Amount of Silence at Beginning of Song

I'm wondering how much silence (if any) producers generally leave at the beginning of each song before the first sound in the song is heard. Is there a standard or usual length of time or number of measures of silence? Or are songs exported with the first sound heard at the first instant?
 
I generally leave the first twenty-four measures empty (in case an introduction, etc. might occur to me) and cut most of them before I export, but I'm never sure if I'm leaving the right amount of silence at the beginning.
 
Thank you for your patience,
LJ

Thanks, sharke! I appreciate your answer. I'll play it by ear, then. :)
LJ

I generally start right at 0.  If an intro idea comes up... "select all"...and drag for as many measures you need.  I've never had problems with that.  Moves envelopes...the whole shootin' match. 
 
@ Bit.....I've had Toontrack almost always right at the beginning with something....and it always has worked for me.  My *rut* is typically a drum into...that gives me my countouff.  The only time I lose notes...and that's been my error...is splitting tracks and the MIDI note was anticipated by a hair... and then the note gets lost after the split.
 
 

Hi, mixmkr, and thanks for your response. That sounds like a very useful way to deal with the potential for an introduction.
 
I think I'm still stuck in an analog frame of mind, where the sight of the space available helps me to realize there's room for material before the spot I actually started playing!
 
I really should shift my imagination into this century! :)
LJ

mixmkr: Smiling at that answer - so true !

The space before ( and after)  the song is done in the mastering stage not the mixing.
So it doesn't matter how much you leave in Sonar as long as there is at least a beat before any events or they might not trigger. So best to leave at least 1 blank measure. I leave 2. 
As said, more can be easily inserted at any time. 
 
You trim the beginnings and ending in a wave editor after exporting in the mastering stage. If you wish to do your own mastering I recommend using a wave editor which makes this task easy. 
 
I usually leave a touch over 1 second at the start of songs. About a beat and a half. 
The ending depends on the tempo so might be longer for a slow song. I just listen to the end and sort of envision where I'd like the next song to start.
These days there's no album order because songs will be added to peoples personal playlists so you don't now what your song will end up back to back with anyhow.
For CD's I fuss a little more with transitions and I tell my burning software to not add space. 

I think some people are confused eg Sharke. The OP is not about how much time that is needed before the start of the track on the final CD. I think he is referring to the amount of time to leave at the start in the multitrack session.
 
It is not wise to start the music on 00.00.00 in your multitrack session at all. The reason is that the moment you hit play the sequencer has just a few things to do before it can take off and often you will miss some very first notes etc..
 
It is better to leave two measures or so before the music starts in your multitrack session. Especially if you need to play midi notes early etc for synths that might have a slow attack sound etc..
 
If you suddenly get an idea for an extended intro then it should be easy in any DAW to pick up the whole session and move everything over and insert measures.
 
Regarding tracks on a CD I have found if you cut the music really tight for the track ID then some CD players will cue up just a little into the music and you might miss part of the very first transient. I have found from experience that leaving 100 mS of silence before the music starts will usually avoid that and the track will still cue quickly if required to. (eg a theatre situation)

mixmkr
 
I'd like to hear from Cake on the first part of the above, as I've never heard any mention of not starting at 0:00.  Otherwise, why would that be a possibility on such a mature program?

 
I'm with Jeff, and I would say that applies to any program. Granted, 99% of the time the sequencer will start up okay. But if you leave a blank measure, that becomes 100%. Remember, your computer is doing a ton of things that have nothing to with music, like scanning ports, keyboards, mice, turning USB off if you're not careful, etc. etc.
 
Think of it as the equivalent of a tape reel taking a fraction of a second to get up to speed.
 
As to space in a final product, I always like to leave a little bit of air at the beginning. I zoom waaaaaaaay in vertically, and cut just before "nothing" turns into "something."

Anderton
 
 
As to space in a final product, I always like to leave a little bit of air at the beginning. I zoom waaaaaaaay in vertically, and cut just before "nothing" turns into "something."

yes...especially if making a CD.  Most CD players as you know, will have a ramp up time, that will chop the first segments, if edited too close.

Anderton
 
 
I don't think there's any way you NEED a measure, you probably only need a millisecond or two (even attack times of 1 ms are audible). However, by making it a measure, it's easier to move things around.
 
 

That statement seems to conflict with

Granted, 99% of the time the sequencer will start up okay.

 
And I'm not getting legalistic on you.  Sorry if it might appear that way...  {honest} ;-)
and I'm talking about 1/100th of a ms...   if that is even logically in the ballpark of this discussion.  Way beyond audio perception.

It doesn't take much time to cut off a note-on.

With Battery 3, on every playback, the first beat on the current now-time always sounds weird. I always move the now-time to a earlier point if I want to hear it play properly. I suspect that it's a buffering issue.
 

I believe you are right in that at that instant you hit play a few things have to go down before the sequencer can start playing back, midi and audio. And having midi note data right on the first measure can sometimes get corrupted or not play etc. If there is any chance of that then starting at measure 2 or 3 is a good option as it simply eliminates any possibility of anything going wrong before the first midi data is sent or audio is heard.
 
It certainly seems to have a much stronger effect on midi data in general. eg if send a large chunk of controller data at the start of measure 1 then some notes may be overlooked in the process. At measure 3 all the midi controller data will be sent followed by the note on and you will hear it. (even it is slightly late)
 
Many will work much more so with audio and therefore can have no issues with this but those who are using a lot of either external or internal VST midi data then this can be an issue.
 
Turning internal VST midi data into audio early is probably another way around it. But it should not pose a problem starting on measure 3. It ensures many things can happen comfortably before the music starts. If you are working with charts etc you just have to make sure the measures are correctly numbered on the charts to match the sequencer.
 
Another good reason to start on say measure 3 is a situation where you might want to advance a midi track and make it play slightly early to compensate for any latency in that particular synth may impose. (VST or hardware, they all need some time to make a sound) Not only for latency reasons but you might just want a track to sound a little more urgent by advancing it against the grid timing. I fine tune midi track timing all the time. The music can sound a lot better just for it. If you start an arrangement on bar 1 you will never hear those first notes. But by starting on measure 3 especially if you cue a bar prior you will always hear that first note if it is there. Advanced or not.
 

mixmkr
I almost always have MIDI drums, typically Toontrack, and I don't know of any of their patterns (for the most part) that don't have a *note on* on the very first hit of the measure.  I use their patterns for countoffs, and of course songs and I have never lost a note.  Same with Z3Ta2, Rapture, or DimPro...the other synths I use quite a bit.  Additionally, I will almost start a song in MIDI to create and then replace MIDI tracks if needed....so I use MIDI quite a bit and Sonar's MIDI was basically the main reason I migrated to Cakewalk.
 But...I'm the lucky guy in the studio!  :-D
 
Again... Maybe need to start a new thread to see what Cake says.  I value their opinion most on this question and am also ready to be corrected....   but then again...I'm the lucky one!!

Some of this may also be a holdover from the days when sequencers were driving external hardware. If you had program change commands and initial controllers on a lot of tracks, as well as some note-on messages and maybe even some poly aftertouch, I think a Mac Plus would not only have choked on the data, but might have needed a Heimlich Maneuver to recover.