Category Archives: Audio Editing Tips

Making the Impact-dance competition podcast

This morning, Making the Impact dance competition podcast released Episode 153, The Dos and Don’ts of Music Editing for Competitive Dance. The hosts of the show are Courtney Ortiz and Lesley Anne Mealor, and this week’s guests are myself and Amy Gibson. I was incredibly honored to be invited as a guest on this highly regarded and popular dance podcast. It was an immense pleasure to talk with Courtney, Lesley, and Amy for an hour. The conversation was excellent and time flew by in an instant. Listen to this informative episode here.

I am excited that this episode has been published! I hope that listeners come away with new knowledge about how to prepare your music so that it’s ready for the competition stage, or any performance stage for that matter. Listeners may gain a greater appreciation for how much a great soundtrack can elevate a dance routine.

Please comment below with any insights or tips that you may have learned. If you would like to learn more about making sure your music is stage-ready, get a copy of my free 5-page PDF: Top Ten Tips for Creating Stage-Ready Music

Find out more about my Catalog of stage-ready clean song edits and mixes. Each one is optimized to give your choreography maximum emotional impact.

Learn more about my custom Magical Recital Welcome Soundtracks.

To connect with me, email me at morriss@squirreltrenchaudio.com or message me on Facebook.

How to Edit Music for Choreography, beautifully

Below is the introduction for a book I am writing. I would appreciate any and all feedback you might have in the comments. I can be reached via email at: morriss@squirreltrenchaudio.com.

How to Edit Music for Choreography, beautifully by Morriss M. Partee. (c) 2023

Introduction

Dance is the art of human movement. And while dance can exist without music, most dance is performed with a soundtrack. For more than ten years, I have had the great honor of creating several thousand soundtracks for choreographers around the world, primarily in the United States, but also in Canada, Australia, the U.K., and New Zealand. It’s been my personal mission over that time to ensure that every dancer performs with flawless, beautiful music. Every time I take on a new music editing or mixing project, I give it the same care and attention as if it were my own child performing with it. 

This book is for choreographers, and those who create soundtracks for their routines. Having attended numerous dance competitions and recitals where dance was performed with the soundtracks I created, I have developed an array of techniques for making these soundtracks excellent. My aim is to give you the practical knowledge I’ve gained working with hundreds of choreographers, and studying music and audio engineering, so that you too, can produce flawless music for choreography.

This text focuses on transforming popular songs, which are generally three to four minutes in length, into soundtracks for choreography, which usually range from two to two-and-a-half minutes.  There are two disciplines needed to create flawless song edits for choreography – musicianship and audio engineering. Those two disciplines dovetail with understanding the intersection between music and dance, and the general cues that young dancers rely on to remember the choreography that they learn and perform. 

Music and audio technology have made impressive leaps forward over the past two decades. Fortunately, long gone are the days when choreographers would use two cassette decks to painstakingly align different parts of a song, often using a pencil to try to get it just right. (If you don’t know why a pencil is involved with cassettes, be glad!) What is now primitive technology came with a whole host of limitations. 

Digital audio and personal computer technology makes it so that all of us are within reach of an amazing arsenal of tools to make music for choreo that is flawless. Today’s laptop has more audio processing power at a reasonable price than the million-dollar recording studios built in the 1970s and ‘80s. Recording engineers of that era couldn’t have imagined that eventually we could put entire virtual orchestras inside of a portable computer that is less than ¾” of an inch in thickness. But while audio technology has advanced to the point where it’s relatively easy to shorten songs on a laptop, or even a tablet or smartphone, sometimes there are almost too many choices. For example, what bitrate should an mp3 be saved as? Should I save with constant or variable bit rate encoding, and why am I even being asked this question?

Beyond minor issues like these, I routinely find many errors and glitches in choreo music I receive for repairs or cleaning. And I have also heard far too many routines’ soundtracks played at top volume for competition in civic centers and auditoriums with jarring skips, breaks, and thumps. Such glitches take an audience (including parents and judges) “out of the moment” of enjoying the dance performance, with the worst of them creating difficulties for dancers trying to count the music.

