Auditions and singing practice · Updated 2 October 2026
Trim a song for your audition
with a clean lead-in and a proper ending.
When you trim a song for an audition, you want a cut that starts just before you sing, gives you a moment to find the note and doesn’t chop off the ending.
Pick a passage that makes sense on its own, like the 16- or 32-bar cut you’ve been asked for. Then keep enough music in front of it for you to find your first note. The audio cutter saves exactly the time range you type in, so the file you rehearse with is the same one that gets played on the day.
Set the cut in seconds
- Open your song. Go to the audio cutter and press Choose a file. Use the version with the arrangement you’ll actually perform.
- Set Start (seconds). Put it at the start of the musical lead-in, a little before your first sung word.
- Set End (seconds). Put it after your last note has finished ringing. The Selection line underneath shows how long your cut is.
- Start with Fade each edge (seconds) at 0. Press Play and listen to the beginning and the end. Only add a short fade if both ends sound better with one, because it applies to both.
- Select Download WAV. Play the downloaded file once from the top, then name it with the song, the section and the version.
Turn timestamps into seconds
The boxes take seconds, not minutes. An entrance at 1:12 is 72 seconds and an ending at 2:28 is 148 seconds, which gives you a 76-second cut. Write those numbers down and you can make exactly the same cut again later.
Get the start and end right before you play with fades. If you need another beat to breathe, move the start earlier. If the last chord gets cut off, move the end later.
Keep your cue and your ending
Listen for whatever tells you to come in: a drum hit, a pickup note, a chord. Cut right before the first lyric and you’ll usually lose that cue, which leaves you guessing your entrance in front of the panel. At the other end, keep the release of your last note and enough music for the ending to sound finished, not chopped.
The fade setting applies the same length to both ends. Leave it at 0 for a crisp instrumental start, or use a short fade if you want the start and the finish to ease in and out.
Need it without the original singer?
If your track still has the original vocals, press Remove vocals from this. That sends your cut, lead-in and ending included, to the karaoke maker. There, choose Music, have a listen and select Download mix to save your backing track. If it shows a preview instead, a Day Pass or Pro processes the whole cut.
Keep the original song alongside your cut. Rehearse with the exact WAV you’ll hand over, so the intro you practiced is the intro you hear in the room.
This one runs right in your browser. Pro adds the AI tools too: vocals, stems, captions and more.