Tag Archives: CD

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!

CD-quality versus mp3-quality – What’s good enough?

A recent comment on a dance facebook group asked for some further explanation on the differences between CD-quality audio (lossless or uncompressed) and mp3-quality (lossy or compressed) audio.

I thought I’d share my explanation on the subject here.

cd.gifBecause mp3s were created when the internet was new, and slow modems were used to connect with it, they have gotten somewhat of a bad rap because early mp3s were at such low bit-rates, that they truly sounded awful. However, as bandwidth has increased rapidly over the years, it’s possible today to get high quality mp3s that are virtually indistinguishable from CD-quality audio.

The audio quality in stores like the iTunes store or Amazon mp3 store are now quite good. Not CD-quality exactly, but on virtually all sound systems that the music will be played on, no one will be able to tell the difference.

I have had the misfortune of working with some really cruddy music sources supplied to me, and once music is degraded (which I will explain more below), it can’t be returned to its original form. It would be like ripping up a costume and then trying to put it back together with duct tape – yuck. So here’s what you REALLY want to watch out for: DO NOT USE MUSIC SAVED FROM A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

CD quality is a very high standard of music quality. Even better forms of digital audio exist, but this is irrelevant for the dance world and dance purposes. Here is a list of format qualities, from fantastic to poor:

  1. CD quality (usually stored as either AIF or WAV format)
  2. m4a/AAC — iTunes store quality, 256k bit rate
  3. mp3 — 256k or higher, variable bit rate – this is nearly as good as iTunes store quality. Most people on most systems won’t hear a difference between this and CD quality
  4. mp3 — 128 k or lower bit rate—- this is where you start to hear what are often called “swirlies” especially in the high frequencies of the music.
  5. The worst possible digital music is music that is saved as an mp3, and then saved as an mp3 again (possibly more than once). This is how audio from YouTube gets to be so bad.

Bottom line: For dance studios, rehearsal, recital, competition – mp3 at 256k or higher variable bit rate, or m4a at 256k or higher bit rate, are going to be fine, with one very important caveat: as long as the song has not been resampled/resaved in mp3 format more than once. And this is precisely why music taken from YouTube ranges so wide and far in quality…. it can be nearly pristine, or it can be severely degraded, depending on how it arrived there.

Just like cassettes in the old days: if you recorded a CD onto cassette, it didn’t sound too bad…. just a small amount of hiss was added. But as soon as you start recording cassette to cassette — you are left with practically nothing but noise after just one or two such transfers. The hiss becomes nearly as loud as the music!

Well, that’s exactly the same thing that is happening with an mp3 to mp3 copy, and this is where compression comes in that you mentioned six comments above (lol). When you save music as an mp3, indeed, you are compressing it, compared to CD-quality which is uncompressed. The mp3 encoding throws away some of the “less important” details of the music in order to save space in the storage of the file. If you take a CD, and save it as a 256k-rate mp3, you can barely even notice any difference. But if you save a 256k-rate mp3 as a 256k-rate mp3, now you are throwing away even more detail. And low-quality YouTube videos have music that is encoded as a 128k-rate mp3. So if a person takes an mp3, and then uploads that as the music of their YouTube video, now you are listening to the same thing in essence as a cassette-to-cassette transfer. If you then save the music track from the YouTube as an mp3 on your computer, and remix or edit it and save the result as an mp3, now you are doing the same thing as a cassette-to-cassette-to-cassette transfer. So if the music sounds awful at that point, well, now you know why.

Here’s an example of audio that sounds terrific on YouTube. Especially if you click the quality setting to 720p HD or higher. (Switching the YouTube video to an HD setting increases the audio quality to the highest available.)

 

Here’s an example of music that has been pretty severely degraded, as a 48k bit rate mp3. This would be similar to saving a 96k-bit rate mp3 more than once:

On the above clip, if you go back to the start of the video, you can hear what it sounds like as a very high quality mp3. Every 30 seconds, it’s played as a lower and lower quality mp3.

If you have any questions about CD-quality, m4a/AAC, or mp3 audio quality, please comment, and I will answer to the best of my ability!

The Disclosures new video for The Secret to Being Rich

The Disclosures, the singing and songwriting duo of Madison-based Chad Helminak and Christopher Morris, released a new video today, for National Financial Literacy month. The video is for their song The Secret to Being Rich, from the album of the same title. This album is full of fun, upbeat and humorous songs that have a financial theme, that kids of all ages will enjoy. I’m especially proud to have had a hand in bringing these songs to fruition, having done the mixing and mastering for the collection.

