Specifications

Chapter 19: Fades and Crossfades 295
Chapter 19: Fades and Crossfades
Using Crossfades
You can quickly and easily crossfade between
two adjacent audio regions. Crossfading is the
process of fading two regions of audio to pre-
vent pops, clicks, or sudden changes in sound.
Crossfades have many applications, from
smoothing transitions between regions to creat-
ing special audio effects. The crossfade duration,
position, and shape are all user-definable.
Crossfades are computed and written to disk.
Crossfades that are written to disk are stored in a
folder named “Fade Files” within the session
folder. When you play back your track,
Pro Tools reads and plays back the crossfade file
from disk.
Pro Tools does not allow you to replace fade-ins
and fade-outs with crossfades. To add a cross-
fade between regions, any existing fade-ins and
fade-outs between the regions must first be de-
leted.
About Crossfades and Curves
To create a crossfade between two regions, use
the Selector to select across the end point of the
first region and the start point of the second.
The length of the selection determines the
length of the crossfade. Though fades may ap-
pear to be discrete regions, they cannot actually
be separated from the regions in which they
were created. You can, however, create fade-ins
and fade-outs for individual regions (see “Creat-
ing Fades at the Beginnings and Ends of Re-
gions” on page 303).
You can use the Fades dialog to select, view, and
manipulate the curves used to perform the
crossfade. Different volume curves can be as-
signed to the fade-out and fade-in portions of
crossfades. The Fades dialog can also render a
preview of the fade.
The following examples illustrate common
crossfade types, and explain how the type of se-
lection you make determines the character of
the crossfade.
Pro Tools TDM systems include an Auto
Fade feature that provides real-time fades
without processing them to disk. See “Using
AutoFades” on page 305.
Since crossfades are created by fading be-
tween overlapping audio material, a cross-
fade cannot be performed on regions that do
not contain audio material beyond their re-
gion boundaries.