You’ve probably heard these mistakes as well if you have watched other’s dance performances, in music that otherwise flows smoothly. Strangely, while you’ve heard these mistakes in others’ music quite clearly, you may have not heard them in your own music edits — and there is a reason for that.

It’s not that your own music edits don’t have flaws. It’s in the nature of how the brain works, that you are less likely to notice flaws in your own musical creations. When you listen to a piece of music, over and over again, it eventually becomes “normal” to you, even if there are one or more issues readily apparent to anyone else listening to it. This is why good audio engineers need to work fast, or else they too fall into the trap of thinking that what they are hearing is normal or good. 

Trying to hear your music work clearly is known as ‘maintaining perspective.’ There are several ways you can maintain perspective while creating your own music edits. The first way is to know your tools and techniques extremely well, so that you can work swiftly. The faster you work, the better perspective you can maintain. Another method is to take frequent breaks. Yet another method is to “put away” your edits for a couple of days or even a week, ensuring that you don’t listen to them at all. But even this technique won’t work if you’ve already listened to your own edits more than a dozen times.

***

Some may question the importance of creating beautiful soundtracks for dance. Does one thump or awkward break in a song really ruin an otherwise beautiful dance performance? That decision is up to every choreographer or dance studio owner. Does a jarring sound break the audiences’ enjoyment of a graceful dancer? Most would answer yes. But in any case, with today’s technology, there is no need for any dancer to ever perform with anything less than flawless music.

Here are a few more reasons I feel every dancer ought to have perfect music to perform with. From a dance studio owner’s self-interested perspective, flawlessly edited music does several things for the studio: It increases the perceived quality and professionalism of the studio, and it also increases the likelihood of student retention. One way it increases those chances  is that a beautifully edited piece of music has less repetition than when a song is simply started from the beginning and then faded-out at the two-minute or two-and-a-half minute mark. We’ve all seen the dancer on stage who performs their solo beautifully for the first two-thirds of the routine, and then suddenly forgets the next move in their choreography, and runs off the stage in embarrassment. While I don’t have a catalog of such ‘forgetting choreo’ moments, I am convinced that some of these occur because the music is so repetitive the dancer loses track of where they are in the song. 

The other way in which flawlessly edited music helps studios retain students is by avoiding the awkward fade-out. When music is faded-out at the routine length, it is an incredible disservice to the dancer. When the music volume starts to drop, that is the dancer’s queue to exit the stage… and usually these fade-outs take the audience by surprise. So that when the music finally is over, the dancer is already in the wings, and only then does the audience start to applaud. This robs the dancer of being center stage to fully receive the audience’s applause that they so richly deserve after all of their hard work. 

But these are the self-interested reasons for a dance studio to utilize nothing but flawless soundtracks for their routines. Other reasons go beyond self-interest. Dance students are impressionable youngsters who are going through the most formative times of their lives. Each dance student will hear their chosen group and solo songs hundreds of times in the course of a season’s rehearsals. This music forms the soundtrack of their lives. For that reason alone, every dancer deserves that music to be as perfect as it can be.

Protected versus unprotected Apple music files

People who use Apple Music run into the inability to edit m4p (protected) files. Here is your guide to understanding what is going on. Apple has has two music file formats:

  • m4p (protected), and
  • m4a (not protected).

If you bought a song on iTunes before 2009, it was in m4p (protected) format. If you bought a song after 2009 on iTunes, or used their sync system to convert m4p into m4a files, then it is in m4a (not protected) format.

However, if you create an offline copy of a song via Apple Music (streaming service), then THAT is m4p (protected) format. So if you have made an “offline” copy of a song via Apple Music, you need to delete that copy (the m4p protected file) before you can download (or re-download) the purchased m4a (not protected) file.

If you don’t want to have to deal with the hassle of figuring out if you have a protected or unprotected version of the song, and don’t want to have to know the difference between m4a and m4p files, I recommend NOT using Apple Music for streaming, and use Spotify instead. That keeps the difference between what you’ve bought and what you are streaming nice and SEPARATE.

