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coupdebleus
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:11 pm
Posts: 275
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 7:10 pm 
 

By this I mean, grabbing audio files from an album and modifying them to suit your personal preference.

I tend to trim out surprise endings that come after silence in the last track, specially when it’s something dumb (as Sonata Arctica does).
I might also cut overly long intros that I feel add nothing. A couple seconds of wind and rain are ok, but we don’t need to go overboard (I’m looking at you atmoblackers).
Section I don’t like on an otherwise perfect track? If I can make a clean cut, out the window it goes.
Deleting tracks I know I’ll never like from an album (picked this up from a friend during high school, seemed so obvious and I had never considered it) or rearranging the track order to better suit my tastes is something I do too.
If I find myself routinely bringing up the equalizer or compressor when listening to an album, I might end up editing it in Reaper to save myself the hassle in the future.

What about you, do you mess with the music you listen to, or do you think the integrity of the album as presented by the artist is paramount?
A friend of mine listens to Earth at 1.25x, another slows down Roxette, I’m curious to see what other stuff people may come up with.
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King_of_Arnor
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Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2020 12:35 pm
Posts: 771
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 7:40 pm 
 

Some things I do:
- Changing the track order to represent what was originally intended (Queensryche's The Warning, etc.)
- Cutting out the interludes from interlude heavy albums if I just want to hear the songs (Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth, Virgin Steele's Invictus, etc.)
- Playing Running Wild's newest album at 1.25x, instantly makes it better.
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democracyiscringe
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2023 5:44 pm
Posts: 183
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 7:59 pm 
 

Nope. I know outside of official single edits this may have been (rarely) done to some extent back in the day but overall this seems like a zoomer thing. If a huge section of a song kills the song for me, then that spoils me on the song as a whole and I'm not gonna bother making a custom version completely divorced from the intentions of the artists. If it's not bad enough to spoil the song for me, then I'll just accept the passage I don't like as part of the song.

If you feel like there's a piece of music with good ideas executed wrong, that should maybe be a motivational springboard to go make your own music that sounds the way you want. Slapping some other artist's song in audacity and editing out parts you don't like isn't morally wrong or anything, but it feels like the sort of thing people do in times of conspicuous hyperconsumerism.

Speeding songs up is a great way to absolutely destroy their sense of weight and swing. Slowing things down and adding reverb to make them sound "vaporwave" or "nightcore" or "doomer" or whatever buzzword is absolutely stupid and I can't imagine it's interesting to anybody over the age of 17. Never heard a song that sounds better messing with the speed like that, and I probably never will. Yes, this has been a thing since Neu! did it in the 70s, but it sounds bad.

Giving quiet albums a boost to be able to play them loud on systems where the volume doesn't go up very high makes sense and I wouldn't really call that "editing music," unless you're crushing peaks/removing dynamics.


Last edited by democracyiscringe on Sun Mar 17, 2024 8:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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KrigareTjovane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:06 am
Posts: 543
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 8:03 pm 
 

Certain songs have had long gaps of silence between the final track and some hidden bonus track, those are the only ones I've ever purposely edited, most down from about 20 minutes or so. Started doing this back in the day to make extra room on my mix CDs lol.

Haven't burned a CD in 10 years though so haven't done it since then.

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tahu157
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:22 pm
Posts: 1002
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 8:04 pm 
 

I've considered doing stuff like this before. I genuinely think removing A.N.I.C. from Sum 41's Does This Look Infected? would make that album better. Or because I usually skip all of the story interludes on Nightfall in Middle Earth, I might as well make a custom cut of that album that is just the actual songs, right? But there have been too many instances where a "boring" track ended up being one of my favorites for me to feel safe cutting songs out. There doesn't seem to be a timeline on it either. Some songs grow on me after a handful of listens and others have taken years of listening to appreciate. So I can't just say "if I don't like a song after 5 listens, I'll cut it out."

As far as cutting portions of songs out, I'm not sure I could do that either. I got pretty hooked on W.A.S.P.'s song Babylon's Burning a few weeks ago. I listened to the music video version over and over and over again until I went out and got the CD. Thing is, the music video is about 45 seconds shorter than the actual song on the CD. Hearing the difference between the two was pretty jarring for me, and that was just one song with relatively minor differences. I'm not sure I could handle more exaggerated differences on hundreds of songs.

Also, I'm not exactly an "artistic vision" absolutist, but I am a continuity absolutist. That is, I think it is extremely important that we all experience the exact same thing if we intend to discuss it together. If we're all listening to different cuts then we're all listening to different things, and our discussions are going to have disconnects.

