Appropriate length of an intro

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kitkat
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Appropriate length of an intro

#1 Post by kitkat » Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:17 am

And I mean a really slow intro that about all people can do to it is sway, because it's hard to find the beat, or it only goes 70 bpm, etc.

Good dancers can find anything to do with an intro--but a lot of the floor would be stumped. What's your rule-of-thumb maximum length on a regular basis?

To my ear, sitting down, 40 seconds is about my limit. But I always feel like they're shorter when I'm dancing, and I don't know if that's because time flies when you're having fun or because the non-lindyable intros people are spinning are pretty short.

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JesseMiner
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#2 Post by JesseMiner » Fri Feb 27, 2004 11:30 am

In most situations, I'm usually wary of any slow intro longer than a few 8-counts. You want something that sounds like it will resolve soon and get swinging. If it doesn't, people start thinking "when is this going to end?" I would use the same guage for most bass and drum solos as well.

30-40 seconds is a really long time when people aren't dancing or trying to dance but waiting for the song to kick in.

There are exceptions of course when you think the song is simply amazing and that it will truly pay off for the dancers to struggle through the intro. But you better be right, otherwise the song will be forgotten and the long intro remembered.

Jesse

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kitkat
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#3 Post by kitkat » Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:13 pm

Woohoo!
Thanks, Jesse. I was hoping I'd get a reaction like that.

I've been keeping lots of songs I don't have room for on my hard drive, not sure whether to bother having them on the new CDs for stocking my binder.

It'd be nice to have an excuse to get rid of stuff without feeling like I'm throwing away danceable gems. (Reorganizing my binder by filtering out crap and combining CDs when possible.)

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#4 Post by Nate Dogg » Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:26 pm

There are a few songs that I routinely fade into, skipping the intro. In my book, I usually make a note about how long the intro is, this practive makes it a little easier on me when I am trying to queue things up in a hurry.

Poe's "A Rose is a rose" is an example of a song that I always skip the intro for.

Nathan

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Dj G
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#5 Post by Dj G » Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:46 pm

Nate Dogg wrote:There are a few songs that I routinely fade into, skipping the intro. In my book, I usually make a note about how long the intro is, this practive makes it a little easier on me when I am trying to queue things up in a hurry.

Nathan
When I used to DJ from MD's I would cue in on the recording or speed adjust (no MT then!) prior to recording to MD.

:?: does anyone else chop and crop the crap out of songs before mastering them for playback?
Yeah, that's Dj G over there; under the CD Bins, digging contently in the 45 rpm box :)

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#6 Post by mark0tz » Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:50 pm

There are a few yea, where I skip the intro, or fade it in just right. And there are a few intros that I just avoid, but sometimes, for whatever reason, I feel the need to grab the attention of dancers with some sort of intro. even if a little extended. Perhaps it's a radio guy talking about the upcoming song, or Duke Ellington introducing the next song, or a musical interlude... all can be effective sometimes i think.
Mike Marcotte

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Matthew
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#7 Post by Matthew » Fri Feb 27, 2004 1:07 pm

Dj G wrote:
Nate Dogg wrote:There are a few songs that I routinely fade into, skipping the intro. In my book, I usually make a note about how long the intro is, this practive makes it a little easier on me when I am trying to queue things up in a hurry.

Nathan
does anyone else chop and crop the crap out of songs before mastering them for playback?
I like to cut some "live" intros (person introducing the band, talking about the music, etc.), but I almost never cut deeply into the music. I'm pretty low-tech about it, too. I rip the song as a .wav and edit it in...brace yourself...Sound Recorder. Then I convert the .wav to .mp3 with Musicmatch. I do the same with some outros.

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gatorgal
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Re: Appropriate length of an intro

#8 Post by gatorgal » Fri Feb 27, 2004 1:12 pm

kitkat wrote: Good dancers can find anything to do with an intro--but a lot of the floor would be stumped. What's your rule-of-thumb maximum length on a regular basis?
I'm not sure I have a hard and fast rule, but that 30 to 40 second range "feels" right. I also tend to mark down how long an intro is and if I feel there's too much dead air I'll try to cut it off a bit. But I don't really like dismissing applause/intro of singers or musicians at the beginning or end of songs. It gives people a chances to rest, breathe, and if they're familiar with the song, find the one they really want to dance with.

