What do I need to send a music editor?
Send the highest-quality audio file you have, your exact target length, and a note about where the key moments in the routine fall. Everything else is optional. Those three things are what separate an edit that lands first time from one that needs two rounds of revisions.
Answered by Hanif Esmail Co-founder & Lead Audio Engineer
The three things that matter
The audio, at the best quality you have
A purchased download or a file from a streaming service you own beats anything captured from a video. Quality lost before we receive it cannot be recovered, and it becomes much more audible once the track is played loud in a large room.
The exact target length
Not "about two minutes". The number your rulebook specifies, and the tolerance either side if there is one. This is the single most common cause of a re-cut.
Where the routine peaks
Tell us where the big moment is and roughly when it happens. An edit built toward the right moment feels made for the routine; one built to a stopwatch does not.
Worth including if you have it
Timestamps you already know you want
If a specific section has to stay, or a particular passage has to go, say so with a rough time. You do not need to be precise — "keep the bit starting around 1:10" is plenty.
A video of the routine
Even a rehearsal clip on a phone. It tells us where the counts fall, where the formation changes are, and where the music needs to get out of the way.
Your discipline and level
The rules differ enough that this changes the work. Instrumental requirements, program endings and length limits all depend on it.
A reference you like
Another team’s music, or a previous edit of your own. Pointing at something and saying "like this" communicates faster than a paragraph of description.
Anything that has to be removed
Explicit language, a lyric that does not suit the division, a section the coach dislikes.
What you do not need to do
You do not need to trim the file first, convert it to a particular format, or work out where the cuts should go. Sending a pre-trimmed file usually makes the job harder, because the material we would have used to cover a join has already been discarded.
Send the full track. Deciding what comes out is the work you are paying for.
The fastest possible version
Full-length audio file, the exact target length, one sentence about where the peak is, and your discipline. That is genuinely enough to start.
Start with what you have.
The order form walks through each of these and tells you what is still missing before you submit.