Two ways in which poor music editing can lead to students who quit dance

Recently, there was a great conversation about the value of music editing as it pertains to dance studios in the Facebook group Dance Teacher Network. As I’ve outlined previously, there is much more to quality music editing for choreography than simply making a cut and calling it a day. Good music editing for choreography takes into account song structure as well as employs a variety of audio engineering techniques when needed. But there are two specific cases where poor music editing can completely frustrate a dancer, and in extreme cases, may even lead a student to quit dance entirely!

There are two kinds of poorly executed music edits that can lead dancers to quit: Awkward fade-outs and too much repetition

The first kind of poor music edit is one that robs the dancer of the applause that he or she so very much deserves after performing a routine. This poor choice is when a dance group or soloist’s song is simply faded out without any thought as to how the music should flow from start to finish. These type of fade-outs usually have the performer(s) dancing off the stage at an awkward point in the song; at a point where the audience isn’t expecting the routine to end because the music does not sound like it’s supposed to end. So the dancer is all the way off stage before the audience realizes that the routine is over, and there is a hesitation before they start to applaud. AND, the dancer is now not on the stage to properly feel, and fully receive, the audience’s applause. In extreme cases, this leaves a young, fledgling dancer who is timid, or a little bit uncertain of their dancing abilities, feeling like the audience may not have really appreciated their routine after all. Instead, always put a button on the music to ensure the dancer(s) receive the applause they deserve while on stage!

The second, and even more direct route where a bad music edit can lead to a dancer quitting entirely is when there is too much repeating left in the music edit for a young soloist. This can happen no matter whether it’s a competition solo or a recital solo. When too much repetition is left in the music, it is extremely easy for a dancer to lose track of where they are in the song and thus where they are in the choreography. When the music repeats over and over (especially choruses that repeat and verses that repeat), the dancer doesn’t have the “help” of the music or lyrics to serve as auditory cues as to where they are in their choreo and what comes next.

Properly edited music for dance has all possible repetition removed. This is an aspect that the vast majority of DIY music editors (and even many audio professionals who have not studied the intersection of dance and music) fail to realize. Music with too much repetition retained leads to students who more easily lose track of where exactly they are in their choreo, an especially big problem in solos where you can’t cue off of another dancer. In these cases, the person creating the music edit doesn’t even realize that the repetition in the music is a big contributor to the problem. And if a student doesn’t not have the “help” of the music to help them remember their choreo, then that leads to frustration, which can lead to quitting dance entirely.

I’m sure you have viewed hundreds and hundreds of solo routines in competition as I have, and therefore you know that at a large comp, there will ALWAYS be at least one young soloist who runs off the stage sobbing because they forgot their choreo under the bright lights of the stage. I have come to the conclusion that poorly edited music containing too much repetition is a major contributing factor to these breakdowns.

Of course, sometimes a dancer who forgets their choreo returns later to the stage and performs triumphantly, but some of these dancers decide to quit dance forever right then and there. Why risk it? Why lose young dancers forever due to poorly thought-out music edits? Sure, there are sometimes when a student forgets their choreo, even with perfectly edited music. But no one wants their students to experience these kind of choreo-forgetting melt-downs.

You, as choreographer and teacher, pour your heart and soul into your choreo, into teaching your students, and cleaning their routines. You spend hours picking out the perfect costume to match your choreo. You deserve to have perfect, optimized music to match the effort you put into every other aspect of the dance, and you deserve to have music that actively helps your dancers remember their choreo instead of being a stumbling block.

This is why Squirrel Trench Audio music is created with the UTMOST care and precision — with song structure analysis to eliminate all possible repetition, ensuring that each music edit is a complete soundtrack, start to finish, that is ideal for choreography. Squirrel Trench Audio even has more than 1,000 clean song edits and remixes available in our archives. Check the listing for the songs that you want and email me or use this form to send me your music requests or for more information.