There's a song I want to play for a WC gig I have in a couple of weeks that has this really great intro. But it's acapella. We'll see how it goes. :)

Tina 8)
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~ Foreman on That 70s Show

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#9 Post by Moonmist » Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:28 pm

I have several awesoem songs that has a long intro, and I usually just cue straight into the good part. Of course, hoping to put it on MP3 format and cut out the slow parts because there's some good stuff in the beginning, and as Jesse said will pay off.

If you think about it, 30sec is long for a song that's 2:30 or so. I don't think there's any hard rules, just according to your ear.

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#10 Post by JesseMiner » Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:53 pm

kitkat wrote:I've been keeping lots of songs I don't have room for on my hard drive, not sure whether to bother having them on the new CDs for stocking my binder.

It'd be nice to have an excuse to get rid of stuff without feeling like I'm throwing away danceable gems. (Reorganizing my binder by filtering out crap and combining CDs when possible.)
The question you need to ask yourself is this: will I ever play these songs? If you don't think you will, don't bother carrying them if your space is limited.
Nate Dogg wrote:There are a few songs that I routinely fade into, skipping the intro. In my book, I usually make a note about how long the intro is, this practive makes it a little easier on me when I am trying to queue things up in a hurry.
Rayned and I once had a discussion about "hard" and "soft" cues. "Hard" meaning you've edited the song to exactly the point you want to start it, and "soft" meaning there is an intro that you usually skip but haven't permanently removed because it is great and you might want to play it sometime.

Of course once you enter the world of mp3s, programs like iTunes let you set cue points for each song. Very cool!

Jesse

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Lawrence
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#11 Post by Lawrence » Sat Feb 28, 2004 7:56 pm

kitkat wrote:Woohoo!
Thanks, Jesse. I was hoping I'd get a reaction like that.

I've been keeping lots of songs I don't have room for on my hard drive, not sure whether to bother having them on the new CDs for stocking my binder.

It'd be nice to have an excuse to get rid of stuff without feeling like I'm throwing away danceable gems. (Reorganizing my binder by filtering out crap and combining CDs when possible.)
I also follow the rule that Jesse stated. Indeed, when I make my compilations, I always use Nero to edit out unnecessarily-long intros so they simply are not on the tracks I carry with me. The intros make musical sense, but don't fit the context of a dance and can be distracting to that ever-magical "flow." Sometimes (especially in a live recording) they serve the legitimate purpose of warming the musicians up to the song, which is interesting from a listener's standpoint, but completely unnecessary for our purposes. All that matters is that they ARE warmed up when they kick it.

Many times, doing so has allowed me to parse a 6 minute song down to 4 minutes, making it far more "playable." I also end up with more songs per CD-R.
Lawrence Page
Austin Lindy Hop
http://www.AustinLindy.com

Haydn
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#12 Post by Haydn » Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:29 pm

Meanwhile, five years later, I've just found this old thread :wink: - (there are a lot of other valuable threads like it lurking away on this board).

I've been learning how to use computer software to play around with intros - to change the place where a song starts. I guess that's one of the great advantages of having computers today - you can easily create different versions of songs for different circumstances.

Regarding kitkat's original question: What is the appropriate length of an intro (meaning really slow one, as she explained in her first post), I think it depends on the energy and flow at the time. If the energy is on a high and you want to keep it there, I think it's best to avoid slow intros, but if you want to bring the energy down, a 40-second slow intro can be really useful - like a big pause. And sometimes a slow melodic intro provides a nice contrast with a driving main section of a song.

For live recordings, it usually makes sense to cut out the talking at the start, but on the other hand it can be cool for people to hear something like "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's Artie Shaw ..."

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#13 Post by dogpossum » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:18 pm

I've recently gotten really keen on spoken intros and outros - "live from the Savoy!" is exciting. This could be because I've not been able to dance for a while and have been DJing like a tire kicker instead. :(

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#14 Post by CafeSavoy » Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:43 am

dogpossum wrote:I've recently gotten really keen on spoken intros and outros - "live from the Savoy!" is exciting. This could be because I've not been able to dance for a while and have been DJing like a tire kicker instead. :(
I have a bunch of songs labeled as "intro" and "goodbye" although I don't remember to use them. Basie, especially has a lot of those.

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#15 Post by Haydn » Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:25 am

CafeSavoy wrote:I have a bunch of songs labeled as "intro" and "goodbye" although I don't remember to use them. Basie, especially has a lot of those.
Do you mean that you thought about using them to start or end a set or evening?

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