DOWNLOAD SOURCE FILES:www.aimediaserver2.com/studiodaily/trainup/trainup.zip

NOTE: The downloadable audio files made available exclusively for
this tutorial are copyrighted material and cannot be used for commercial
production purposes without first obtaining permission from FirstCom Music.
For more information, contact FirstCom at info@firstcom.com.

Choose the music you want to remix and then insert the corresponding QuickTrax DVD-ROM (located in the same CD case as the CD audio disc). Once it appears mounted on the desktop, open it and select the file containing the music tracks in QuickTrax format that you want to use. Please note that the QuickTrax DVD-ROM contains all of the stereo mixes that appear on the companion audio CD, along with a folder labeled QuickTrax. Open the QuickTrax folder and copy or drag the folder with the same track title that you want to work with to your desktop or media folder on your local or network drive. Be sure to select only the song you want to remix. If you want to copy the entire DVD-ROM over to your drive so that you’ll have access to all of the audio, that’s fine, too. But this will take some time to copy, depending on your system.

Open Final Cut Express, if it isn’t already open. From the file menu, select Import and Folder. You’re importing the audio clips (files) for the song “Toot to Boot,” which you’ve saved to the desktop for this demonstration. Navigate to that folder and select Choose. Final Cut will copy this folder onto its browser, usually in the upper left of the screen. When the folder appears in Final Cut, open it to reveal the separate audio clips that make up the stereo audio mix of the song. For this particular song you’ll see a stereo audio pair for keys, rhythm (rhy), lead and pad.

With the audio clips in synch, tap the space bar and the Final Cut Playhead will play the audio back in the Timeline. You are hearing the original stereo mix if you have synched all of the audio clips correctly. At this point, the only limits to making a new audio edit and mix are your creativity and the specifics of your project (and, of course, the limitation of the editor you are working with). Final Cut Express lets you alter and change the audio clips in a variety of ways. Our project video is a 30-second mountain bike montage. The music we selected moves quickly without being heavy handed and uses lots of acoustic guitar to enhance the outdoor mood of the video clips. Start your customization of the audio by cutting the keys audio clip out after the short solo to accentuate the acoustics more and enhance the downhill portion of the video. You can use the razor blade on the toolbar to make any cuts, and then slide the clip so that it only plays when you want to match the video. Also, the track is about 2:00 minutes long, but it’s easy to cut the best parts together for the 30-second video. Cut the second section down, and use the last note to edit to for a cold ending. Use the pad clip only on the end section to give it a little more strength; use the cross-fade effect located in the Audio-Effects window to fade up the pad clip for the ending section of the edited track. There are a number of other options open to you to customize the audio clips once you have access to the different instrument groups that make up the full mix.

Depending on the home of your project, you can choose a variety of rendering options with Final Cut. You can render only your newly created audio mix for later use or to pass to another editor to post. Or you can, of course, render DV to tape. For our project, we’re rendering out a QuickTime file of both the audio and video for client approval.

Ken Nelson
Senior Vice President/Executive Producer
FirstCom Music

Chances are that if you’ve been around during the past 20 years you’ve probably heard music that was produced or co-produced by Ken Nelson and FirstCom Music. Currently senior vice president and executive producer, Ken, a producer, engineer and musician, guides and creates the production of new music content and works with top composers and producers worldwide to supplement and extend FirstCom’s music catalogs. He and his associates have also created a variety of ways to access FirstCom’s music via hard drives, iPods, iTunes or online. FirstCom currently offers over 40,000 copyrights available in all styles, arrangements and file formats.

Ken Says Keep in Mind …

Many people don’t realize that they can customize FirstCom’s deep catalog of production music. When using our Quicktrax audio clips on DVD-ROM, you aren’t limited to just the full stereo mix, although that’s provided. You now have the option of using only a particular instrument group, or creating an entirely new mix from the original. Best of all, if you need to create a surround mix quickly, you now have the audio elements and tools to help you do that. The audio files are AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), a native format, and are compatible with Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, Avid, Vegas Video, Media 100, to name just a few. Any CD collection from FirstCom Music with a catalog number ending in “Q” includes a companion DVD-ROM Quicktrax disc and will contain those sub-mixes you need to create something new and different.

FirstCom Music
www.firstcom.com
1325 Capital Pkwy., Suite 109
Carrollton, TX 75006
ph. 972.446.8742
email: info@firstcom.com