question regarding audio transitions

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dualman7

Member
I am using final cut pro 5 and in my timeline I have to connect 10 different songs together. So one plays for 10 second and then the other one begins and so on.

The problem is that at the point of the cuts, the songs aren't at a natural stop. So how do I fade out from one song and pick up smoothly on the next without making it too obvious? Is there a way to connect beats even though songs may be totally different? For example I was watching an episode of cribs and they somehow manage to connect songs without a cross dissolve--atleast thtat;s what it seemed like to me.

Any advice would be greatly appriciated.
 
Purely inside of FCP itself, your ability to get what you want is going to be somewhat limited. Depending upon the songs you're dealing with, you could try a couple of things. There's of course just the standard audio dissolves that FCP comes with. That would be the first place to start. If that's not providing enough control, then you could just put the music across 4 tracks so you can stack consecutive songs and manually use keyframes to get what you want. Again, its only limited as to how much control you'll get with it.

What might give you better results is to take your audio out to Soundtrack Pro and try and use some of its more refined tools. I don't watch "Cribs" so not fully sure what you're referring to though. Staying withing the FCS realm though, Soundtrack is the way to go. Though if you have a locked picture and just need the specific songs blended, well might not be a bad time to look for a local DJ or such that has some tech savvy. Might be another third party option, plus their skill set, that could really give you that perfect polish. That may not be an option for you, but just throwing it out there. Good luck.

cheers.
 
you should at least be able to count beats so you know when and where to cut.count 1,2,3,4 snares usually hit on the 2 & 4 and you should usually start a beat on the one and cut the bar after 4 and right before 1 hits agin. if i recall correctly cribs usually is just using one to two bar loops of songs. . if you want to get deep into it you can cut the beat/bar/measure whatever open it in apple loops utility and make a file for soundtrack in which you can adjust tempo etc so everything will sync as long as the BPMs are too far apart from each other.
 
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I second taking it into Soundtrack. If the songs are fairly simple and close enough in style you can try edit directly from into the other, but most likely you'll have to manually fade one song up while fading the other song down using keyframes. You want to try and match the timing of the songs as well as keep the audio level the same (you don't want to hear Song A dip down and Song B rise up. It should a smooth transition). By matching the timing of the songs I mean if Song A is 1--2--3--4, when you make your edit make sure the beat stays steady and doesn't go 1--23--4. That'll make it sound like Song A tripped and fell into Song B.

It'll take practice and lots of trial and error (especially if the songs have a lot of layers to them).

-A
 
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