Question about Length of :60s and :30s

When creating a :60 or :30 what’s the exact length typically preferred?

I know that for Australia all commercials need exactly 12 frames of silence at head and tail of each spot. So ideal length in Oz is 29 secs and 59 secs precisely. But in general elsewhere if you leave enough of a tail out on your track it’s easily solved by the editor who can fade/cut out when needed. Stay just inside those times and give a tail to the full resolve at 30 and 60 and you’ll be safe is my best advice. JB

I always do a header of 250ms of silence so that the editor can see a clean start of the waveform on the timeline.

Hope this helps?

Good question and some useful information from Jamie and gballx. I too have started to think more about how my tracks may be used for commercial purposes and will certainly consider providing a 30, 60 and full length version depending on the track.

I know that recently one of my tracks was used for a commercial and the first 1:40 of the song suited the timing of the animation so you just never know I guess.

P.S. Welcome to AJ, Jamie. You have started off with a bang getting top new author for Feb. Well done. Always good to have a fellow Melbournian on here.

Thanks Studio26! You too must be suffering through this heatwave we’re having. Find I’m not sleeping very well so working on music to battle my insomnia… Appreciate the kind words mate and look forward to talking some more here with you. Cheers! J

JBlanks said
Thanks Studio26! You too must be suffering through this heatwave we’re having. Find I’m not sleeping very well so working on music to battle my insomnia… Appreciate the kind words mate and look forward to talking some more here with you. Cheers! J

Thanks for this info on 30/60 sec and what we should be aiming for.

I’ve seen any number of times “30 and 60 second” tracks. One thing to consider is that it might be out of your control. Meaning, how your track is structured, BPM, etc. The tail however is a great way to end things on time, but I wouldn’t go overboard with it.

Randomly looking through some of my stock music I see many going a second or two over the time, but 2 or 3 seconds of that is just a cymbal crash fading out. I guess better to leave it longer than shorter of course. Editors can always fade out the crash more.

When working for broadcast in the States I leave 0.5 seconds of silence at the end of each. This is total silence, no verb tails, nothing.

I wonder how much music picked up at AJ is used for broadcast and if such strict guidelines are necessary here?

I’ve only been here a week so I’m interested to hear some of your thoughts..

Gret thread. Found few interesting tips here:)