How do I do a partial fade?

Hello,

I’ve just joined to forum but have been lurking for a while. First of all, I must say that Audacity is such a great program! I used to use CoolEdit 96 many years ago, and find that Audacity does almost all of what I need.

But there is one thing that I can’t figure out how to do, and I’m hoping someone here can help me.

I have Audacity 2.0.0. on Windows 7.

I’m editing a stereo file, and want to change the level within a selection. If I create a selection, I can Amplify, or select Fade In or Fade Out, for example. But what I cannot work out how to do is do a partial fade, starting at 100% and ending, say at 50% rather than fading out to 0% of the original volume.

How does this fit into real life? Here’s an example of how I would use it. If I’m editing some classical music and I want to artificially (and manually) raise the level of a passage of music that gradually increases in volume, I might start with section A to B and amplify that by +3db. But section B to C needs to be amplified and faded to start at +3db and end at 0db (100% of the original level) so that the transition is smooth into section C to D which remains at the original level.

In CoolEdit, I would have created the selection and set the start level to 125% and end level to 100% and it’s as easy as a couple of mouse clicks. But I can’t see any easy way in Audacity - unless of course it’s right under my nose and I’ve missed the obvious!

Thanks for your help.

Audacity has the Envelope Tool, two white arrows and bent blue line.

That will give you steering rubber bands top and bottom of a track. Push the rubber bands around to change any volume to any value any time.

Crossfade example.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/CrossFade.jpg

Koz

Also try the Fade by dB plug-in ( https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/simple-plug-in-for-creating-partial-fades/16055/1 ) .

If you want % units you will have to try Text Envelope:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Text_Envelope .


Gale

Hi,

Thank you both for your fast responses, both useful. I tried the Fade by db plugin and it seems to be the easiest way of doing what I want.