CROSSFADES for audio regions, please

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:54 pm

Yes please. I'd use this when comping guitar parts together, a configurable crossfade option can go a long way towards smoothing edits out.

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:29 pm

mauve wrote:I often get a pop at the cut despite Live "taking care of it".

true...its especially apparent when using delays and reverbs, these really accentuate any problems with clicks. but in all my years with live, i've always found a simple resolution (turn of grid and manually adjust the start/end of a clip for example).

i've been trying to think of a tidy solution, but can't come up with anything easy. maybe if you could set live's fade length by contextual menu click on the fade button...it could give you options for length of fade (separate for the beginning and end of a clip). the problem with this is how that setting is reflected when two crossfaded clips are separated...does the 'crossfade' reappear as the same length when the clip is touching a new clip? it could get ugly real quick.

the problem i'm seeing with using crossfade "regions" as in other daws, is how do those regions reflect themselves as clips, since one of the essential structural components of live is that the clips are self contained. for example, what would happen if you drag a clip with a crossfade from the arrange view to a slot in session? i crossfade represents the specific circumstance of how two clips relate to each other, and off the top of my head i can't think of anywhere else in live where such a circumstance exists.

fwiw, i'm just trying to come up with some ideas for solutions. ableton generally seems more open to feature suggestions when you can provide an elegant solution that fits their way of working.

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:33 pm

Tarekith wrote:Yes please. I'd use this when comping guitar parts together, a configurable crossfade option can go a long way towards smoothing edits out.

yeah the more i think about this, the more it seems that a menu with in/out fade length options that is accessible via a contextual menu click of the fade button would be the way to go. maybe a default fade length could be set in preferences, and then you can customize beyond that clip by clip. can anyone see any problems with this?

Toonman · Post by **Toonman** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:25 pm

+1!! This is a basic workflow tool... pleaseeee!

paveloso · Post by **paveloso** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 5:43 pm

scientist wrote: yeah the more i think about this, the more it seems that a menu with in/out fade length options that is accessible via a contextual menu click of the fade button would be the way to go. maybe a default fade length could be set in preferences, and then you can customize beyond that clip by clip. can anyone see any problems with this?

I'd prefer just "drawing" fades (as in click-highlight region[s], hit Ctrl+F) in the arrangement window. A default length would be of no use when comping a final vocal, for instance. It would be a pain to open a menu each and every single time you need a specific length... it reminds me of your Pro Tools nightmares!!

In my opinion, Live's default fading in clips PLUS the ability to freely draw fades would be a killer combo.

Also, fades in the arrangement need not have a direct translation into the session view. The two views are very different beasts!

If you drag a clip into the session view, the crossfade might as well just be excluded, as it would have no relevance to ANY adjacent clips, except the one it crossfades with.

What do you think? How does that sound?

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:38 am

that would definitely be the best way. what i'm worried about is whether live can actually do it. in a static situation it works perfectly, but there are circumstances where it could get squirrelly...for example how it exists now is if you have track automation on top of a clip in arrange view and then move the clip, it moves the track automation along with it. so what happens when you move a single clip that has fade automation...does it just delete the fade automation? do you get a warning dialogue? are the 'fades' separate files (like in protools)? what happens when you attempt a fade on a clip that ends before the fade length?
features like this (and surround sound support, and quicktime support) are more utlilitarian and boring...if a convincing argument can be given along with the feature request, i think they tend to be more willing to put it on the to do list. they actually said as much when they put in quicktime support, saying it was actually pretty easy to implement once they knew how they were going to do it.

paveloso · Post by **paveloso** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:52 pm

Let's see... I'm no developer, but here are some ideas, anyway...

scientist wrote:... what happens when you move a single clip that has fade automation...does it just delete the fade automation? do you get a warning dialogue?

How about this? If it's a fade-in or fade-out, move it as an intrinsic part of the clip. If it is a crossfade (and therefore related to other adjacent clips in a particular point of the composition), delete it (as it will very probably no longer be relevant in the clip's new location).

However, if you move together two or more clips that are crossfaded, do keep the crossfades.

That behavior would be the most predictable and intuitive, no?

scientist wrote: ... are the 'fades' separate files (like in protools)?

I don't ever touch fade files in PT for anything... If Live needs to create them or not, I don't think it'd make a difference to users.

scientist wrote: what happens when you attempt a fade on a clip that ends before the fade length?

That's exactly the way you create a fade-out! Highlight the end of the clip and part of the silence after it... "sound fades into silence" logic.