Three common problems and fixes when editing or mixing music

clean_music_by_fatihakgungorI love helping dance teachers and choreographers have the most outstanding, powerful, and impactful music possible. It’s an honor that so many dance teachers and studio owners entrust me to fix and clean the mixes they create. When DTs send me mixes, I hear three problems most often. They are relatively easily avoided. Here they are with their easy fixes:

  1. Problem — Timing hiccups
  2. Problem — Volume drops
  3. Problem — Poor audio quality

 

  1. Fix for Timing Hiccups — Determine the tempo of every song and align your work to the tempo grid. That means all cutting, moving, etc, is done precisely rather than via guesswork
  2. Fix for Volume Drops — One reason I receive many song edits or mixes with a reduced volume is that when the audio file is created during the Export process, the “Normalize” option is turned on by default. When there are internal peaks in a song that is bounced down with the Normalize option turned on, this results in the ENTIRE mix being reduced in volume. Do not leave the Normalize option turned on! Instead, make sure Normalize is turned off. To avoid digital distortion in these cases, put a peak limiter on your output bus. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, because in most cases, a short digital over will not be very noticeable on most sound systems.
  3. Fix for Poor Audio Quality — Use only original sources. Never import an mp3 into your audio program since an mp3 is a reduction in quality. Always save your mixes at at least 256k bit rate mp3, because to go less than that also results in an audible drop off in quality.

Hope these tips and fixes help you as you put together your edits and mixes! Please feel free to ask me any question about any of this since I truly love to help you have the best music you can possibly have for your amazing choreo!

Squeaky clean HandClap by Fitz and the Tantrums

fitz_and_tantrums-home1A new release from Squirrel Trench Audio on Legitmix: HandClap by Fitz & the Tantrums, cleaned of objectionable lyrics. The words “sex” and “lovers” have been removed. This is the full-length version, which is 3:10.

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

Importing songs from iTunes into Audacity

audacity imageFor dance teachers who need to edit their songs for length, it’s not always clear how to get songs from iTunes into Audacity. There are several ways you can do it:

  • You can drag-and-drop the song file from where it’s located in your iTunes folder onto the Audacity program icon.
  • You can choose File -> Import and then select the song you want to edit
  • You can drag-and-drop the song file icon from where it’s located in your iTunes folder straight onto the open blank Audacity edit window.

If you haven’t done so before, you will also need to download and enable the FFmpeg import/export library in order to convert the m4a file. There is no cost to do so, and it can be done quickly and easily by going to Preferences -> Libraries and clicking “Download” under the FFmpeg library listing.

If you want to export your edit as an MP3 file, you will have to download and enable the MP3 library, which can be done from the same place as mentioned in the previous paragraph, namely Preferences -> Libraries, and then click Download under the MP3 library option.

For more information, check out this Audacity Importing help page.

If you want to save the time and hassle of editing songs yourself, be sure to check out the Squirrel Trench Audio library of more than 300 edited songs and remixes (almost all of which have been cleaned of objectionable lyrics), ready for purchase and instant download on Legitmix. Below is a small sampling of what is available. Click through to the Squirrel Trench catalog on Legitmix to see more selections:

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

Protect your hearing at dance competitions

hd-bw-solo_1024x1024We all love the music that our routines are choreographed to, and that’s why dance competitions usually play your music really LOUD. Sound pressure levels of greater than 95 decibels are common in competition venues. You can easily get an approximate measure of the sound pressure level of any environment you are in with a free smartphone app. (I use Decibel Meter-Free for iPhone.)

Most dance teachers and choreographers are unaware that exposure to sound sources at these volumes (94 db or more) for more than 60 minutes consecutively can cause permanent hearing loss (source:National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)).

