Adobe Audition CC : Shorten your favourite music track using Remix

In the latest version of Audition CC, its possible for you to create remixes of your favorite music files. For example, you have a 5 minute track and you need to use it for some presentation or video creation but the video is of a duration that is smaller/longer than the song length, you can easily create a new track of exactly the desired length using the Remix functionality of Audition CC. This post will guide you through recomposing any piece of music to fit the video or project duration.

As per the Adobe help article posted at Creating Remix, Remix uses a combination of beat detection, content analysis, and spectral source separation technology, to identify hundreds of transition points in your song. It then rearranges the passages to create a composition.

In order to download and install Audition CC (if you haven't already), you can visit the official download page. You may also download the free 30-day trial version of the product before going for the paid subscription plans. 

Once downloaded and installed, launch the application and follow the following steps to get the remix functionality to work:

1. By default, the application launches into a single track session. Switch to a multi-track session by using either of the following options:

• Pressing Ctrl+N on windows and Cmd+N on MAC platform and selecting Ok in the resulting dialog will open a multi-track session.
• Going to File->New->Multitrack session  and selecting Ok in the resulting dialog will open a multi-track session.
• Click on the Multitrack button next to Waveform button on the top-left corner of the application window.

2. Insert a clip into the session by pressing Ctrl+I on windows and Cmd+I on MAC and selecting your music track.

3. You'll have to drag and drop this track from Files view on the left panel onto the Track 1 as shown below.

4. Prepare the clip for remix in one of the following ways:

• Choose Clip > Remix > Enable Remix in the menu bar.
• Right-click the clip and choose Remix > Enable Remix.
• Select the clip and in the Remix group of the Properties panel, click Enable Remix.

In this step, the application does some processing on the clip which might take a few seconds before we can actually change the tracks' length.

5. Resize the clip to the target duration in one of the following ways:

• Grab the zigzag handles at the top edge of the clip and drag them to the length you require.
• Adjust the duration in Target Duration in the Remix group.

Voila, the track is now remixed and duration is changed to what you'd requested. You can play and check the track by pressing the space bar. Output all right? Want to save it locally on your disc? You can follow the steps below to save the remixed output.

• Right-click the output clip and choose Export Mixdown > Selected Clips. Enter the desired filename, location and format and choose OK. The clip gets saved to the desired location.

However, if you didn't like the output and wish to play around with the settings of Remix, you can easily do so. Expand the Advanced section in the Properties panel to adjust the remix. The available options are:

• Stretch to exact duration: This option enables time-stretch on the remixed clip and adjusts it so that it precisely matches the target duration.
• Edit Length:
• Short: Short results in shorter segments, but in more transitions.  This option is suited for songs that changes from beginning to end to minimize abrupt changes in dynamics or tempo.
• Long: Long looks for the longest passages and smallest number of segments to minimize transitions.
• Features:
• Timbre: Timbre emphasizes tonal qualities in identifying transition points.
• Harmonic: Harmonic emphasizes melodic and harmonic components in transition points.
• Minimum Loop: Set the minimum acceptable length, in beats, to use in a segment.
• Maximum Slack: Set the maximum difference in duration from your target duration.

To disable remix and restore the clip to its original version, you can anytime choose Clip > Remix > Revert Remix. This will give you the original clip for processing.

In case of any confusions or queries, please feel free to ask through comments. Happy Remixing :).