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MARSDUDE
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Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:17 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 8:33 pm 
 

I think we've all wanted to edit Iron Maiden's The Angel and the Gambler.

Beyond that, if I find the sequencing of an album isn't up to my standards, I will happily resequence it. The majority of Maiden's albums have seen that treatment from me.
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coupdebleus
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Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:11 pm
Posts: 275
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:06 pm 
 

King_of_Arnor wrote:
- Cutting out the interludes from interlude heavy albums if I just want to hear the songs (Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth, Virgin Steele's Invictus, etc.)

Good point. Manowar has been the victim of my cuts more than any other band, I believe.

democracyiscringe wrote:
Nope. I know outside of official single edits this may have been (rarely) done to some extent back in the day but overall this seems like a zoomer thing. (…)

If you feel like there's a piece of music with good ideas executed wrong, that should maybe be a motivational springboard to go make your own music that sounds the way you want. Slapping some other artist's song in audacity and editing out parts you don't like isn't morally wrong or anything, but it feels like the sort of thing people do in times of conspicuous hyperconsumerism.

I’m a bit old to be a zoomer, and I write my own music already. I also get paid (as an arranger) to edit other people’s too. I fail to see how carrying this over to my enjoyment of music relates to hyperconsumerism.

democracyiscringe wrote:
Speeding songs up is a great way to absolutely destroy their sense of weight and swing. Slowing things down and adding reverb to make them sound "vaporwave" or "nightcore" or "doomer" or whatever buzzword is absolutely stupid and I can't imagine it's interesting to anybody over the age of 17. Never heard a song that sounds better messing with the speed like that, and I probably never will. Yes, this has been a thing since Neu! did it in the 70s, but it sounds bad.

Dunno man, it’s just fun, no one’s getting hurt. You never played with the varispeed on your tapes? People play pre-recording era music at all kinds of different tempi too (not to speak of expression), the idea of a set/absolute tempo is a very modern conception. And kids can have great ideas too, I don’t see why filtering based on age/generation is relevant to the appreciation of art.

tahu157 wrote:
But there have been too many instances where a "boring" track ended up being one of my favorites for me to feel safe cutting songs out. There doesn't seem to be a timeline on it either. Some songs grow on me after a handful of listens and others have taken years of listening to appreciate. So I can't just say "if I don't like a song after 5 listens, I'll cut it out."
(…)
Also, I'm not exactly an "artistic vision" absolutist, but I am a continuity absolutist. That is, I think it is extremely important that we all experience the exact same thing if we intend to discuss it together. If we're all listening to different cuts then we're all listening to different things, and our discussions are going to have disconnects.

I actually agree with the first part, and think it’s good to give songs the chance to grown on one. But at some point after the 50th listen of Vol. 4 I realized I was never going to enjoy Changes, so might as well take it out.

Your last point is an interesting one. I’ve never come across this issue so far, but I can see it happening. I wouldn’t review an album based on my own edits, that’s for sure. On the other hand, I’ve found it quite entertaining to check other’s perspective on how a track could be appreciated under a different light.
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KaiKasparek
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Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2021 5:06 pm
Posts: 941
Location: Suomi Finland Bukkake
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:11 pm 
 

MARSDUDE wrote:
I think we've all wanted to edit Iron Maiden's The Angel and the Gambler.


:lol:


The start time/stop time function on iTunes tracks was a God send to me. I still use it today (mainly to chop out the studio banter in the remixed versions of Into Glory Ride and Hail To England).

These days I'm mainly wishing there was a program that can pitch shift tracks into a different key (usually up from all the damn bands down-tuning their songs these days).
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HeavenDuff
Metal freak

Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:35 pm
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Location: Montréal
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:48 pm 
 

I don't edit the songs, as I tend to think that the integrity of the music would somehow/somewhat be affected, but I have a few select examples of albums I would like to edit, or maybe find edited versions of because of production choices that bother me.

Two obvious examples for me are:

Ulver - Nattens Madrigal : A truly solid album, but with a production job that makes the album hard to listen to in full. There are no mids, and the trebble on the guitars is painful to the ears. I know there is a compilation version of it that's less abbrasive, so that's a good start.

Gorguts - Obscura : The vocals are mixed SO DAMN FUCKING HIGH! it actually distracts me from the rest of the music. And it's not like they are vocals you can just ignore. They are very dissonant, and on occasions they are kind of annoying because of how loud they are. I would love to hear an edited version with the vocals lower in the mix.