This latest song is a fantastic ballad, appearing at the end of the album. And for the month of April, they are making the song FREE because it’s Financial Literacy month, and Chad and Chris are great guys who have a great message to share with any youngsters.

If you like this video, they’ve made another fun one for the song Thank My Piggy Bank.

Check out the video, grab a free copy of the song, and get a copy of the whole CD if you like what you hear.

The Disclosure’s CD will be released tomorrow!

Thank My Piggy Bank photoIt’s always nice when a glowing testimonial starts your day….. it has been a true pleasure to work with Chad Helminak & Christopher Morris (aka The Disclosures) on their fantastic new album, and I think I’m as excited as they are for the CD release tomorrow!

Here’s what The Disclosures said:

“We can’t thank Morriss Partee enough from Squirrel Trench Audio for his mixing and mastering prowess on our new album, which comes out tomorrow. If you or your organization ever needs some audio mixing and mastering assistance, he’s your guy!”

— The Disclosures,
Dec 9, 2013

Thanks guys!

The Disclosures – The Secret to Being Rich

The Secret to Being Rich CDs arrive

The Secret to Being Rich CDs arrive

Mixing and mastering has been completed by yours truly for the forthcoming The Disclosures CD, titled The Secret to Being Rich. This fantastic set of songs from the singing and guitar-playing duo of Chad Helminak and Christopher Morris will be hitting the stores on December 10, one week from today.

It’s been truly a pleasure to mix these incredible inventive songs, which are aimed at kids, and designed to help them grow up thinking about their finances in a smart way (all the while being quite silly and entertaining). I think this album has a lot of legs, and is highly recommended for any parents who have kids in the range of 4 to 10 years old. It could be a great asset to teachers of kindergarteners through fourth graders as well.

Adults will appreciate the catchy tunes, and kids will appreciate the entertainment, silliness, and humor of the CD.

Here’s the complete track listing:

  1. Money Moola Dinero Dough
  2. I Want, I Need
  3. Save!
  4. Won’t You Be My Money Buddy?
  5. The Tale of Kidd Silver, the Savviest Pirate to Ever Sail the Seas
  6. Thank My Piggy Bank
  7. Captain Smartmoney vs. Dr. Greedypants
  8. Spend, Save, Give
  9. Too Good To Be True
  10. The Secret to Being Rich

Follow The Disclosures on Facebook to stay informed about the latest from this fun duo.

Now that I’ve put the mixing and mastering on this album to bed, I’m looking for my next mixing project, so hit me up!

What happens if my CD won’t play at a dance competition?

For those of you who make, create, remix, cut, or edit music for dance competition, there is NO worse feeling in the world than watching your dancers get announced, take their opening position, and then….. nothing. Silence. The competition emcee then asks the dancer to leave the stage while the technical difficulties get ironed out.

At a dance competition in Worcester this past weekend, something similar, and yet worse, happened twice to a dance studio. The song played about halfway through, with no problems, and then abruptly went silent in the middle of the song. Fortunately these dancers are already pros at a young age, and finished out their dance routines with no music, with only the cheers from the crowd to encourage them in the last half of their dances.

There is NO REASON this should EVER happen to you.

Without knowing more about how this particular studio created their CD-Rs (Recordable CDs), the likely culprit is the media. You can buy cheap CD-Rs just about anywhere nowadays. Unfortunately these cheap CD-Rs often have bad batches, where something went amiss in the manufacturing process, rendering them unplayable.

To avoid this from happening to you, only use the BEST CD-Rs… which are made by Tayio Yuden, now owned by JVC. These are the gold standards. The optics are impeccable. The burn is greater. The digital data is held more distinctly. And best of all, they are the SAME PRICE per 100-pack than any other brand of CD-R. So what are you waiting for? If you inkjet label your CDs, here is a link to a 100-bundle of white inkjet printable Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs for about $35 on Amazon. If you want the silver version and label your CDs with a Sharpie marker, you can get 100 silver-faced Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs for a few bucks less. A 100-pack of Staples brand CD-Rs costs the same. Remind me how much Staples knows about maximizing optical laser beam recognition and tracking in CD-Rs again?

This CD may look cool, but it is scratched beyond playability. This is what can happen to CDs stored in dance bags without protection.

In any case, you should always burn a backup CD of all of your songs, just in case your primary CD gets scratched. If you print multiple songs on your back-up CD, burn it with four or five seconds between each song so that the emcee has time to stop the CD player before the next song begins.

If you put your CDs in your dance bag, MAKE SURE to seal it inside a plastic baggie. Otherwise, dirt from the dance bag will work its way into the CD sleeve and wreak havoc on the silver surface, scratching it beyond readability.

