Cutting song lengths tips n tricks.

[angelheadedhpst]

What program do you use, and what steps do you take in editing a song's length?

I know how to cut a song using Audacity and such, but how do you do it so that it remains nigh perfectly in sync in SM? Do people just use trial and error along with minor speed changes/stops, or is there a more sophisticated approach?

[Vospi]

1) DO NOT use sigle-track editors for that purpose.
2) Use REAPER or other multitrack DAW that can utilize a BPM grid.
3) I believe this forum have some info on the the subject already.

[Psychotik]

Sony Acid or Garageband.

[MdX MaxX]

Audacity works fine if the song is exactly a whole number BPM. Just create a click track, line it up to the waveform, and start cutting (using labels as selection start points and endpoints).

If it's even a little bit off, though, then yeah, Audacity won't cut it.

[Psychotik]

Audacity won't cut it.

Oh you.

[Schlagwerk]

Beware of editors that try to be smart and create "clickless" edits. Edison (part of FL Studio) does this, and if you make a cut where it's below a certain noise threshold it will add some amount of ms to compensate.

[Vospi]

To be honest, your advices suprise me, but to whom how as they say. Some facts are: Sony Acid weights a freaking lot and needs to be cracked, GarageBand is limited as hell, Audacity, like, never updates on windows wow they've updated it for the second time past 4 last years, maybe now it makes sense.

Creating a clicktrack when EVERY decent DAW includes a metronome? I mean why even bother learning some interface and shortcuts if you know that the software won't work in some of your usecases?

REAPER is
• ultra light to download and install (7 MB for fully functional DAW says A LOT about how good those algos are)
• can be used without buying it (including save and load and export and whatnot), just a nagscreen
• includes very decent processing tools AND can load any VST(i)/DX(i) plugin
• VERY handy in terms of editing. VERY intuitive and undoable (which is crucial) cut and paste, trimming, crossfading
• extremely handy BPM change feature called Time Signature Markers that gives you an ability to sync, like, everything. Like DDReam Studio, but hell more precise and with editing abilities. Combining it with Create measure from time selection macro you can sync a shit out of everything, like, 20 times faster. Even Ableton Live (which is totally great) doesn't have such a flexibility in terms of BPM.

Once again: Sound Forge, Edison and so on and so forth are single-track editors. They are hell to use when it comes to non-linear editing. These tools were created for another purposes which they handle great. Do not waste your time using them for sims. You're limiting yourself consciously.

Speaking of REAPER, you can use this brief instructions to get things started.

[Telperion]

I usually use ddreamstudio to translate beats to sample numbers, then line them up and make the cuts in Audacity - but it's a rather clunky and easily fukcupable way of cutting songs. I ought to try familiarizing myself with Reaper, haha.

[MdX MaxX]

You know, Reaper does make a lot of sense. Learned how to make a decent cut in about half an hour (10 minutes of that was figuring out how to select a region )

It's kinda awkward at first but I'm sure it's easy enough to get used to.

[SteveReen]

How I've been cutting songs lately:

1) Sync chart in SM first, make sure it's perfectly synced.
2) Find the beginning and end beats of the part you want to cut out, and take note of "current second" on each of them.
3) In Audacity, find the times you noted, zoom WAY THE groove IN until you can get it within like 0.000001 second error. Zoom out, drag the cursor (this selects an area) to the second marked time. Zoom in again and drag until you get it as close as you possibly can to exactly the same error as you for the first marked time (example: if the current second for the first time was 57.234 and you started the selection at 57.2339, you'd want to end the selection as close to -0.0001 away from the second marked time as you can).

I'm not sure if there are any problems with this method other than songs that are really hard to sync, but as long as you use the right parts of songs (it helps to cut to a part of the song that sounds identical to where your cut starts), it works fine. It's been working really really well for me.

EDIT: note that the numbers I used in my example were just off the top of my head for example's sake. I zoom in really far and get a lot closer than that, haha.

[Fraxtil]

My method is pretty similar to Steve's, but I like to take a more precise approach. Once you have the exact BPM of the song, open an interactive Python prompt and type in "b = 60. / BPM * 44100", substituting the actual value for BPM. The variable 'b' now contains the exact number of samples per beat. Then to figure out how many samples to cut, select the region you want to cut in Audacity, look at its length in samples, and start typing b*32, b*64, etc. into Python until it gives you a number that's about the same as the length of your selected region. Adjust the selected region in Audacity accordingly, hit Delete, and you've got a 100% non-drifty cut down to the sample.

Replace "44100" with "48000" if that's the sample rate of your song, of course.

[kiwizoid]

Adjust the selected region in Python accordingly, hit Delete, and you've got a 100% non-drifty cut down to the sample.

Just wanna make sure -- did you mean to say adjust in Audacity?

[Vospi]

My head is gonna explode guys. :)

Why counting the samples in calc when you can zoom in to the waveform and actually SEE them in REAPER? And control them and listen if they're related to your approximation at all? Why counting when you can loop the bar and see how many samples in it, taking not more than a couple of mindless mouse clicks?

Why emulating the grid in SM when you can SEE the grid and cut accordingly? Also being able to control and to check if your grid is right and to adjust it not only in a static way but also through the song? With the process being totally reversable, expandable with crossfades and small edits which are essential for some songs? And can you reverse your cut just from a WAV that you've saved in Audacity?

I mean come on, all that really sounds like you've got too much time to spare in order to get potentialy worse results.
Just in case — of course it's nothing personal at all.

[Psychotik]

Everyone has their own personal way. If they feel like it's a good way for them and it works fine, then let them be. If they want to try something new or are unhappy with their current method, they will switch.

[Fraxtil]

Adjust the selected region in Python accordingly, hit Delete, and you've got a 100% non-drifty cut down to the sample.

Just wanna make sure -- did you mean to say adjust in Audacity?

Yes, my bad :x