Can you fix a competition edit that already sounds wrong?
Yes. Send the original full-length tracks along with the edit that is not working, and tell us what bothers you about it. Most problems are solved by rebuilding the transitions from the source material rather than patching the existing file. It is ordered as a normal competition edit.
Answered by Hanif Esmail Co-founder & Lead Audio Engineer
Send the source tracks, not your project file
This is the one thing worth knowing before you get in touch. We work from audio — the original full-length songs you built the routine from, plus an export of the edit that is not working.
We do not open project files. A session from Audacity, GarageBand, a phone app or any other editor only opens properly in the software that made it, and it usually arrives without the audio it points at. Even when it does open, inheriting somebody else’s session means inheriting whatever is wrong inside it. Rebuilding from the sources is faster and the result is better.
An export of your current edit is still worth sending. It is the quickest way to show us what you want kept, not only what you want fixed.
What is usually wrong
The cut landed on a bar line, not a phrase
The most common cause of an edit that feels off without being obviously broken. The join is rhythmically on the grid but arrives mid-musical-thought, so the section after it feels early.
The energy either side does not match
Two points in a song can share a tempo and still be nothing alike in density or intensity. Joining them makes the routine lurch even when the timing is exact.
The levels jump between sections
Songs from different eras and different masters arrive at different loudness. Untreated, the volume steps at every transition, which is far more noticeable over a venue PA than in headphones.
It was mastered for headphones
An edit that sounds full at a desk can thin out badly in a rink or a gym. Nothing about the cuts is wrong; the finishing was done for the wrong room.
Roxane Genot - Waiting On A Wish
The original is on one side and the finished edit on the other. Listen to the joins — that is the standard a repair is aiming at.
Before — Original
Roxane Genot - Waiting On A Wish
Original Song with no editing. Overall bad sound and lifeless track.
Repair or rebuild
Once we have listened, we will tell you which one it is. Sometimes a single transition is the problem and everything around it holds up. More often, repairing a cut turns out to be harder than making a clean one, because the material either side of the join has already been altered.
Either way it is ordered the same way and priced the same way — as a Competition Edit for a single-song routine, or a Multi-Song Competition Edit where the routine is built from several. There is no separate repair fee, and no diagnosis charge for telling you which it needs.
Send us what you have.
Include the original tracks, your current edit, and a note about what bothers you. We will tell you whether it needs repairing or rebuilding before any work starts.