I have no relationship or endorsement from JVC/Taiyo Yuden, but I can unequivocally state that Squirrel Trench Audio uses ONLY JVC/Taiyo Yuden for burning competition CDs and backups.

Protect your CDs inside your dance bags

Have you ever had this experience? You are at the dance competition and the CD with your competition music won’t play. The judges ask you for a backup CD, you give it to them, and it also won’t play. You look at the underside of your CDs, and much to your dismay, they are complete scratched up.

I sincerely hope this has never happened to you, and that it never will.

I’ve previously written about using only top-quality, name-brand CD-Rs to minimize the chances of getting a bad CD-R, or a bad lot of CD-Rs. I’ve also given you the Top 5 care tips for your precious CDs.

Tip number 5 from the preceding list is DO NOT put your CDs in your dance bag! The reason why is that, while you may have your CDs in a jewel case or a sleeve, all it takes is ONE grain of sand to work it’s way into the sleeve for it to start scratching the sensitive plastic surface, making it completely unreadable.

My girlfriend, Lesley Lambert, who is a dance teacher and a dance mom, came up with a brilliant solution. Since it only makes sense that dancers are going to carry around their competition CDs, backup CDs, and rehearsal CDs in their dance bag, she realized she could protect them from dirt and foreign objects by putting the CD into a plastic baggie. A standard sandwich baggie may be too small; one size bigger may be required.

So if you are going to put your CDs in your dance bag, put them inside a plastic bag and seal them first, so that they remain playable!

More group CDs bound for competition!

Here are just a few of Squirrel Trench’s original remixes for small to large groups in jazz and tap categories that will be competing (and in most cases premiering) this weekend in Springfield, Massachusetts at USTD.

I can’t even begin to fathom the number of hours that went into producing these gems… a true labor of love. We’ll see if it translates into scoring well for the dancers. I can’t wait to see them performed!

Nationals are nearly here!

Deliver Us CDSquirrel Trench Audio will be on location at Star Systems’ Nationals competition in Myrtle Beach, SC next week. All of the music is prepped and ready to go, so the only thing left to do is wish the dancers the best in their performances! We are looking forward to a fun-filled week with nothing but dance, dance, dance!

The CD pictured at right is the audio for a hot acro routine that will be performed on Friday, July 22. It was truly a joy to smooth the transitions of this very tricky orchestral music which included full choir.

I love seeing the dancers perform this routine and I know they are going to nail it in Myrtle Beach next week!

An Open Message to Dance Studio Owners

Camden Yards Fireworks!

Here it is, the Fourth of July. While families kick back and grill up some hamburgers and hot dogs and enjoy fireworks, dance studio owners are trying to catch their breath now that recitals are over, and the only thing left in the current dance season is Nationals.

Right after Nationals are dance camps, and for some studios, that is when new music is introduced for next season’s choreography. For those studios, now is the time to start prepping the music, in time for their dance camp debut!

How is music handled at your dance studio? Who edits the music to the right length for routines? Is it left up to each teacher to supply their own music? Is it a hodgepodge of aunts, uncles, spouses, friends, and students, all of whom have varying degrees of musical talent and audio editing skill? Or do you have it professional produced by a studio engineer who not only knows music, but understands the demands of skillful editing expressly for dance choreography?

If you are currently producing your dance music via the hodgepodge/patchwork method, and are tired of the hassle of pulling together CDs from all different people, I would urge you to consider Squirrel Trench Audio’s Soup-to-Nuts Music Editing Service. With this program, ALL of your studio’s music will be professionally edited AND each one of your students will receive their very own practice CD with all of their songs for the season. Not only that, you will also get a set of complete teacher CDs as well as a set of backup CDs. And by charging a nominal music fee to each of your students for their practice CD, your studio will actually make a small profit on the whole thing.

You pour your heart and soul into teaching your dancers, making sure every detail is right in their choreography, their costume, hair and make-up. Shouldn’t the music be as crisp and perfect as it can possibly be as well?

And what could be better? You, as studio owner, no longer have to worry about the music that your teachers are using, your students each get their own practice CD, your teachers each get CDs with all of their songs, you get a backup set of CDs for competition, and the studio makes a small profit.

It’s a win-win-win situation. Currently, Squirrel Trench Audio is doing this program for OnStage Dance in Stratford, Ontario. We have the opportunity to provide this package to two more dance studios this season. If you are interested, email me right away. Tell me approximately how many students your studio has, and I will email you a spreadsheet to show you how the financials could work for your particular studio.

Break a leg at Nationals and for the 2011-2012 dance season!