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LordOfTheGallows
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:36 pm
Posts: 178
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:54 pm 
 

I remove the big gaps of silence from the final songs on albums and either make the hidden song it's own separate track or if it's just a skit or noise collage or something, delete it. I don't really edit songs themselves, except to occasionally trim extended ending ambience or to splice together big multipart songs if I know that I'm never going to listen to each track individually, like Dream Theater's Six Degree's of Inner Turbulence. As for album sequencing, I only remove tracks that I really can't stand and think throw off the entire flow of the album.


HeavenDuff wrote:
Ulver - Nattens Madrigal : A truly solid album, but with a production job that makes the album hard to listen to in full. There are no mids, and the trebble on the guitars is painful to the ears. I know there is a compilation version of it that's less abbrasive, so that's a good start.


That version is sooooooooo much more palatable that the original. I highly recommend you find a way to listen to it.

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morbert
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:36 am
Posts: 1274
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 1:29 am 
 

King_of_Arnor wrote:
Cutting out the interludes from interlude heavy albums if I just want to hear the songs


Testimony of the Ancients by Pestilence
I just don't play my vinyl nor CD of this album anymore.

Just my MP3 version these days, the 8 song album as it should be
"The Secrecies of Horror"
"Twisted Truth"
"Lost Souls"
"Land of Tears"
"Prophetic Revelations"
"Testimony"
"Presence of the Dead"
"Stigmatized"
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morbert
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:36 am
Posts: 1274
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 1:33 am 
 

coupdebleus wrote:
What about you, do you mess with the music you listen to, or do you think the integrity of the album as presented by the artist is paramount?

I have been thinking about doing this to the last 20 years of Iron Maiden and Metallica albums. Bringing them all back to 40 minute max albums by cutting out all the boring/bad parts and overly repeated parts from songs. But I know this would be a job taking me a few weeks in my time off
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balbulus
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:01 pm
Posts: 1177
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:02 am 
 

I do this a lot, if something bugs me enough.

Cathedral's "Forest of Equilibrium" is my all-time favourite metal album, but I always felt the guitars could do with a little more bite. Gaz Jennings remastered 2 of the songs for the "Serpent's Gold" comp which sounded amazing, but then the 2009 remaster of the whole album wasn't as good. So I boosted the treble slightly and was much happier with the sound.

For ease of listening I also split the "Picture of Beauty and Innocence" intro from the following track "Commiserating the Celebration" at around the 50 second mark when that first big riff kicks in.

I boosted the bass and keyboard intro of "Ebony Tears" as I felt it was too quiet.

And most satisfyingly, I shaved a few milliseconds off the start of "Soul Sacrifice". It really tidies up that messy cut-in.


I've slightly tweaked the tracklisting for Celtic Frost's "Into The Pandemonium" to create my "definitive version". I dropped the unnecessary "Re-entry Mix" of "One In Their Pride", kept the "alternate vox" version of "The Inevitable Factor", and moved "In The Chapel In The Moonlight" to the end of the album so the whole thing is bookended by the two covers. It feels much more satisfying to me.

Outside of metal, I've done a lot of edits on Mike Oldfield albums for some reason. For example, "Hergest Ridge" is a lovely album that is excellent for drives in the countryside, but the dynamic between the quiet and loud parts is so extreme I was forever riding the volume control. So I stuck a massive load of compression on it, and manually boosted/lowered a few sections, and it's much better for in-car listening.
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Cosmic_Equilibrium
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Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:03 pm
Posts: 842
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 8:05 am 
 

If I've uploaded a Metallica live recording from between 1990 and 1997 to my MP3 player or computer, I instantly get rid of the pointless short version of Master of Puppets that was inexplicably played by the band at practically every show during that period. Either do the whole song at all or don't bother. In a more general sense when uploading live albums, I sometimes get rid of drum solos too.

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Gravetemplar
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 8:17 am 
 

I don't tend to to this but sometimes I'll edit recording mistakes like very obvious clicks/pops or songs where that have mistakes on the gapless playback function.

I also remade Paracletus with a declipper and declicker because it's almost unlistenable but that was an exception.

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Ace_Rimmer
Metal freak

Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:30 am
Posts: 4580
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 9:41 am 
 

I thought most of what I listened to on the last Maiden album was much better on 1.25 speed when listening on YouTube. But if I have to modify the album odds are I'm having more satisfaction listening to something I like in the first place. Yeah The Writing on the Wall is better at faster speed...but its still not a great song. I'm not a purist but just seems like a waste of time with all the great music out there that doesn't need a "fix".

