Set start silence during audio export?

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joeyluck
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24 Jan 2020

I feel like this has been requested before?

Most of the time I don't want silence at the beginning of a track, particularly for theatre use when I need everything to play immediately when triggered. And QLab doesn't cut off the beginning of sound files.

However, I find when I share things to be streamed, for instance on Google Drive or Soundcloud, the beginnings can tend to be cut off. But when I try to offset things in Reason, much of the time, it will throw off time-based effects and patterns...and I'll need to create an entire bar of silence which often is a bit too much silence.

I think some other DAWs have this feature? It would be great to not need to shift anything in the sequencer, but when you export, on the same window where you are selecting sample rate, bit depth and dither settings, you also select if you want to insert silence at the beginning and its duration, such as 'insert [1] second of silence at beginning.'

Alternatively, this could be set in the sequencer with another handle you pull to the left of the timeline.

Would anybody else find this useful?

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Loque
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25 Jan 2020

Mark a loop in the beginning and insert free space from the popup menu. Export a loop instead of the song.
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joeyluck
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25 Jan 2020

Loque wrote:
25 Jan 2020
Mark a loop in the beginning and insert free space from the popup menu. Export a loop instead of the song.
Right but that isn't very flexible as you are still required to create an entire bar of silence in order for time-based effects and rhythms to work properly. So for instance, with this track I'm working on, that is close to 5 seconds of silence. I guess I could automate the BPM for that silent bar to speed it up, but that's quite the workaround.

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orthodox
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25 Jan 2020

I would open the exported WAV file in Audition and insert 500ms of silence at the start.

I mean, this case is too specific to add a feature for it.

Busta US
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25 Jan 2020

joeyluck wrote:
24 Jan 2020
I feel like this has been requested before?

Most of the time I don't want silence at the beginning of a track, particularly for theatre use when I need everything to play immediately when triggered. And QLab doesn't cut off the beginning of sound files.

However, I find when I share things to be streamed, for instance on Google Drive or Soundcloud, the beginnings can tend to be cut off. But when I try to offset things in Reason, much of the time, it will throw off time-based effects and patterns...and I'll need to create an entire bar of silence which often is a bit too much silence.

I think some other DAWs have this feature? It would be great to not need to shift anything in the sequencer, but when you export, on the same window where you are selecting sample rate, bit depth and dither settings, you also select if you want to insert silence at the beginning and its duration, such as 'insert [1] second of silence at beginning.'

Alternatively, this could be set in the sequencer with another handle you pull to the left of the timeline.

Would anybody else find this useful?
I find this very useful yes. Of course there are workarounds like the above-mentioned. It’s always better to have the option to do so built-in instead of a time-wasting workaround.

Also since Reason has a section for mastering, doesn’t mastering engineers leave split seconds in the beginning of the tracks usually ?

You can leave “silence” in the beginning of the tracks on FL Studio but only when exporting to mp3 I think. Which is also a limited feature.

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selig
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25 Jan 2020

joeyluck wrote:
24 Jan 2020
However, I find when I share things to be streamed, for instance on Google Drive or Soundcloud, the beginnings can tend to be cut off. But when I try to offset things in Reason, much of the time, it will throw off time-based effects and patterns...and I'll need to create an entire bar of silence which often is a bit too much silence.
Why not:
Create an empty bar at the front of the song (if you don't already do so), use "Export Loop" (instead of export song), and set the left loop point slightly ahead of the downbeat?
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joeyluck
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25 Jan 2020

selig wrote:
25 Jan 2020
joeyluck wrote:
24 Jan 2020
However, I find when I share things to be streamed, for instance on Google Drive or Soundcloud, the beginnings can tend to be cut off. But when I try to offset things in Reason, much of the time, it will throw off time-based effects and patterns...and I'll need to create an entire bar of silence which often is a bit too much silence.
Why not:
Create an empty bar at the front of the song (if you don't already do so), use "Export Loop" (instead of export song), and set the left loop point slightly ahead of the downbeat?
Good suggestion. I'll use this :thumbs_up:

I still think it would be a good feature to have. I forget which DAWs give this option, but I've seen it. Unless I dreamt it.

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rgdaniel
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25 Jan 2020

joeyluck wrote:
25 Jan 2020
Right but that isn't very flexible as you are still required to create an entire bar of silence in order for time-based effects and rhythms to work properly. So for instance, with this track I'm working on, that is close to 5 seconds of silence. I guess I could automate the BPM for that silent bar to speed it up, but that's quite the workaround.
re: the "has to be a whole bar" issue, you don't have to make it a bar of the same length, you could insert an 8th note of lead-in space, and draw it in as a bar of 1/8 , then back into your 4/4 or whatever, still starting on the "one" of the original bar. Just a thought.

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esselfortium
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25 Jan 2020

I'd appreciate this feature, too. Before I put anything on SoundCloud, I usually have to open it in Audacity and add silence to the beginning to prevent the start of the song from being chopped off.
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orthodox
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25 Jan 2020

esselfortium wrote:
25 Jan 2020
I'd appreciate this feature, too. Before I put anything on SoundCloud, I usually have to open it in Audacity and add silence to the beginning to prevent the start of the song from being chopped off.
Shouldn't we come at Soundcloud instead so they quit doing that to tracks? It's their player's fault.

Proboscis
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25 Jan 2020

I would assume you're not uploading many tracks every single day, rather 'every now and then'. So it's hardly a big task to render your song to .wav with the extra four bars at the start, then trimming that .wav and re-exporting. Hence I think on a priority list of feature requests, this would rank somewhere at the bottom.

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joeyluck
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25 Jan 2020

Proboscis wrote:
25 Jan 2020
I would assume you're not uploading many tracks every single day, rather 'every now and then'. So it's hardly a big task to render your song to .wav with the extra four bars at the start, then trimming that .wav and re-exporting. Hence I think on a priority list of feature requests, this would rank somewhere at the bottom.
I do it many times in one day. Directors ask for edits and I also don't like tons of variants of unfinished work floating around, so I find ways to share private streams, such as SoundCloud for example.

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Boombastix
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26 Feb 2020

I think it is a good feature. Everyday when I collab with singers etc, they want an mp3 as a "progress report". So I have to open up an editor, insert 250ms of silence, and export as mp3 so I can email a reasonably sized file.

Would be great if the export window had a checkbox, insert silence xx ms, one for wav export and one box for mp3 export.

Mp3 is very much a standard for quickly emailing ideas back and forth, it is not obsolete that some have suggested in the past. My guess is they do not work with others at a distance, which by the way, is somewhat of a standard practice in the industry.
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