AV News 200 - May 2015
Cross Fade
There is an even simpler way to create a cross-fade. First remove the fade in
and fade out. You can do this by dragging the markers back to the corners of the
waveform. Alternatively, as an exercise in using the numerical settings, double
click one of the waveforms. Look at the settings on the right hand side and you
should see two boxes labelled Fade In and Fade Out. The values in the boxes
are simply the length of the fade in or out in seconds. To remove the fade, change
the setting to 0. As with virtually all the settings in PTE, an even quicker way to
do this is to click the description 'Fade In' or 'Fade Out'
Once you have removed
the fade in and fade out,
drag the audio clips so
they are in the same track
one after the other. Now
drag the right-hand clip to
the left so that it overlaps
the left-hand one.
In
the
overlapping
region two curved lines
appear representing the
fading out of one clip and
the fading in of the other as
can be seen in Figure 3.
Play from just before the
overlap and listen to the
result.
The effect can be quite
successful, particularly if you also adjust the ends of the two clips. However for
critical cross-fades it is better to use volume envelopes.
Volume envelope
The volume envelope allows the volume of an audio clip to be varied as it
plays. It is represented by a line across the middle of the green waveform outline.
By default the line is orange. If you can't see the line, click the Show/hide
Envelope button that has an orange zig-zag on it.
Point to the envelope line until a circle appears at the tip of the cursor arrow,
then click to create an 'Audio keypoint'. Create three more fairly close together
then drag the inner two down to the bottom of the waveform outline as shown in
the lower part of Figure 3. Play this section to hear the result.
The keypoints set the volume at that particular time. If the keypoint is at the
centre of the waveform outline, the volume is 100% of the clip volume, if at the
bottom, 0% and at the top, 200%. The volume in between is adjusted linearly as
shown by the orange line.
To remove a key point, right click it. Right click the waveform and select Clear
Audio Keypoints to remove all keypoints.
I prefer to see both halves of the audio waveform when adjusting volume
envelopes. To change this go to Settings | Preferences and click the Timeline tab.
Then change the Waveform setting to 'Mixed channels'.
Page 8