TAXI.com

We have generally been leaving a second or two of dead space at the start and end of our submissions, thinking that this would make them easier for an editor to work with. Recently, by accident, we left four seconds at the beginning and got this feedback from screener 416:

"Be sure to remove the 4 seconds of dead space from the top of your track and that your music starts right at 00:00."

We recognize that four seconds is too long, but since no previous screener commented on the second or two that we have always left, we're wondering if maybe a bit of dead space at the beginning may be acceptable or even desirable, or if indeed we should always start the music right at 00:00.

Just wanting to confirm one way or the other. Thanks!

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Michael & Sharon

Nobody wants to hit play and have to wait to hear a song. That being said, I like to leave about 1/16 or 1/8 note worth of lead time to prevent the beginning of the first note from being cut off. This happens often with SoundCloud. That should be plenty enough time.

Confirming what Dean said. Learned the lesson myself, when one of my publishers firmly asked me to remove any silence at the beginning of the tune, so now I just have 5 MIDI ticks of "pre-roll", or start bang on at 0.00, if the tune starts with a slow attack pad

200 - 300ms is plenty of gap

Thank you all! We'll reduce our "pre-roll" to a few hundred ms.

Good info to have! Thanks for starting this thread

I usually leave 250-300 ms which doesn't cause the listener to notice any wait but it makes sure that no player used will accidentally miss part of the first beat. I've noticed that if you start dead at 0 where the first iota of music starts, some player may miss a teeny bit and it can sound odd.

Casey