Extending Music

[rckowal]

How can I extend the play time of MP3 media in the Music Track? The rubber band method can't do what I need.

To explain: I'm using some music which is only 25 seconds long. I want to use this as background theme music during several minutes of a movie.

I know I can "daisy chain" the same music clip together to make it that long. The problem however is that in the last several seconds of the original music, there is a profound change in tempo that is undesirable.

In summary: I want to seamlessly put together multiple music clips to play as if they were several minutes of continuous music, free of any change in tempo.

[mitchell65]

First I would convert the audio file to a wav format. VS does not like mp3's!
Rubber banding will only change the volumn. Is the change of tempo in the original clip? If so, short of cutting that section out I can't see how you will do this. Then you can only daisy chain it IMHO. You certainly don't want to slow it down, one can only guess what that will sound like!

[Ken Berry]

VS is a 'video studio' not an audio studio! What audio editing capacity it has is limited.

As mitchell65 has said, the only alternative you have at present is to edit out the offending tempo part (with a third party audio editor) and daisy chain the rest in the VS timeline. But you are going to have a fairly bored audience very quickly that way.

The other way is to use SmartSounds which is part of VS. You can then tailor a piece of music to the exact length you are after. But of course, with SmartSound you are limited to the QuickTracks music provided with VS unless you buy more SmartSound disc -- which are rather expensive.

So the alternative between boredom and expense would be to assemble other pieces of music which would go with your video and either simply insert these in your timeline; or else edit them in a third party audio editing program and then put them in the timeline. I have also occasionally joined them together in the audio editor and produced them as a single new audio track which I then insert in the timeline.

[rckowal]

Thanks for replying Mitchell65 & Ken,

Ken, Although it's not preferred, I think I can find some thing in SmartSound that will work. So far as too much length boring the audience, my movies are more of a diary/memento of our Europen travels meant for me & my wife. I have no intentions of sharing them much beyond that.

Previous experience with really well done still photo slide shows taught me that very few people really give a "hoot" about home movie/slide shows. Yet, they'll gladly pay to watch Hollywood movies or TV shows for 1/2 to 2 hours, or more.

Additionally, having personally prepared & presented professional, business related slide shows for more than 20 years, I know that the attention span of most audiences in non-entertainment media is less than 5 minutes. It's even less for home movies. As a result, I don't even show them unless the audience expresses interest in seeing them.

[sjj1805]

I find the best mix is to keep the music short and spaced out.
In other words a bit of music, a bit of the natural sound of the video, then a bit more music, then a bit more natural sound etc.

If your using slides, then try mixing in a bit of video here and there.

[rckowal]

I find the best mix is to keep the music short and spaced out.
In other words a bit of music, a bit of the natural sound of the video, then a bit more music, then a bit more natural sound etc.

If your using slides, then try mixing in a bit of video here and there.

Hi Steve,

That's exactly what I'm working towards. My current movie project will be about 25 minutes long which was condensed from 90 minutes of raw footage shot in three European countries across 10 days.

Some of the clips are as much as 2 minutes of numerous interesting scenes shot in a single setting. In such a case, a minute of natural sound combined with a minute of music doesn't strike me as being too long or too boring. But what do I know! I'll have to wait to see what my audience thinks.