
Editing
See also how
to edit
synthesised music.
Although the basic process of creating music is orchestration -
recording - editing, even orchestration can include elements of
editing.
Some of the sounds in my tracks are software instruments - I set the
software to make certain notes in certain places, and the software
creates those sounds either as it plays the track back to me or as it
makes the output file. The master doesn't contain any sound files for
software instruments, though the software probably has sound clips that
it uses to manufacture the sounds made by that instrument. Sounds made
by software instruments don't really require editing other than
changing the notes or effects.
Other sounds are often referred to as audio files. These are waveforms,
either recorded by a microphone or retrieved from a sound library as
audio files. These can be directly edited, including fading them in or
out, changing the gain on individual regions, clipping parts off the
beginning or end or even out of the middle, cutting into individual
notes and putting them in a different order and any number of other
things. These sorts of sounds are less versatile and much harder to
work with. Especially for sounds recorded with a microphone, they can
be extremely time consuming to edit into finished form.
Let's say some guitar is recorded. If the timing wasn't quite right,
one of the notes had fret buzz but was OK later in the recording, or
it's decided that some of the notes would be better longer or shorter,
all of that can be changed, but it can take a long time and a lot of
effort.
Both sorts of sounds can have effects added to them. In the end they
are digital recordings, streams of digits, and that means you can do
almost anything to them. The technology has got to the point that
almost any sound imaginable can be manufactured one way or another, if
you have the time and the patience.
Nothing created by people is ever going to be perfect, but making it as
good as is humanly possible is a slow process. Increasingly as the
years have passed, you can rest absolutely assured that the tracks on
this site were gone through repeatedly, listened to hard, and had
strenuous efforts made to improve it.