Crossfades...

[TelePaul]

Hey guys, I was wondering how to set up good crossfades in SE 3? I recorded some aocustic and looped it but theres a noticeable jump when the loop comes around again....how do i set crossfades up? I know i should crossfade where the wave form levels are the same...

[noisewreck]

Well, maybe I am reading too much into it, but... by "noticeable jump" do you mean that you hear a click or it seems like there is a hiccup? Because if there is no click, then setting crossfades won't help you. You have to make sure that the loop and the project tempo match. Could you elaborate more on this please?

[Farview]

If you didn't play to a click and/or your dynamics aren't very controlled, it won't loop very well.

[TelePaul]

Originally Posted by Farview

If you didn't play to a click and/or your dynamics aren't very controlled, it won't loop very well.

No no I played to a click, simple sustained chords so its all in time. I'm trying to think of a word that best describes it....intensity maybe? Its not a hiccup...its just there! I think it could be down to the drop/difference in wavform peaks.... could this be it? It just doesn't sound very even. As for dynamics, I ran a rack mounted compressor through the sound card (this was moriginal suspicion as to why things seemed a little inconsistent at the loops, but crossfades were suggetsed to me as a necessary fix). Thanks in advance

[noisewreck]

Perhaps an audio example would help?

[TelePaul]

jeez ill see what I can do but itll sound attrocious......just coz im an attrocious player! ill try get one on the net tomorrow.

[PhiloBeddoe]

If you're going to loop something, it has to musically and dynamically have a natural transition back into itself. Otherwise, the loop just sounds like it's interrupting itself.

Hard to tell without an audio clip, but if you hear a change in intensity between the end of the phrase and beginning of the next one, something is probably wrong with the performance or arrangement.

If you're just playing sustained chords, you could just do it the old fashioned way, i.e. play the song all the way through. It will sound natural and requires no crossfades, editing, or digital magic.

[TelePaul]

Originally Posted by PhiloBeddoe

If you're going to loop something, it has to musically and dynamically have a natural transition back into itself. Otherwise, the loop just sounds like it's interrupting itself.

Hard to tell without an audio clip, but if you hear a change in intensity between the end of the phrase and beginning of the next one, something is probably wrong with the performance or arrangement.

If you're just playing sustained chords, you could just do it the old fashioned way, i.e. play the song all the way through. It will sound natural and requires no crossfades, editing, or digital magic.

Hey man i thought of that but I'm just not THAT comfortable with acoustic guitar yet...which is a pity, because the antural way is best.

[BRIEFCASEMANX]

To crossfade simply highlight the area you want the fade to happen in with the tool that looks like a box made up of dashes(the range selection tool), and then hit X.

Sort of hard to explain but there must be audio on the clip before the clip starts again for it to work correctly, if I understand you correctly about what you want to do.

Example: If you are recording the clip at 0:00-1:00 and you want to repeat that clip from again from where you started recording(0:00), it wouldn't crossfade right because there is no recorded audio before the transition you are making to start fading up. The first instance of the audio clip would start fading down before the transition point with no audio to start fading up to make the level constant. Cubase doesn't allow this. Instead it automatically constrains the crossfade to an area where 2 clips overlap. If the clips do not overlap at all(i.e. you used the punch-in and punch-out tools) then there can be no crossfade.

If you start recording a track at 0:00-1:00, but only want to use the portion between 0:05-0:55, then there are 5 seconds on both ends of the clip so that the clip can be faded back into itself with a maximum of a 10 second crossfade(not that you'd want that long of a crossfade for your purposes).

uhhhhh that was long and most likely confusing, but anyway, range select the transition between the clips and hit X. Have a nice day.