Dressage to music software - Idiots guide!

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noname

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What software to people use?
I've heard of dressage diva but apparantly its a bit stroppy!
I've had some music done by a professional which I love but its not everyone's taste so I need something a bit more gentle for the old dears. I chosen some tracks from CD's but how do I get 2 mins of one, 2 mins of another etc, how do I fade in and out etc.
Would appreciate some advice, I've heard some ppl do it on itunes etc. I freely admit to being a little incompetent with computers but credit crunch and all that!! I will master the damned thing.
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Thanks
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A good piece of software that's free and fairly easy to use is Audacity. It runs on any platform, so that's convenient.

I'll walk you through what you might do! First, I find it useful to work on each clip (for each gait) separately, and mix them together afterwards.

When you first open your soundfile (let's call it "Trotsong"), you'll see your piece displayed along a timeline, with fat bits and skinny bits, etc. The fat bits are the loud bits.

You can highlight bits with your mouse, and play back only the highlighted bits, or cut the highlighted bits. Your goal is to cut the music down to the length you want (say, about 2 minutes). If you're having trouble getting precise enough with the mouse, you can use the View menu to zoom in or out.

It's musically most satisfying if you make your cuts at natural structural resting points in the piece---cadences. Avoid cutting in the middle of a phrase if you can! This may mean that you'll have to adust your time slightly. If you absolutely can't avoid cutting in a bad place, then is the time to put in a fade---or a cross-fade, where one clip fades out while another one fades in.

Fades are pretty easy to do. You highlight the bit you want to fade, and select "fade out" from the effects menu.

Another useful effect is "Change Tempo". Say that Trotsong is just a wee bit too fast for your pony: you highlight it, and slow it down by, say, 4 beats/minute. (If you don't know what the bpm of the original is, don't worry! Just make up a number for the old tempo, such as 80, and make the new number 4 beats slower, i.e. 76.)

Once you've got your clips, open a new file, and cut/paste them in, in the order you want. You can overlap clips if you like, or have silence between them, whatever you find works.

When you're done, you'll need to export the file to the format you need (usually mp3 or wav; use wav if burning to CD).

There's a lot more you can do with this software, but that should be enough to get you started!

If you have more questions, I'll be happy to try to help.
 
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