Lengthen the Song
Lengthening a song if an often necessary for theatrical productions when we have to deal with the uncertainty of a live production. We can’t simply cut a piece of music to match the ideal length of a scene transition. I’ll typically create music 1 1/2x to 2x the length of what I think I might need. Just in case.
When creating a longer version of the song, we want to retain the musical journey; meaning we can’t simply repeat the song twice, instead, we’ll need to find a point in which we can repeat portions in the middle.
- This time, let’s use a song with lyrics – open up “2 – Babylon.mp3”
- In music, it’s helpful to identify musical phrasing by lyrics. So find the spots where the phrase “If you want it, come and get it” are used. Here I listed Chorus 1 and Chorus 2.
- If you still have the Multitrack session from the previous lesson open, we can simply add this song to the same session.
- Now we’ll mute the track from the previous project. We could also name the track if that helps organize things.
- Now we’ll razor slice at the second chorus, and drag the ending over in time a little.
- Next we’ll duplicate and move the first half block by holding [Alt] while dragging. We’ll then match up the markers on all three blocks.
- Now zoom in a big closer and match up the audio finger prints.
- Then trim down to a smaller overlap, drag and fade. Avoid vocals if you can and overlap instrumentation.
- Finally, repeat the process for the other second transition. And woot! We did it!