Professional sounding fade out.

[steve]

@waxcylinder

I do realize that users may expect to see the complementary pro-fade-in.

For fading in, I’ll sometimes use the “cross-fade in”, sometimes a linear fade, and sometimes a repeated linear fade.
The choice depends on context (the type of material and where in the material the fade is being applied.

A bit of background to fade effects:

A fade is created by scaling the audio by a ramp function, so for a linear fade in,
The start is scaled (multiplied) by a factor of 0 (producing silence),
25% of the way through the selection the audio is scaled by 25%
50% of the way through the selection the audio is scaled by 50%
75% of the way through the selection the audio is scaled by75%
The end of the fade is scaled by 1 (no change).

The “Cross-fade in” effect provides non-linear scaling.
The formula for the cross-fade in effect is the “square root of a linear fade”. In other words, the audio is scaled by a ramp function to the power of 1/2.

If a linear fade in is applied twice, that is performing scaling equivalent to a ramp function to the power of 2.

If a linear fade in is applied three times, that is performing scaling equivalent to a ramp function to the power of 3.

You probably see a pattern here.

So perhaps a “Pro Fade In” could be a “Power Fade”, in which there is a “power” control.
At a “power” setting of 0.5, a fade the same shape as “Cross-Fade In” would be produced.
At a power setting of 1 a linear fade would be produced.
At a power setting of 2 the fade would be the same as applying a linear fade twice.
etc.

The extreme setting of “power = 0”, there is no fade, the audio is unaffected.

So the greater the “power” of the fade, the more the faded audio is attenuated (which seems logical even without considering the mathematical basis).
power-fade-in.ny (836 Bytes)
The obvious question here is, what about a “power fade out”?

I still think that we need a “partial fade” effect.
(I certainly need one and so does whbjr)

[whbjr]

@steve

So perhaps a “Pro Fade In” could be a “Power Fade”, in which there is a “power” control.

True, but that really needs to be a logarithmic scale - yuck. (Setting it to 1 vs 2 produces very different results, but 19 vs 20 produces virtually the same result.)

@steve

I still think that we need a “partial fade” effect.
(I certainly need one and so does whbjr)

True - and thanks!

[steve]

@whbjr

but that really needs to be a logarithmic scale - yuck.

I see no reason why it has to be a logarithmic scale, especially if some other scale is more useful.
“Power” in this context refers to the “power of the fade”, so it is logically and mathematically correct .

There’s a danger of this topic drifting off topic so just a reminder that this topic is about the “Professional sounding fade out”.

@whbrj I’ll send you a full-featured “power fade” to try. Check your private messages (near the top left of the forum page).

[Gale_Andrews]

@steve

I still think that we need a “partial fade” effect.

Totally agree. But we also lack a multi-point text envelope (despite claiming to be an accessible app) and lack Cross-Fade, and we can’t have endless multiple effects that do similar things to different degrees of complexity.

If you are arguing that the built-in one step Fade In and Fade Out should be pro-shape rather than linear, and people who want a linear fade should use some interface effect under the divider, I think that would be supportable too. I suspect few people actually use Cross Fade In and Cross Fade Out, but would appreciate a more musical one step Fade In.



Gale

[steve]

I think that the (above the line) one-step fade-in fade-out effects are indispensable. They provide simple, general purpose fade effects that are suitable for almost any situation where a fade to or from silence is required (though not necessarily the ideal fade type in every situation situation).

The “Pro Fade Out” effect provides a type of fade-out that is specifically designed for the very common task of fading out music. In my opinion, for this task it gives a more pleasing (more “professional” sounding) result than a linear fade.

Perhaps the salient questions here are:

1. Is “Pro Fade Out” sufficiently better than a linear fade to warrant a place in the standard Audacity distribution?
2. Is fading out music a sufficiently common task for Pro Fade Out to warrant a place as a shipped effect?

@Gale Andrews

we also lack a multi-point text envelope

There is one available on the wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Text_Envelope

[steve]

Discussion about the broader question of shipped effects split to here: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/audacity-fade-effects/25544/1

Perhaps that broader question needs to be answered before a decision can be made regarding whether or not to ship “Pro Fade Out”, but on its own merits I think that Pro Fade Out would be a useful addition to Audacity.

[waxcylinder]

@steve

… on its own merits I think that Pro Fade Out would be a useful addition to Audacity.

+1 BUMP

The more I use this effect the more I like it - and what I like about it (apart from the excellent “musical” fade) is it’s pure simplicity with no parameters to consider or set: choose length of fade, select and go - job done.

I would be loath to see this lovely simple tool get tangled up in a complex fade tool where fade-type/shape were selectable. But note that this does not preclude us also having a complex fade tool.