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aidane154
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Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:38 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 9:53 am 
 

This is pretty much necessary in my opinion for terribly mixed professional albums like Death Magnetic (as opposed to lo fi albums with bad mixes, which are acceptable). The deceifer and moderus remixes are far better than any official version, even though the band has made a stride toward acceptable with the recent remasters. If it comes down to editing an album, I am more likely to add than take away. This might take the form of enhancing an album with more songs from the same era that were left off, like how I often enjoy Megadeth's Youthanasia with some bonus tracks. Editing a badly copied master, like a youtube rip, to sound better is also acceptable imo, I did that for Ego Fall's Golden Blood because it's not available in the US.
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Ace_Rimmer
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 10:06 am 
 

I do like the GH3 mix of Death Magentic, but that isn't speeding up or chopping out parts.

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coupdebleus
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Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:11 pm
Posts: 275
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:55 am 
 

HeavenDuff wrote:
Gorguts - Obscura : The vocals are mixed SO DAMN FUCKING HIGH! it actually distracts me from the rest of the music. And it's not like they are vocals you can just ignore. They are very dissonant, and on occasions they are kind of annoying because of how loud they are. I would love to hear an edited version with the vocals lower in the mix.

Never had that issue with Obscura, I like the mix actually. With that being said, that album is the proof that there can be too much of a good thing. I’ve actually rearranged and split it into two 30’ albums and I like it better that way.
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Gravetemplar
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Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:08 am
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:56 am 
 

coupdebleus wrote:
HeavenDuff wrote:
Gorguts - Obscura : The vocals are mixed SO DAMN FUCKING HIGH! it actually distracts me from the rest of the music. And it's not like they are vocals you can just ignore. They are very dissonant, and on occasions they are kind of annoying because of how loud they are. I would love to hear an edited version with the vocals lower in the mix.

Never had that issue with Obscura, I like the mix actually. With that being said, that album is the proof that there can be too much of a good thing. I’ve actually rearranged and split it into two 30’ albums and I like it better that way.

Yeah, that album shouldn't have been longer than 40 min and I usually love long albums.

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Bronze Age
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Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 11:55 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:16 pm 
 

I don't like editing songs at all. I don't even like pressing skip. I just want to hear the original album from beginning to end. No bonus tracks either. Unless they sound like they fit. The one exception would be the beginning of Into Glory Ride.

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SanPeron
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Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2023 6:56 pm
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Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:41 pm 
 

I don't like to play being a producer, that's a job I don't want to do. But if I had to change something out of an album, I would edit all the movie audio parts in Mortician's albums and only keep the death metal songs, which would change the often-tiring length of some of those audios. I know it would change the logic of the album, but still, nonmusical audio samples are a hard thing to swallow if they are in all the songs of the album.

Otherwise, I don't have the need to personalize my music in that way, but if producing aficionados have that hobby, what can I say, have all the fun you want. The most I can do is to make playlists, but even then, I find it kind of tiring, I prefer to listen to full albums. I was born in the 90s so I could enjoy some of the later sides of the CD-producing machine that was the music industry, before the digitalization of everything. I used to burn CDs with computer programs and illegally download P2P music, I still have some of those around in the basement.
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StarshipTrooper
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Joined: Sat Aug 07, 2010 12:42 pm
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Location: Chile
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 4:43 pm 
 

I skip useless intros and interludes when I listen to an album. That's all the 'editing' I do.

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Defenestrated
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Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2022 1:50 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 5:27 pm 
 

Bronze Age wrote:
I don't like editing songs at all. I don't even like pressing skip. I just want to hear the original album from beginning to end. No bonus tracks either. Unless they sound like they fit.


Same here. I'm fine with bonus tracks if they're specifically recorded with the album I'm listening to, but originally didn't make the cut. E.g., on the more recent special edition of Opeth's Blackwater Park, there's a pointless concert recording of "Leper Affinity" tacked onto the end. I always skip that. But there's another, older special edition of the album that includes "Still Day Beneath the Sun" and "Patterns in the Ivy II" (unreleased studio recordings) on a bonus disc - I actually prefer to hear those after the album's end.

Also, long stretches of silence preceding a "hidden track" finale: huge pet peeve. I'm glad to cut those out.

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Korpgud
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Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2013 7:09 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2024 3:18 am 
 

I did so on at least two occasions in my teens, when I was making various mix CDs. I cut down the intros for Mayhem's View from Nihil and Cursed in Eternity. Both were in heavy rotation for me and I found the intros were only stopping me from getting to the best parts. I honestly still find the CIE intro boring, but the WFN one slaps.
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