Adding To Your Tool Belt

CSS Music’s Redi-Trax Helps You Build

Does this situation sound familiar? You’re working on a special project—or maybe a super creative promo—and you’ve used a popular piece of music as a temp track. There’s no way you can afford to use this temp music but everyone agrees the tempo and feel are just right. Now all you have to do is find something similar to replace it for the final.

Using CSS Music Redi-Trax that temp track can be analyzed, and by adding a keyword or two, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results. Plus, it’s very simple to use. From our website click on the “Redi-Trax Waveform Search” toward the bottom of our homepage. A new window will open with instructions. From there, click on the “Click Here To Enter…”

A new window appears—you’ll notice there are search parameters on the left hand side of the page for Tempo and Length--more about those shortly. At the very top of the page is a gray bar with the search magnifying glass. Drag your temp file (aiff, wav, or mp3) onto this bar. You’ll see the program import your temp track then a message saying it’s looking for matches. Resulting matches are listed as “Sonic Search Results.”

Chances are there will be quite a few choices from the CSS Music library. You can then refine your search by clicking on the four white vertical lines on right hand side of the gray bar at the top of the page. This opens a window with an “Advanced Search” menu. Here you can type in keywords that best describe the style of your temp music, i.e. light industrial, country, jazz, new age, etc. (We suggest keeping this to no more than two keyword categories for best results.)

You will see the Redi-Trax program crunching data and refining your search even further. You can audition at this point and if you know the ballpark length you need, use the aforementioned Length window to find the appropriate time for your replacement track.

We don’t want to make Redi-Trax seem like the ultimate be-all/end-all in search engines. But we believe this is a pretty cool utensil to have in your tool belt. And you might even find you’ll want to try a CSS Music track to find other tracks with a similar feel and tempo. Give this handy search method a try and see what happens!