So just what do we need to do to get it incorporated into mainstream Audacity
It would be good to strive to get it ready for 2.0.3 methinks …

Peter.

[steve]

Topic split to here: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/adjustable-fade/26147/1

[Edgar]

@steve

Nyquist can’t distinguish the difference between white space and silence.
I think that most folk assume (like you) that the selection needs to go to the end of the track for all fades, even the Audacity fade, so it’s not really a problem.
There is a slight plus side to the behaviour in that if the user wants the fade-out to end more abruptly they can do so by selecting a little way past the end of the track.
On balance I think “keep it simple”.

In the case of prolonged applause after the music ends (the most common use of fade out for me) I like that I can select (even if I need to generate some extra) about 5 seconds of silence so the fade out is NOT to zero. In fact I was going to ask Steve to craft a fade out with a user option to do just this!

[steve]

Topic split here for the new “Programmable” Pro Fade : https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/pro-grammable-fade/27364/1

[waxcylinder]

I note that Richard Ash has recently committed Steve’s Pro Fade Out as patch r12059 - so it should be shortly be available in an Alpha build of Audacity.

The name that Richard has bestowed upon it leaves some room for improvement imo - he wrote on the devel email list:

"I have now committed this, named “One-click Fade out” because that is
unambiguously what it does. It seems to work OK on a few random tracks
I tried it on.

If we agree to call it something else, it doesn’t take much to commit
the change."

Gale has already pointed out on devel that this nomenclature could cause confusion with the existing linear Fade Out which is also a one-click effect and makes a fade out.

Peter

[DJ_Kytrooper]

I dont remember which one said it, but about the “can it fade in?” thing… Can’t you just select the first 3 or watever seconds of audio, reverse it, apply the fade out, then reverse it back? (I haven’t tested this yet because Audacity isn’t opening because of a VST - Rescan issue, but it sounds pretty logical)

[waxcylinder]

Yes you should be able to do that - but you may find it easier to apply the existing (linear) Fade In a few times, which will give you a shaped fade. I usually use
x3 Fade In - very easy to apply as I have set a keyboard shortcut for Fade In (I use ALT + left-arrow).

3 seconds is quite a long time for a fade-in, I usually fade-in over a fraction of a second.

WC

[DJ_Kytrooper]

If you mean the fade in that comes with Audacity… when i do that more than once it sounds good but usually it completely obliterates half of the selected audio. Not very good if you want it to get louder at a certain rate… unless you practice so nevermind but still… let’s say the audio is like l~~~~~~~~~~~l (~ equals loud equals soft blank equals no audio) first fade in l~~~~~~~~~~l second l ``~~~~~~~~~l third l ``````~~~~~~~l
or is that not normal?

[waxcylinder]

I think you may be missing the point - it’s: select a short bit of audio fade-in, fade-in and fade-in again - all on the originally selected piece of audio

WC

[waxcylinder]

Anyone who has been following this thread will be pleased to know that the Pro Fade has been committed as part of future Audacity releases. It is released under the name “Studio Fade Out”. It is already available for test in the alpha nighlties (it hit the 1Jan13 alpha release) - and will be in the upcoming 2.0.3 release.

Also committed at the same time was Steve’s Adjustable Fade - and Bass and Treble which replacess Bass Boost.

A big vote of thanks to Steve for developing these fades - an extremely useful addition to the Audacity toolkit for many of us.

Peter.

[steve]

Topic moved to the archive.

Attached is the version that will be included with Audacity 2.0.3:
StudioFadeOut.ny (1.35 KB)

[DJ_Kytrooper]

Oh okay I see… yeah you’re right. I’ve been thinking… I wanted the Pro-Fade reversed to fade in the low frequencies a little faster than the middle and high frequencies, much in the same way that a normal Pro-Fade fade out fades the low and then the rest. But reversed would do the opposite of what I wanted. Is there a way to fade in that brings low-frequencies faster? (applying a normal fade in 3 times doesn’t do it)

[whbjr]

@waxcylinder

A big vote of thanks to Steve for developing these fades - an extremely useful addition to the Audacity toolkit for many of us.

YES! Thanks, Steve - rest assured that I’m looking forward to using this very-necessary tool!

• Win

[Gale_Andrews]

@DJ Kytrooper

Is there a way to fade in that brings low-frequencies faster?

That could be Studio Fade In, but I think Steve feels people have a variety of requirements from a fade in and that it would be better if the one-click-musical-fade-in to be applied could be chosen in a configuration tool.

Did you vote for a Musical Fade In https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/new-fade-effects-poll/27218/1 ?

I don’t know where the topic for Musical Fade In has gone now.


Gale