Feature Request Question...

[O.G. Killa]

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if PT ver. 6 was going to have the ability to do Asymmetrical Crossfades??If ver. 6 can't, I think it should be noted as a feature request.

What is asymmetrical crossfades, you ask? In PT, when you do a crossfade, the fade-out and fade-in times are identical (symmetrical). Now, what if you needed a long fade-out and a short fade-in. You can't do it (or at least I have not been able to figure out a way to do it). You need to create new tracks and have the fade-out on one track and the fade-in on the other.

I do a lot of work editing orchestral pieces for TV and film. What happens to me a lot is that I need to have a long fade out to keep the ambience of the last note I am crossfading on, but I need to have a quick fade-in for the next section so it sounds like the orchestra started playing the next section of music naturally.

I need asymmetrical fades a lot when editing Jazz material too. For example, the ride cymbal needs to ring out even though I am cutting into a section that has no ride cymbal. When using symmetrical fades you can hear the edit because the cymbal gets choked and is no longer ringing in the ambient mics.

I have come up with work arounds but it uses up voices in PT (sometimes a lot depending on how many tracks the project has). Every other program I have used can do Asymmetrical Fades (won't mention any names). I think if Digidesign hasn't added it for ver. 6, they should consider it. I'm amazed nobody has run into this problem. I have been looking through a lot of the posts and nobody seems to mention this at all. Has anyone else encounted this? Do you think its a problem? Am I the only one?

[Redbeard]

You can do asymetrical crossfades currently in ProTools. Not in front of my system right now, so I can't tell you exactly the steps.

From memory; Use command F, turn link off. Or double-click on existing fade and turn link off. Then manually adjust timing by grabbing small black squares at top edges of fade lines.

[O.G. Killa]

Hmmmm....I had tried doing that before and it didn't work...I'll try it again.

Thanks.

[citysoundman]

Hey - you must be a relatively new PT user. Before v.5, you had to select the fade regions manually - no smart tool!

So, Instead of using the smart tool, which does symetrical fades, select the region to be faded and type command-F. (select both the in and out portions in a single selection.)

[O.G. Killa]

Ahhh...found out what my problem is. I would do everything right except for when I would go to grab the black square... I wasn't exactly on the square. When I changed my screen resolution I was able to figure it out. If you click on the line, both fades change their type symmetrically w/o changing any start times. My screen resolution is kinda high and what looked like the mouse over the square was actually a little bit off.

Its funny too, because I brought this up with a digidesign rep at a demo of HD a few months ago and he was having the same problem as me and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work either.

Thanks for the advice.

Peace.