Editing with music:Looping a track seamlessly under a long video
A twenty-minute video needs twenty minutes of music, or a way to make a few minutes last. Looping is the answer, but a badly placed loop point is one of the most noticeable edits in audio.
Pick a section that wants to loop
The easiest loops come from the steady middle of a track: a section where the same pattern repeats for several bars without a big change. Make one clean loop of that section, then place copies back to back on your timeline and they play as one continuous piece.
- Evidence Room Ambience on the Mystery & True Crime shelf
Ambient beds like Evidence Room Ambience are especially good to loop, because they have no strong melody for the ear to notice repeating.
How to make the loop
To cut the loop cleanly:
- Loop whole bars. Find two points exactly a number of bars apart, using the tempo maths in Cutting video to the beat.
- Cut on a downbeat, where a drum hit masks the join.
- Add a very short crossfade, a few milliseconds, to avoid a click.
- Listen on headphones. Clicks and small jumps that are invisible on speakers are obvious on headphones.
Hide repetition
Even a perfect loop becomes noticeable after several minutes if it has a memorable melody. Break it up:
- Drop the music during talking sections and bring it back afterwards.
- Alternate between two related tracks from the same niche.
- Play the full track once, and use your loop only to extend it.
End properly
A loop has no ending. When the video finishes, finish on the real ending of the full track rather than fading the loop out.