Speed Changes to Loop Music

[eyore]

Ah, I see. That makes sense. The "strange" edits on some tracks has always confused me as to "why". That explains it if they want a particular track but need to trim a little off it while still making it seem whole. I'd often wondered why the odd second was removed here and there and some tracks were made from multipledits rather than just allow a play-through - and also why so many loops are just about an hour in length. If it's a loop, why would it matter if it over-ran by ten minutes - now we know!

 

[gmeader]

I think what he's saying is that two channels on a CD play two different music loops, for two different parts of the park. Actually, that explains a lot in regards to edits and subtle speed changes which would then have to be made in order to make two completely different loops match in duration.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. The "strange" edits on some tracks has always confused me as to "why". That explains it if they want a particular track but need to trim a little off it while still making it seem whole. I'd often wondered why the odd second was removed here and there and some tracks were made from multipledits rather than just allow a play-through - and also why so many loops are just about an hour in length. If it's a loop, why would it matter if it over-ran by ten minutes - now we know!

I'm accessing my memory banks from 22 years ago but the reason the BGM CD's were about 60 minutes in length had to do with the mastering process more than anything else. Making CD's in 1990 was quite a bit more difficult than today. We used the Sony PCM 1630 as the mastering device which used U-matic 3/4" video tape as the storage medium. These tapes commonly came in 30 or 60 minute lengths. Since the 60 minute version provided the most versatility with regards to how many different songs could be played back it was chosen and thus the hour long BGM music loop track was born. Later when the first Denon recordable CD player became available the length was able to be increased to about 70 minutes.

As a historical note prior to CD's most of the opening day Epcot BGM music was sourced from 2" 24 track bin-loop machines. Since these machines could only hold 30 minutes of tape none of the early Epcot music loops were longer than 30 minutes. And since each track contained music for a specific zone the loop point was dependent on the length of the various music cues and how they ended together. Many times this loop length was substantially shorter than 30 minutes. The longest bin-loop tape was American Adventure at just over 31 minutes. As the bin-loops have been replaced with more modern equipment it's possible the loops may have increased in length with the addition of new music but the original loops were actually quite short.

 

[eyore]

Yes, I made this same mistake elsewhere.
it explains a lot as some of the edits just didn't seem to have a reason for them.