More Cue!

Further Exploration of the Music Cue

If you’ve ever witnessed a band’s sound check you may have heard someone yell, “More cue!” Well, this post has nothing to do with that. J We had discussed before the difference between how a song is structured versus how a music cue is composed. Here are a few other thoughts on how you guys can optimize your use of the CSS Music tracks when scoring a scene.

We know nearly all of you are working with digital workstations and can see the waveform of the music track. If you’ve found a perfect track but it’s structured in a song (A-A-B-A) format, you can view each section and quickly mouse to each section to hear which one works best with your picture.

Let’s say you only need :15-:20 and you want to use the “first verse” of the song because it’s the sparsest. You can most likely highlight that section from the full-length version, then copy and paste into another track. Job done!

Sometimes with a “song structured” track you’ll find a C section that’s usually a breakdown. And often time this portion of the song will offer some new ear candy elements that you may want to use in another section of the same show. It will give a sense of continuity yet provide freshness to the scene.

And don’t forget that with both our PowerTrax® library and some of the new tracks in Project Platinum®, CSS Music provides you with alternate mixes—usually rhythm mixes. These stripped down tracks can be invaluable when you need a cue-style section. Happy post production editing!