Getting Better at Editing

A review of some common editing activities and techniques to help tighten up your tune after the fact

Posted in The Weekly on February 3, 2026 by Dave Simons

There are times when a new song idea flows onto the recorder effortlessly, with no further structural tinkering required. On the other hand, there are certain works that may need extra attention right from the get-go—perhaps it’s an intro that goes on too long, or one too many verses before you get to a chorus, and so forth. While we might be tempted to start over from scratch, there are times when a little post-production editing work can go a long way. Here we review some common editing activities and techniques, from lengthening a coda or moving a chorus, to removing extra verses or inserting a replacement bridge, plus best ways to make edits without noticing the stitch marks.

Prepping for Editing
Before you get started, there are a few maneuvers that can help you in your editing endeavors. The first is having an even tempo throughout—that way if you want to move parts of the song around, you can be sure that the meter will match wherever you place them. This is why those who frequently edit tend to like having a click track in place (either that or a human timekeeper with an unswerving sense of rhythm).

You’ll also want to make the most of your zoom tool when editing—that is, you should be able to clearly see the waveform profile for each beat in the area where you’ll be making your cuts, copies, deletions and so forth, so don’t spare the magnification. And while speakers will work for easy editing jobs, a set of headphones allows you to hear in granular detail the exact spots where you’ll be laying down your editing mark points.

Making Cuts
Let’s say you’d like to remove four bars from an eight-bar intro in order to bring the first verse closer to the top of the song. To do this, you’ll want to set two mark points, one right at the first downbeat of the first bar, the other just before the first downbeat at the start of the fifth bar. Once you have a rough idea of where to make the cuts, use your zoom tool to magnify the two points, one at a time. Once you’ve laid down your marks, go to each spot, put on the headphones and hit play—you should hear nothing but the full downbeat at each point. Go ahead and highlight the area between the mark points, then hit delete—if you’ve set each point correctly, the two sections should flow together seamlessly. Naturally nothing is final until you hit “save,” so if it takes you a few levels of undo before you get it right, so be it.

Looping
You might also choose to extend certain portions of the song if need be. Maybe the outro fades a bit too soon, or perhaps you’d like to add another few bars of an instrumental break. Rather than go back in and re-record the part, you can simply loop the section you’d like to lengthen. Once again, you’ll set the mark points as noted above, placing one at the top of the piece to be copied and another at the very end, taking care to place each mark precisely on the beginning and ending downbeats. Once you’ve highlighted and copied the section, paste the copied piece directly onto the second mark position. As in the above example, should you make a mistake, simply hit “undo,” slightly adjust your mark points, then try again.

Replacing Parts
The new song is working out fine, except for the bridge which still feels like it’s lacking punch. Why settle for less when you can use your editing finesse to make it right? There’s no need to redo the entire track—just go back to the top of the offending section and re-record the part, then once you’re done get out your editing template and move the new section into position. Rather than copy over the existing part, open a new stereo track below the main track and align the reworked bridge directly underneath, using the old bridge as a guide to ensure the beats are in the correct spot.

Editing also works wonders during the mix process. Let’s say you’ve made three different mixes of the song, and upon listening back you decide you like portions of all three attempts. Not a problem—you can simply extract the preferred parts from the various mixes, then lay each section onto a new editing template, taking care to properly align them so the listener isn’t aware of the individual splices. When done correctly, don’t be surprised if this Frankenstein mix turns out to be the best of the bunch.

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