Fade-ins, then, are the exact opposite: highlight a bit of silence before the clip and part of the clip itself.

The principle is equal to that of crossfades, but instead of crossfading two clips, fade-ins and -outs crossfade a clip and silence. Do I put my logic across?

scientist wrote: ...features like this (and surround sound support, and quicktime support) are more utlilitarian and boring...

Indeed. In other words, get the basics down, and then add the bells and whistles!

scientist wrote:... if a convincing argument can be given along with the feature request, i think they tend to be more willing to put it on the to do list...

I can only speak for myself, but I know I'm not alone (there are multiple threads here with this request!).

My music is seldom loop-based. I usually compose and record in a linear flow, so I frequently do comping of multiple instrumental or vocal takes, and in as much detail as this:

Say I have a line that says "I miss you so much...". What if I like the "I" from take one, but I think the "miss you" is better in take two, and I love the feel of the "much" in yet another take?

Without crossfades, it's a pain in the back side to put this together properly, without clicks, pops and obvious edit points all over the place.

Man, I want crossfades!!

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:05 pm

yeah good stuff...the way you lay it out it looks do-able in a reasonably easy manner too. on a side note, this would integrate perfectly with another popular feature request: group-able/collapsable tracks. you can have a main vocal track crossfaded up and down, and then have a bunch of alternate take tracks, grouped and hidden so you don't have to look at them unless you want to grab some bits and pieces.

paveloso · Post by **paveloso** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:34 pm

scientist wrote:yeah good stuff...the way you lay it out it looks do-able in a reasonably easy manner too...

Hope Ableton agrees!

laird · Post by **laird** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:08 pm

Back in 2002, Ableton said
"As for the 'lead-out', something is going to be in there soon to solve this, and other problems in a very nice and general way "

referring to when someone asked for a "clip lead-out feature", letting one clip continue to fade out even though another clip had been triggered on that track.

Which smells like a (single track) crossfade to me.
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... e51a058575

But that was in 2002.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:10 pm

ableton generally seems more open to feature suggestions when you can provide an elegant solution that fits their way of working.

What about this for a solution:

Click on a specified location somewhere at the boundary then drag up or down to increase/decrease the crossfade length. The cursor could change to an appropriate icon/symbol when you hover over the specified boundary location (just like the zooming in the ruler). Also, right-clicking while hovering at the specified location would give the user a dropdown of predefined crossfade curves (like for the a/b crossfader in Live 6).

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:10 pm

When you click and drag you could actually see the crossfade get longer or shorter. And you could go back and change it by simply clicking and dragging again (way better than selecting and cmd+F in protools because you have to delete the fade to change it - this way you can).

Ableton already does the crossfade for you, but being able to quickly increase the length (and change the fade type) would be amazing.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:18 pm

Hovering at the bottom of a clip at a boundary could be for the trimmer tool.
Hovering at the top of a clip at a boundary could be for the crossfade tool.

Also, to make it easier, they could expand upon another feature already in Live:

It would be sick if each "hover tool" could be used independent of hover location via a modifier key (e.g. zoom tool = shift+z+click/drag, trim tool = shift+c+click/drag, proposed crossfade tool = shift+x+click/drag, etc.). Allowing access to multiple tools from any cursor location in the arrangement would really improve Live's workflow. This is already used for the grab tool (ctrl+alt changes the cursor into the grabber).

A key combo for the scrubber would be awesome too (shift+s+click)...

What the key combos are isn't important, just that they exist...

paveloso · Post by **paveloso** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:38 pm

Cool stuff.

photonicrecords wrote:When you click and drag you could actually see the crossfade get longer or shorter.

Yes, but how do you control how much longer or shorter it gets to each side of the click point? Does it necessarily grow in a symmetric manner?

photonicrecords wrote:And you could go back and change it by simply clicking and dragging again (way better than selecting and cmd+F in protools because you have to delete the fade to change it - this way you can).

Or maybe you could just change it the way you change an audio region: click and drag its borders to the left or right.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:54 pm

Yeah, the overlapping ends of each clip could be semi-translucent so that you could see (and trim - longer or shorter) the ends of each clip. Basically the trim tool would work the same way it does now, except that the clips would be overlapping instead of bookended. If you click and drag (in the specified location, it would change symmetrically). If you use the trimmer tool it would only change the distance betweeen the end of the clip you are adjusting and the center of the original crossfade. In other words, using the trimmer tool, you could adjust each side of the crossfade however you like.