblack30]

Billg gave me some tips making these edits awhile back, they made sense and made things much easier so I'll pass them along. Make the stinger first, the stinger only needs to be the last couple of beats of the song, or maybe the last couple of measures, whatever makes sense with the song. Then place the stinger out at :60, :30. & :15. Then build something to fit. Easy as pie I would avoid fade outs and use the stinger to wrap up each edit as described.

[cameron]

Great pointers Alex and Marc... thanks!!

[eeoo]

What works will vary from song to song, obviously however you do it it has to sound musical. Also time compression/expansion can be your friend for these!

eo

[Casey H]

For instrumentals, I almost always work backwards from the ring out ending, looking for a logical way to start 15, 30, or 60 seconds before the end. Vocals, much tougher-- I don't think I've been asked for this with vocals.

It the work was done by a pro studio, get all the stems so you can mix the parts. It makes it much easier to make a natural start N seconds before the end. Sometimes you can lead in with just some drum beats, for example, and then bring in the rest. My observation is, although the start should be good, the ending ring-out is more critical-- you have a bit of leeway for the start.

Casey

[cameron]

Thanks. Great ideas... especially the time compression/expansion, though I guess I would have resorted to that sooner or later anyhow, haha!

Seems like you could make a business just out of doing these mixes for people. I have close to 40 finished demos in my song catalog now.

Cam

[Casey H]

It's best to use as little time compression/expanding as possible-- avoid it as much as you can. It definitely can add distortion. If a piece is just a little short of the required time, see if you can fill in at the start with something else in your stems such as a few drum beats, a drum fill, etc.

I've gotten good and using fade ins over a very small amount of time such as 200-300ms to smooth out starting points in stem tracks. Let's say you need to come in on a rhythm guitar chord start but there is no real gap before it. I'll do a slowest curve fade in over that brief period near the start of the chord. Sometimes I'll even re-fade-in the fade-in. The effect is you don't get a harsh "cut-in" sound at the start of that track.

One tip I read (I think from matto) is, if the target is advertising voiceover, a smidget over the 30 or 60 mark at the very quiet end of the ring-out is OK. The editor can always fade it a little sooner. If you fade out too EARLY, there can be too much dead time at the end. You can use that to your advantage if going 100-200ms over is your concern.

BTW, I use these techniques not just for 30 and 60 second edits. Sometimes a backing track to a vocal song isn't interesting enough for the full length. But on some, coming in at (let's say) the start of verse 2, it works better as a pure instrumental. I was working on one of those tonight!


Casey

[cameron]

I've found I can do some amazing edits just using the free Audacity software. In one case I realized after the fact that I had made a mistake in having the studio put an instrumental solo in a demo. The song really lost momentum at that point, so I cut the instrumental out. I challenge anyone to hear the edit points.

Cam

[Casey H]

Hey Cam
It sounds like you are making edits on a full instrumental version, not from stems or alt mixes. That works sometimes, but it can be much harder than if you have stems. I know NDS gives you PT session files. For a fee you can have them run off mixdowns of the various components.

I'm working with someone now who, very affordably, takes my P/T sessions, and does alt mixes-- e.g. bass, drums, rhythm guitars, etc. for me. Each mixdown has the same final levels and mastering applied so I can load the tracks into my Cubase and mix, match, slice and dice to my heart's content.

Drop me a PM if you want to talk more about it.

Wear sunscreen!
Casey