That is why I ALWAYS use hearing protection at dance competitions. You can use the cheap, foam type found in pharmacies, but that type tends to muffle the sound, and is therefore not enjoyable to use. I use Ear Peace protectors, which reduce the volume uniformly across all frequencies. The result is that the music sounds just as good as without the ear plugs, but the sound pressure is reduced so that you don’t damage your hearing or leave the competition with a splitting headache. I find that music actually sounds BETTER at competitions or rock concerts with the ear plugs than without, because at super-loud volumes, music actually distorts in your ear drums. Best of all, you can get a pair of HD Ear Peace protectors, with carrying case, for less than $20.

The other great thing about Ear Peace protection is that you can still have conversations with people that are next to you.

Just as you wear sunglasses in bright sunlight situations, consider hearing protection to be the equivalent device for your ears in loud settings. Do yourself a favor and protect your ears the next time you are at dance competition, especially when the solution is quite inexpensive.

How to convert a song to MP3 in iTunes

apple logo with headphonesiTunes is non-intuitive when it comes to converting a song from one format to another.

iTunes can convert audio into any of five different formats, AAC (which has an m4a extension), AIF, Apple Lossless, MP3, and WAV. But right-clicking on a song only shows you one choice to convert to, and your conversion option is only whatever you have your CD import settings set to! (It doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but it is what it is.) To change it to MP3, just go to Preferences -> General -> Import Settings, and select MP3 Encoder.

When you do, be SURE to set your MP3 import settings to:
• Stereo Bit rate: 256 kbps
• [check] Use variable bit rate encoding (yes)
• Quality: Highest
• Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
• Channels: Stereo
• Stereo Mode: Normal
• [check] Smart Encoding Adjustments (yes)
• [check] Filter Frequencies Below 10 Hz (yes)

(Click for more information on the proper settings for MP3 files.)

If later, you need to convert music to a different format that iTunes supports, then follow the steps listed above, but select the destination format that you want to convert to. For example, if you need a WAV file, then select WAV in your Import Settings, and once you do that, Convert to WAV will be an option when you right-click on a song.

When saving edits as mp3s, always choose 256k or higher

11882514-ear-and-sound-waves-Stock-Vector-hearingFor all of you fabulous choreographers who edit your own music: When saving your music as an mp3, NEVER save it at anything less than a 256k bit rate. Why is this important? Because when you save it at 128k or lower, you are throwing away some of the detail in your music. The stereo field is reduced, meaning that it sounds more like it’s coming from a mono source. The higher frequencies can sound more “swishy.”

Basically, it’s similar to saving a digital photo. Instead of the crispness and clarity of high-resolution, you get the fuzziness, graininess and lack of clarity when it’s low-resolution.

You may not hear the difference in quality between low-res and high-res mp3s on your laptop or iPad’s speakers, but when played on a good sound system (like in your studio, or at comp or recital), it won’t be as clear. And it just gets worse if you open up that same low-res file and re-edit it again.

Also worth noting: once you save an edit as a low-res mp3, re-saving it at a higher rate later does not fix it. Once you’ve saved it as a low-res file, then it will always be low res.

I know all the “export” or “save as…” options that are presented in most audio processing programs are greek if you don’t know the details or reasons behind the choices. Way too many of the music edit files I get for repair are saved as 128k mp3 files, and it makes me sad to know that dancers are not dancing with the cleanest version of their music possible, for no good reason other than the choreographer was not aware that saving at a 128k rate (or lower) degrades the audio noticeably.

Also, if you are not sure what the quality of an mp3 is, there’s a fairly easy way to tell, by checking the file’s size in Mb. A 2.5 to 3-minute edit saved as an mp3 or m4a should be roughly 5 to 6 Mb in size. If it’s only 2 to 3 Mb in size, then you know it’s low-res, and too much audio quality has been thrown away.

I can understand why so many people save their audio at low resolution. While you are working on the file, it sounds fine, because it hasn’t been saved to a low-res format yet. And when you save it as a low-res mp3, you can’t immediately HEAR that it doesn’t sound as good as what you have been working on. In other words, the quality gets reduced when you save it, but you don’t even know that that has happened. So I am very happy to help spread the word. Now you know!

Bottom line: When doing a “Save as” or “Export Audio” to an mp3 file, always choose the 256k rate or higher!