Tag Archives: mix

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.

Music for a new dance season

Back to school time means it’s time for a brand new season of dance! One of the most exciting times of year for dancers is to find out what their new routines are all about. And in order to have a great new routine, you have to have great new music.

To transform the process of creating new music from a chore into a joy, we have more than 750 clean song edits and mixes that are instantly ready to be choreographed. Every song and mix is lovingly crafted to be the best possible foundation for your choreography. View the Squirrel Trench catalog of clean music and mixes here.

Here’s what a dance teacher had to say about the service today:

“Thank you so much! I’m going to continue browsing your mixes- you’re SO much more affordable than other sites and save me all of the time in editing. What you’re doing is great- thanks again.”

— Heather Closson, Dance Instructor
Ratio Dance, Auburn IN, August 28, 2017

Helping Ashley at Ohana

I love getting feedback from dance studio owners and choreographers. Especially when they find that my catalog of cleaned and edited songs and mixes transforms the music selection task from a headache and chore into an easy and exciting process of finding music that is perfect for their choreographic vision. Here’s the latest from Ashley Kohl, Creative Director for the Ohana School of Performing Arts in South Hadley, Massachusetts:

“You totally ROCK!!!! Wow, thanks so much Morriss! I’ll be in touch with more … this resource is a serious lifesaver. I have shared it with all of my instructors. I am so much more excited to pick music than I have ever been. It’s usually so daunting and stressful. Game changer!

Thank you for being so generous and helpful!”

—Ashley Kohl, Creative Director
Ohana School of Performing Arts, July 22, 2017

If you’d like to check out the listing of more than 700 clean songs and mixes, just click this link: Squirrel Trench Audio catalog. Find out how easy picking perfect music for your choreography can be!

Ultra clean Run the World (Girls)

Recently, a dance teacher contacted me in an emergency situation. She needed an ultra clean version of Run the World (Girls) for a fellow teacher’s routine. Her response to the result:

“Wow! Thank you so so much! I cannot express how grateful I am that I don’t have to tell 15 parents their girls aren’t performing tonight. I’ll certainly use your services in the future!”

—Brianna Hafen
America’s Kids in Motion

Welcome Dance Studio Life readers

I am pleased to welcome readers of Rhee Gold’s fabulous magazine Dance Studio Life. If you opened up to the inside back page (the Dance bag) section, you may have seen Squirrel Trench’s very first print ad, reproduced here.

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to find this web site! Squirrel Trench Audio has been serving dance studios in North America and worldwide since 2011. (more background here.) We create lyrically cleaned-edits and edits crafted specifically for choreography, of your favorite songs, as well as custom mixes for dance studios, pom teams, gymnasts, figure skaters, fitness competitors, pole athletes, and vocal competitors.

We have an archive of more than 1,000 song edits and remixes, of which 400 are listed here: Squirrel Trench Archives.

We also take custom edit and mix requests; however, due to popularity, we currently have a large backlog of music work. Requests from the archives are fulfilled immediately however. For more information, please email me: morriss@squirreltrenchaudio.com.

 

Edited songs for your dance recital

It’s that time of year again; time to select music for your dance studio’s recital. The good news is that Squirrel Trench is here to save you the time and frustration of aligning waveforms. Instead, browse the Squirrel Trench Audio archives of clean edits and remixes. Every edit and remix is created with recording-studio standards of quality, optimized for choreography. The archive now shows about 400 out of a total of more than 1,000. Special consideration if you’re interested in more than one song:
Squirrel Trench Audio archives

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!

Control for Me Lately – Janet Jackson

janet-jackson-in-concertDuring a recent presidential debate, one candidate described the other as a “such a nasty woman.” This is not necessarily a bad thing as Janet Jackson fans can attest. With renewed interest in Janet Jackson, Squirrel Trench Audio brings you the newest Janet remix, an intertwining of Control with What Have You Done For Me Lately. Take a listen!

Another Janet Jackson remix from Squirrel Trench Audio is Janet Rhythm Cat:

And Make Me is an edit of that excellent and fun Janet Jackson song:

Squirrel Trench also has an original remix of Rhythm Nation, spiced up specifically for an outstanding dance routine:

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

Motown Mix

New to the Legitmix catalog; a mix of six popular hits from Motown called Motown Magic. This 3:00 mix designed for a jazz or tap dance routine includes The Way You Do the Things You Do by the Temptations; Baby, I Need Your Loving from the Four Tops; Stop in the Name of Love by the Supremes; Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles; Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) by Stevie Wonder; and I Want You Back by the Jackson 5.

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix