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6 Replies Last post: Oct 28, 2008 3:02 PM by swaller

How to Crossfade over Time

Jun 28, 2008 11:24 PM

Click to view SoundPro's profile SoundPro 9 posts since
Jun 24, 2008

One of my clients who does museum systems was asking me if I knew a way in Audia and Nexia to automatically crossfade from background music to program music. He wants to send one command from his show controller, and have the Audia or Nexia perform the crossfade. Further, he wanted to be able to select at least three crossfade times, e.g. a rapid crossfade for program-start, and a slower crossfade to resume background music after the show.

There's not a specific object named Crossfader, but I started playing with an object called Level Inc/Dec, in the Controls tool group. This object takes logic inputs for incrementing and decrementing the level of whatever is passing through it. I was able to get this object to do exactly what I want. Then attached PDF takes you through my discovery and the refinements I made to fine tune the "circuit" to my client's needs.

I know I'm not the first person to do crossfading using Nexia and Audia. Does anybody else have further insight to share on this function?

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Click to view HST's profile HST 86 posts since
Jan 22, 2008
1. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Jun 29, 2008 12:16 AM

Hello!


Thanks for the info. I also used Duckers as a poor-mans-crossfader. When you play a little with the timing of two or more faders and your expectations are not too high it might work out with very little effort.

Bye

HST

Click to view MBonsoir's profile MBonsoir 20 posts since
Jan 15, 2008
2. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Jun 30, 2008 9:20 AM
in response to: HST

Hello Soundpro:


That's a really interesting document you created. Congratulations, and thanks for sharing.

As HST pointed out, using a pair of Duckers can also do the trick in certain situations. I'm attaching a simple example file to show how that works. In there, you can also see another way of using the INC/DEC blocks, keeping their min level to a manageable range, and then muting the signal once it has gone low enough for the muting effect not to be too audible. I know it has been implemented that way in a few places, and seems to work fine.

Of course, not a single method can fit all applications, and you will always need to fine tune the settings for them to work as you desire.

I hope this helps.


Martin

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Click to view SoundPro's profile SoundPro 9 posts since
Jun 24, 2008
3. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Jun 30, 2008 10:00 PM
Thanks, guys. I loved the twin duckers approach. You really have your duckers-in-a-row!
Click to view kevinz's profile kevinz 2 posts since
Jul 31, 2008
4. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Jul 31, 2008 12:55 PM
in response to: SoundPro
I have done something like this purely with audio as a control signal. Imagine a pink noise generator that ran through a ducker, then a mixer, then through an audio delay, and looped back to the mixer. By adjusting the delay you could affect how quuckly the pink noise level 'built up' and thus the delay time until the threshhold was reached on the ducker. Of course the ducker trigger was not mixed in with the program. I have never tried this on a Biamp.
Click to view AVDocumentSolutions's profile AVDocumentSolutions 14 posts since
Sep 23, 2008
5. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Sep 23, 2008 2:42 PM
in response to: kevinz

Kevin,

That's a good idea, in the "real" world. However, Biamp seeks out and prohibits feedback loops when the file is compiled. I've tried several tricks to work around this "feature" for other needs, but the compiler doesn't play. I just thought I'd share that...my last battle with the compiler was just last week. I'm still licking my perverbial wounds!

Good luck!

James Shaffer,

AV Document Solutions

Click to view swaller's profile swaller 7 posts since
Feb 13, 2008
6. Re: How to Crossfade over Time Oct 28, 2008 3:02 PM

Hi

I know your post was a while ago, but I thought this file might be useful, it uses logic to do the crossfade so no need for the duckers.


Hope it helps.


Scott

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