Audio Editing for Home Recording

Now that even professional musicians are operating mostly from home, there is a particular need for audio editing.

An end-of-year concert during the Covid era...

This example demonstrates the skills I can offer musicians and school music programs. My wife is a band director for a 5th grade music discovery curriculum and 6th grade band of about 120 students spread across 4 schools. She teaches these 6th grade students how to hold and make noise with their chosen instruments in September and in May they are performing a full concert for their parents.

It's pretty amazing.

In 2020, Covid-19 caused schools to cancel in-person classes and pivot to remote learning. To keep her students engaged and practicing, my wife promised the end-of-year concert they had worked so hard preparing for would still happen. If they kept learning and practicing, we would figure out a way for them to still experience playing together in a large group.

Our solution worked. The band director uploaded videos of herself conducting the music to an existing backtrack. Students watched with headphones and played along while care givers recorded their performances using either voice memo or video. After the director's sorting through of all the student submissions, I took the audio for each piece of music and put it all together in the computer to produce, with the required audio editing (to line things up, etc.), a single track of the full 6th grade band performing each given piece of concert music.

The reception was very positive. Students were able to listen to the concert with their families while watching a video put together by the band director that included photos and videos taken during the previous months with students all together in school during the before times. Due to student privacy reasons, only the audio is demonstrated here.