How Much Time before First Sound?

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Rick Cornish
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How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by Rick Cornish »

I kicked out a rough mix yesterday and when I played it back in my car, the front of the first note was *slightly* cut off. Right now, I have :00.07 before first sound. Is there a standard for this? If so, does anyone know what it is? Checking AES now, but thought I'd see what folks here are doing.

Thanks!
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mikehalloran
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Re: How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by mikehalloran »

Audio or VI? How did you create the CD? If not CD, what?
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FMiguelez
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Re: How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by FMiguelez »

I don't know if there's a standard. I suppose there must be a difference between mastered commercial CD tracks, and the mastered tracks one gives to clients in the advert and TV world.

For the latter, IME, if they hire you to write a 2:00 or 0:30 piece, they expect a 2:00 or 0:30 piece of music and NOT a 2:00.51 or 0:30.27 one, so any silent "lead in" time would have to be worked out into the total exact duration.

This is especially important for music library and ad gigs. These people require perfect timings without "lead ins/lead outs".
Sometimes some music production houses ask to get a 2 or 8 second head and tail on the pieces, but this is rare now-a-days, unless one turns in stems and not-obvious-to-sync music (i.e., music starts at 00:02.17 in an advert, which is not typical).

I have no idea about commercial CD tracks. They all seem to start immediately to me too. It doesn't seem to me modern CD players have these issues anymore.
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Kurt Cowling
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Re: How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by Kurt Cowling »

Sometimes mp3 files will cut off the front if there isn’t enough silence on the front. I’ve had the issue encoding with QT/Compressor but not with DSP-Quattro using the same source file. Has something to do with encoding in packets or frames or something.
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Rick Cornish
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Re: How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by Rick Cornish »

mikehalloran wrote:Audio or VI? How did you create the CD? If not CD, what?
Mike, in this case, I was just BTD some MP3s I could quickly bring into iTunes and sync to my phone.

No CD.
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Rick Cornish
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Re: How Much Time before First Sound?

Post by Rick Cornish »

FMiguelez wrote:I don't know if there's a standard. I suppose there must be a difference between mastered commercial CD tracks, and the mastered tracks one gives to clients in the advert and TV world.

For the latter, IME, if they hire you to write a 2:00 or 0:30 piece, they expect a 2:00 or 0:30 piece of music and NOT a 2:00.51 or 0:30.27 one, so any silent "lead in" time would have to be worked out into the total exact duration.

This is especially important for music library and ad gigs. These people require perfect timings without "lead ins/lead outs".
Sometimes some music production houses ask to get a 2 or 8 second head and tail on the pieces, but this is rare now-a-days, unless one turns in stems and not-obvious-to-sync music (i.e., music starts at 00:02.17 in an advert, which is not typical).

I have no idea about commercial CD tracks. They all seem to start immediately to me too. It doesn't seem to me modern CD players have these issues anymore.
I always cut tight to first sound.... certainly tighter than most of the library tracks I’ve encountered. Nevertheless, a few thousandths at the head or tail ought to not be a big deal... especially if playback devices need the time to “wake up" or whatever they have to do to deliver the first sound.
Rick Cornish

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