fade problem

R

Rusty K

New member
Hello,

Newbie question.

I'm trying to create a fade at the end of a region but the Edit/Fade option is grayed out. If I select a section of the region Edit/Fades is grayed. If I just set the cursor to a start position Edit/Fades comes back but only Fade to Start and Fade to End. The manual is vague. What am I missing?

Also what is the dither option all about on fades?

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
This server is rediculous.....! Sorry about the triple post.

How do I delete two of these tread posts...?

Rusty K
 
The selection must extend to the exact
end of the region or a blank area after the region
in the track.
Click to expand...

That's from the manual....so I have to "trim" the track before I can fade out?

Rusty K
 
If you're trying to fade a clip at the end, make a selection from the point you want to start the fade, to anywhere after the clip. Hit "F".
 
Yes but I want a shorter fade than that....so trim down first? And what of the dither option? I don't get why dither is appied here.

Rusty K
 
...


Then zoom the fuck in.


*Edit:

"Very quiet sounds may not be represented at all in your final, low resolution audio, and are therefore lost, the same way that numbers between 0 and .5 are "lost" when rounded. With dither, however, the quiet sounds can be combined with dither 'sounds', to keep them audible. This means that dither actually increases the dynamic range of your audio, so well-done dither can retain detail in the signal that would otherwise be lost.

Some people simply do not believe this: after all, it seems like a contradiction to add noise to a signal and actually improve its dynamic range, but it's true. To demonstrate this, here are two 8-bit audio clips of a song with a linear fade-out. They were both produced from the same source, but the second one has been correctly dithered, and as a result the song is audible longer and the fade is smoother" (http://www.xowave.com/doc/recording/dither.shtml)
 
What does zoom have to do with the length of the fade? I want to fade the end of audio not the blank space at the end of my track. Edit/Fades/Fade to end goes all the way to the end of the track. Edit/Fades/Create is grayed and I can't figure out why. I've made the selection of the area that I want faded.....unless, again from the manual "The selection must extend to the exact end of the region or a blank area after the region in the track." The only way this will work on my track it to trim down the track to the end of actual audio. This doesn't seem right.

And yes I understand the concept of dither at the end of processing but not at this point on a fade? I'm a newbie to PT not digital recording. All I could hear from those 8 bit clips was distortion.

Rusty K
 
Last edited:
Ummmmm I trimmed and got a fade that I think will work. So if I wanted a steeper fade from this point I would have to trim again and apply another fade?

How does a fade change "resolution" requiring dither?

Rusty K
 
I'm sorry for my immediately condescending reaction, I just got sick for the second time in a month and haven't been sleeping well! :/ My honest apologies. You didn't deserve to get yelled at, and I'm in no position to be a jerk about stuff I learned about a few short years ago and am nowhere near mastering myself!



Rusty K said:
..unless, again from the manual "The selection must extend to the exact end of the region or a blank area after the region in the track." The only way this will work on my track it to trim down the track to the end of actual audio. This doesn't seem right.
Click to expand...
What part of this doesn't seem right? A fade is a non-permanent edit to a region. The alternate method would be to fade the track volume down (which is actually quite different from applying a fade to a region). To do this, you'll need to apply a track automation (look it up as I'm sure it'll do a WAY better job of explaining it than I could ever hope to haha).

Rusty K said:
Ummmmm I trimmed and got a fade that I think will work. So if I wanted a steeper fade from this point I would have to trim again and apply another fade?
Click to expand...
It depends on how you define "steep". If you want the fade to go to zero earlier, trim the fade until the desired length is achieved. If you want to fade steeper, but still have it end at the same time, double-click on the fade and it will give you a bunch of different options for types of fades, as well as a large click-able window that lets you physically alter the fade's characteristics a bit.

Rusty K said:
How does a fade change "resolution" requiring dither?
Click to expand...
I believe (don't quote me on this one) when you reduce the volume, you're reducing the resolution as the difference between loud and quiet gets smaller and smaller as the fade fades.
 
First, no problem with your other post...

What part of this doesn't seem right? A fade is a non-permanent edit to a region. The alternate method would be to fade the track volume down (which is actually quite different from applying a fade to a region). To do this, you'll need to apply a track automation (look it up as I'm sure it'll do a WAY better job of explaining it than I could ever hope to haha).
Click to expand...

It's probably just me not being used to PT and the way it never does destructive processing to the original track. It requires some new thinking.

It depends on how you define "steep". If you want the fade to go to zero earlier, trim the fade until the desired length is achieved. If you want to fade steeper, but still have it end at the same time, double-click on the fade and it will give you a bunch of different options for types of fades, as well as a large click-able window that lets you physically alter the fade's characteristics a bit.
Click to expand...

Yes I used the window and used the steepest I could get. My problem was that I had some click track bleed from my headphones that was trailing off on an acoustic guitar track. I don't hear it now so that is good but it didn't seem appropriate to dither since I didn't want that part of the audio to be more audible.

I believe (don't quote me on this one) when you reduce the volume, you're reducing the resolution as the difference between loud and quiet gets smaller and smaller as the fade fades.
Click to expand...

I would like to know more about this. I realize this is dithering just a small segement of a track but it's hard to understand the concept of adding dither and then adding dither again when I go to CD. It must have to do with using an algorithm instead of a fader.

Thanks for you time. I really appreciate it. I hope you get to feeling better.

