How to shorten a song?

[Joel Reiser]

I already have a sequence started with a grid. How can I shorten the length of the song? Thanks in advance....

[dibblejr]

Download a commonly used program Audacity and use that

while at it also get the LAME add on for it.

Both are free and available through the Audacity website

JR

[zvacman]

If you are using LOR just shorten the grid by clicking and dragging left.

[james morris]

You can change the total time in lor  go to edit them change total time put the time in just like it is 00.00.00 or it wont take it this way you keep the song without editing it this only works at the end of song

[Orville]

22 hours ago, james morris said:

You can change the total time in lor  go to edit them change total time put the time in just like it is 00.00.00 or it wont take it this way you keep the song without editing it this only works at the end of song

As James said, this only works at the end of a song.   And if you cut it too far back, and then want to change it to be slightly longer, the waveform will not bring back the end of the song if you do this in the LOR program.  To get the parts back, you'll have to reload the song back into the software again.    So be sure you know EXACTLY where at the end you need or want to stop the song.  And it is very imperative you use the time format the software uses, it is in this format HH:MM:SS.00 {I'll explain more on the format later below}.

However, beware, I have found that this sometimes DOES NOT work when the sequence is used in a show, and especially if using any type of Director unit to run the show.  When I used an MP3-Director to run my shows and I used this method, in the SDE it worked fine, but more often than not, the Director would play the entire song to the end, even though I had shortened the sequence, but DID NOT EDIT the song itself.    I have had this happen a few times using my computer to run the show as well.    So sometimes this doesn't work as you might think.

The best way is to do as JR stated using Audacity and Lame {or if you have a music editor in your collection you prefer to use, use that} and actually EDIT the song, then instead of trying to edit the original sequence, create a new sequence and copy and paste from the original sequence into the new shortened version.   However, you may have to cut and shift some channels forward or backward when you do this within the sequence to get things to line up properly, it also depends on what and where you edited and have taken out of the song to shorten it.  

But it takes less time to shift things around than it does to create a whole brand new sequence from scratch and redo everything.   Yes, it will still take a little time, but not as much as if sequencing the song from scratch.

Time format changes:

HH:MM:SS.00 = HH = Hour{s} : MM = Minute{s} : SS = Second{s} and .00 = Tenths of Second{s}

So if you have a song less than a minute, the sequencer would look like this for a 43 second and 18 tenths of a second song -> 43.18

A 6 minute 47 second 22 tenths of a secong song would show as -> 06:22.33

If you have compiled a medley of songs together and made a 2 hour 30 minute 0 seconds and 0 tenths of a second medley would show as -> 02:30:00.00

So say you have a song of 1 minute 16 seconds and 46 tenths of a second and you just wanted to shorten it within the software to 1 minute 15 seconds and 0 tenths of a second {this is in S4, not sure if S5 has the same set up}, you go to the Edit tab, locate Change Time, Click on it, then change the time by typing in the length you now want it to be: 01:15.00, hit enter.  This will shorten the song by 1 second 46 tenths of a second.  Sometimes all you need it to set that last time set, the tenths, always will start with a decimal point "." to 00 and that will end the song just enough to do the job.  

I usually do not have to change much more than the last 2 digits if I edit the song and remove the silence at the beginning and end of a song, Sometimes I have to change the last 4 digits when doing this, depending on how long those silent markers are at each end of the music.   This is something I do to all my music used in my shows.   Sometimes I need to do more and custom edit a song to take out offensive language, clean the song up as it is, to make it more child and family friendly.  Or I edit out excessive repetition to shorten the song to around 2-3 minutes in length, which could possibly be another 2-4 minutes long due to repetition lyrics or rifts in the music/song, which in some cases can drive one a little crazy at times. LOL

 

 

[Joel Reiser]

Thank you. I will make a back up using your technique...

[Rick P]

Just an aside.  LAME now comes with Audacity.  The  MP3 Copywrite ran out and the folks at Audacity are now allowed to include it in the build.