Some Thoughts On
Editing Techniques

The range of what makes up editing techniques have been greatly expanded with digital editing and mastering software.

For instance, making corrective volume changes within a song file is easily handled in the digital domain.

While possible with analog, it generally would involve some quality loss due to the inevitable tape to tape transfer.

In fact, the degree of accuracy and detail that digital editing makes available, provides possibilities that would be impossible with analog – or extremely laborious and cumbersome.

And that accuracy is aided with the use of visual waveforms.

One editing technique involving volume changes is the creation of accents. This is done by raising the level slightly on the first beat of every measure. Yes you'll need some musical background to pull this trick off!

This technique can help rescue a file by giving it some new life when no other take is available.

I have occasionally accented just opening chords of a track to give the song a strong attack! You know what they say about first impressions....

I would recommend no more than 2 - 3 dB difference between levels, however. Greater changes can begin to sound un-natural, especially if there is some slight background noise like hiss.

There are two approaches for this editing technique: one is to re-draw the volume envelope on the waveform.

The other is to split the waveform at the appropriate points, and apply the necessary gain change.

You must be careful with that last approach though: you should split the waveform only zero crossings – those split-second moments when a file's volume periodically goes to 0 dB.

This can be difficult since most of the time you'll be working with stereo files and it can be difficult to find the left and right channels at 0 dB at precisely the same instant.

So the solution for that is to apply a short cross fade at your split points.

(By the way this is all a snap to do with WaveLab's montage editor.)

All this is being done so as to avoid the sharp click that would occur if there is an abrupt level change.

Which brings me to another editing technique I always use.

I make sure all my files begin and end with a short fade-in and fade-out respectively.

This is especially true for the very beginning and very end of a CD.

Why?

It's been my experience that duplicated CD's that come off a Master CD where the first and final levels do not start and end at zero, can produce clicks on the copies. Whether the same holds true for factory replicated CD's I can't say, but I'm not going the take that chance! Since factory replication generally starts at a minimum of 1000 copies, it would be a very expensive recall, indeed!

Something else to be aware with crossfading is that, in the cross fade area, the two waveforms should be as 'in sync' as much as possible. This little editing technique helps to create a smooth and transparent transition.

Smooth transitions are important when editing live concerts. With classical concerts, it's often necessary to cut down the 'wait time' between pieces. It's important that the section that's fading out matches the section fading in as much as possible. It adds to the believability if the audience 'murmurs' don't draw attention to themselves and away from the music!

Frequently conductors ask me to remove applause after each selection (except for the one after the last finale, of course)!

There are times, however when the opposite needs to be done – to put applause into spaces where it should have been appropriate or the original was not strong enough, or may be the recording engineer simply paused the recording while that was going on.

This can be done by copying the existing applause and 'transplanting' to where it's needed.

'Can' be – but shouldn't be!

Why?

Remember, all these editing techniques, no matter what situation they may be applied in, are about maintaining believability

I have heard released masters where the applause was copied from just one section only, and merely pasted where needed. In one album, it got particularly annoying because you could hear one audience member doing the exact 'same' thing after each piece.

Each section of applause that needs to be created must be made unique:

• by layering different sections together,
• by shifting the panning slightly,
• by small level changes,
• by subtle EQ alterations,
• by varying the length

Once you've created a 'unique' applause you can then use that one to generate more!

This goes for any type of live recording – not just classical , but rock or jazz.

You can use applause to mask what would otherwise be an un-usable edit.

While editing down two live jazz sets for a client to fit one CD, I decided to start by editing out all the dialogue between songs. As the vocalist spoke about each upcoming song, the pianist played in the background. When she was finished the pianist played a couple of pick-up chords and everyone started the song.

I started the songs at those pick-up chords! Wouldn't that have been a bad edit?? Sure. If it was heard on its own.

But using the applause from the previous song, I was able to mask the start of that 'bad edit'. Once there was a suitable length of applause, I began a slow fade. This sounded like the audience was starting to finish clapping. It was at that point I began the next song with that 'bad edit'.

But the audience was still loud enough to drown out the start of that edit. Then, the music was also loud enough, that I could continue fading out the audience.

This time the music did the masking, with the audience sounding as though it were naturally dying down, as opposed to sounding like the fade out it would have been had it been heard on its own.

Speaking of natural fade outs, sometimes a file ends too soon – before the last notes had a chance to decay to natural silence. For whatever reason the last second or so of a file got cut off!

By crossfading in a copy of the last note or chord with a suitably selected reverb added on, the cut ending can be repaired.

This is an editing technique you would use only if there was no other way to recapture that lost chord ending.

But this very technique works quite nicely if you need to splice two takes of a song, and the new insert doesn't have enough leftover ambience of its own to make the edit transparent and believable.

If you want to hear an example of where this editing technique would have helped, look (or listen) no further than the Beatles Sgt. Pepper track 'She's Leaving Home' at the point where the last verse starts.

Like I've said elsewhere, a whole new world of possibilities have opened up with digital editing and mastering software!

What can you come up with?!

Return from Editing Techniques to
Music Editing Software

Return to About Audio Mastering Software