Rusty K
 
Last edited:
To my knowledge, nothing about fades is destructive and can't be undone with just a few mouse clicks.

Here's what you do. Use the trim tool, probably in slip mode, and just trim the song to where you want the fade to end. Now highlight from where you want the fade to start to the end of your region. Hit command-f to bring the fades dialog up, and now you can play with the fade curve and listen to different curves. Find the one you like, and you're done! It'll temporarily "process" the region with the fadeout, but you can always just click on the fade and hit delete to get rid of it (without deleting the audio) and use the trim tool to trim back out to before you edited it.
 
Dax P,

I don't yet know anything about "modes". My usual system is to launch into my project and keep going till I hit a snag. Then I check out the manual and after that, if I can't figure it out, I come here. I guess "modes" is next? I did get this fade done though.

Thanks,

Rusty K
 
The tool with "the hand" at the top of your edit window is what you will use the most when editing. If you click on the small bar underneath it, the hand becomes a multi-tool. Depending on where you hover the cursor in the region, you have control over fade, spot, trim, etc. Holding the cursor at the top of the region will produce one tool, at the bottom another tool, at the upper right corner a fade tool, etc.

Playing with the modes (left end of top of edit screen) will give you an idea of what happens when you delete or cut and paste, etc. For example, in one mode when you delete a section from the center of a track it will leave a blank area where that section orginally was. In another mode, it will slip the two remaing sections together. Just play around with the different modes and you'll get the idea.

-Kev
 
Kev7555,

Thanks for the tips. So far everything with PT is very user friendly and much easier to negotiate than my old multitrack software. It's just the learning curve that I need to negotiate now. I appreciate the pointers.

Rusty K
 
I'm a newbie too, Rusty. Just started using it one year ago. I don't even know the correct terms for all the tools, but I am familiar with the look of the edit window and have found my way into getting it to do what I wish it to do.

It also helps having a pro engineer as my best friend, so I am often on the phone getting the benefit of his extensive years with the program.

It is very user friendly. I guess the best tip I can give anyone (as if I'm any help to most, looking around this Pro Tools section, most everyone here knows more about it then I do) is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. You can do most anything from the keyboard and it's a lot faster that way. I'm assuming you have documentation with your Pro Tools. If not, go to DIGIdesign and download all the read me stuff you can find. It's worth it.

Cheers!

-Kev
 
Hey Rusty, back to the original theme of your thread, the fades.

I don't know if you resolved this original issue, but here is my take on it...

If you're talking about a final fade on the end of the tune, I find it easiest for cleanliness sake to trim all the regions at the end of the tracks to where they end roughly in the same place, then place your fades on what needs them. Obviously, not every track is going to need to fade, but ones with droning or ringing endings need to go together (generally speaking) unless one or more items should stick out of the mix. I like to fade off ringing electric and acoustic guitars, bass and any room mics that add noise to the "drift off" of the ending.

I am not an engineer, just a self-taught musician who got sick and tired of the drummer not knowing what he was supposed to play, and got tired of spending multiple days trying to get a good track out of someone else, when I can spend one hour doing it track by track myself and getting what I heard in my head to begin with.

Anyway, what you heard already has been good advice. Make a seperate region at the end of each track you wish to fade and try to keep them close to the same grids for each. I use fades more often for cleaning up the end of the song then for actually fading instruments down while they are still playing, so my methods are likely to be a bit more simple. Having said that, I think the same rules may apply anyway, just longer fades for actual fade out endings and shorter fades for cleaning the noise and ringing notes off of the end of a track.

There are multiple parameters available in protools to alter fades (and even cross-fades) but I find the most direct tool to be "the hand". Once you have created a seperate "fade region", simply use "the hand" to hover the cursor over the upper right corner of the region and the hand will turn into a fade icon. Just click and voila, your region has a direct top left corner to bottom right corner fade. You can make it longer or shorter by simply extending the length of the region and doing the same thing.

For simple fades this is the most direct method. It's a lot faster then going into the edit, fades, etc. Do it all with the mouse and the cursor.

Hope I have been of some kind of help.

-Kev
 
kev7555,

Ummmm I guess I still have some learning to do about fades. I just hit a snag tonight. The Fade section of the manual is vague and it was only through trying a keyboard shortcut was I able to make any progress. I can't make any sense of the "Audition" button. It plays back from before my cursor point and drops off drastically so that I'm not really sure what I'm hearing. The hand tool is something I need to figure out. I'm going to try your method. I'll report back.

I've got some noise (I'm accustomed to using noise reduction but haven't gotten there yet with PT) on then end of a track and bleed again. I'm really surprised that my headphones are bleeding a click track that much.

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
Update

Kev7555,

Excellent results! Very easy that way and I did discover that grouped tracks are all faded if they are trimmed evenly. I do have one remaining question on this however...that is, I seem to have several seconds of track left on the end of my bounce to disk. I don't understand where this extra time came from since I trimmed each track to just the end of fade. Also since I've converted to 16bit and dithered is further trimming considered "processing"? In other words will more trimming affect the file/audio adversely at this point?

Thanks again,
Rusty K
 
Don't worry about the extra time at the end or beginning of a bounce. Simply use your mouse to highlight all of the tracks from where you wish to begin all the way to where you wish to end.

Then the bounce will contain only what you have highlighted.

-Kev
 
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