Tag Archives: dance music

FREE Lyrical edit: Try by Colbie Caillat

Try single artBecause Squirrel Trench Audio’s mission is to eliminate less-than-ideal music edits for dancers everywhere, we are giving away a FREE* edit of Try by Colbie Caillat. How does this work? How can we legally give away a free edit of a published song? Legitmix is a new service that enables remixers to sell their services legally. The service checks to see if the buyer already owns the song(s) used in the edit or remix legally. If so, then the buyer can purchase the edit/remix. If not, you have to buy the song(s) used in the remix from iTunes, and then you can also buy the remix. Remixers have the option to give away their work for free, and we have chosen to do so to announce our launch into this new arena.

Now available for free* on Legitmix: Colbie Caillat’s Try, edited for a 2:36 lyrical dance routine length.

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

(*The edited version is available for free if you already own Try. If you don’t already own Try, you’ll have to pay $1.29 for it, and then you can get the edited version for free.)

Please feel free to share this free edit with every dance teacher and choreographer you know. One step closer to our goal of making sure every dancer has the beautiful music that they deserve.

View other Squirrel Trench edits and remixes for dance routines on Legitmix or contact us for custom edits and remixes.

Michael Jackson/Dangerous & Janet Jackson/Rhythm Nation remixes

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, crushed it at the MTV Music Awards. Here is a remix based on that performance, along with some original twists. Edited for a 2:45 length dance routine.

Janet Jackson is one of the top female music performers of all time. Here is an original remix of the classic Rhythm Nation from the album 1814.

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

How to avoid clicks and pops when editing music

I’m in the middle of doing a couple of fun song remixes for the talent portion of a state pre-teen pageant, and I thought I’d take a second to explain how to avoid those annoying clicks and pops when editing music for competition or recital dance routines.

If you’ve ever taken the grill off of your speakers, you’ve probably seen the cones of your speakers move in and out. This is how we hear sound; sound is vibrations traveling through air. If you’ve ever looked at the waveforms in your audio editing program, you can see that the squiggily lines representing sound move up and down over a center line. You can think of this center line as the “rest” position of your speakers. To make sound, the speaker cones travel in and out, and that can be thought of as the audio signal moving above and below the center line of your waveform.

A click or pop occurs when there is an abrupt “jump” in the way the waveform moves up and down. Basically, you are trying to avoid a straight vertical line in the transition point between the two audio segments you are splicing together.

In the image below, the audio segment on top is cut at a point where the waveform is far from the center “at rest” line. It is joined to a waveform on the bottom that is at the center line. It is the jump from one spot in the waveform to the other that causes the pop. Click on the image to enlarge:

There are two main ways that this can be avoided. One way is to only make edits at what are called “zero-crossings”…. that is, the waveform is “at rest”. In the image below, both audio segments are cut and joined together at a spot where they are both at the zero-crossing:

The other way you can avoid clicks and pops is to make a relatively short (but not ultrashort) crossfade between the two pieces of audio that you are splicing together, such as in the image below:

Here are some key points to understand why the above is a seamless edit:

  • The peaks are lined up in both tracks.
  • The crossfade occurs at a low point in the audio signal.
  • The crossfade transition between the two tracks is extremely fast, but not so ultra-fast as to create a square-wave click or pop.
  • There is never a point in the crossfade where the volume dips. (The lower track has reached full volume before the upper track begins to fade out.)

As always, your ears are the ultimate judge of the success of the crossfade.

For more audio editing tips, check out this video on how to avoid awkward fade-outs, or view all of the articles here containing audio editing tips.

Happy editing!

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!

Original remixes for your dance routines

Are you looking for new, exciting, and fresh music for your next dance routine? Then you are ready for a custom Squirrel Trench remix. Your music should be as memorable and fresh for the judges as your choreography.

Here are some samples:

Pixie Hollow – Squirrel Trench Remix

Drive – Squirrel Trench Remix

Original Squirrel Trench Remixes are already underway (and some completed) for the upcoming 2011-2012 dance season. These remixes include the Beatles, a Slumber Party theme, a train theme, a movie theme, and others.

If you are interested in a custom Squirrel Trench Remix for this upcoming dance season, send me an email!

Time to get your song editing orders in!

I’ve already started editing songs for the 2011-2012 season… put your requests in now before I get swamped! And if you are searching for a song, let me know what song was used for the routine the previous year, and I’ll suggest a new one for this year!

Fresh dance music requested

Warning: the following message is a rant about using worn-out songs for dance routines. If you want to use the same-old-same-old songs for your dance routines, stop reading now because I may offend you. (I originally wrote this message as a follow up to conversation about overdone songs on DanceMom.com)

<rant starts now>

There are absolutely NO excuses for using the same, tired out old songs over and over and over again. Dance is a living art form. Music is a living art form. Dance is an art form based on the foundation of music. Can an exceptional dancer overcome a tired-out song? Yes, of course. But why put that kind of a burden on the dancer?

In general, if you are going to use tried-and-true songs, it’s better to give them to the youngsters, because everything is new to them, classics are classics for a reason, and it’s very cute to have little kids performing songs that were written before they were born. But once you get past that 7 or 8 year old range, it’s time to give your dancers FRESH, INTERESTING material to work with.

I’m very proud of the character music remix called Pixie Hollow that I created for my girlfriend who is the assistant director at a first-class dance studio. She wanted a fresh, new music track that was based on a Tinkerbell theme, and Pixie Hollow is the result. You’ve NEVER heard music quite like this before. When parents, judges, and an audience hears something new and original like this, they sit up and take notice, and know that they are in for a dance number that is refreshingly new and different. This routine and performance is something that these dancers and their parents will never forget. At Headliners, Pixie Hollow was even invited to go on to the US Dance Team Finals at their Nationals.

Even when you are using tried-and-true classics and standards for music, there is no excuse not to use FRESH versions of them. Cover songs are often better than the originals, and will certainly be more exciting and more interesting to the judges AND audience than something they’ve already heard three million times. I’ll follow up this message with many examples of FRESH covers of the dance classics.

We’re trying to generate excitement, enthusiasm, even PASSION for dance in these youngsters. When it comes time to perform, you want the audience (which includes, fellow studio dancers) to be excited for the performance! You are hurting your chances at generating that excitement when you use music that puts the audience to sleep because they’ve heard it many times before. You are keeping your audience on its toes when you use music that NEW, FRESH and DIFFERENT.

You wouldn’t DREAM of putting dancers on stage in costumes that are ragged, torn, threadbare, tattered or stained. Why would you put them on stage with music that is ragged, torn, threadbare, tattered, and played to death when there is a universe of new songs itching to be performed? Who’s with me on this?

</end rant>

Okay, time for me to get off my soapbox now. You might be able to tell that I’m passionate about music, and passionate about delivering THE BEST MUSIC POSSIBLE to dancers. If you or your studio is ready for first-class music, I am ready to deliver.

To find some great cover versions of classic dance songs, check out Fresh Alternatives 1 and Fresh Alternatives 2. For some completely fresh songs for your next routine, we have them here: Jazz | Tap | Lyrical | Contemporary | Musical Theater | Kid Friendly Hip Hop