Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

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Qman
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Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:58 pm

Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by Qman »

If I wish to use a macro to roll audio up from zero to 6 seconds in at the beginning of a music track and begin rolling audio down to zero 6 seconds prior to the end of a track, I cannot seem to find a process that will work for me. What obvious choice am I missing?
DougDbug
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Re: Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by DougDbug »

I assume you mean fade-In and fade-out? You can find those effects under Effect -> Volume. You'll need to select/highlight the 6 seconds of audio at the beginning/end before applying the effect.

A "macro" would be "Batch Processing" or the "Effect Chain Editor", but I've never used those so you'll have to look in the manual, or maybe someone else can help.

Most audio (and video) editing requires human interaction & judgement, so I've never bothered with batch automation. And... I could fade-in and fade-out 50 or more songs manually faster than I could figure out how to automate/program it. ;)

SoX is a (FREE) command line audio editor, and it might be easier to write a script for a command line program than to automate a Windows/GUI program.
Qman
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Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:58 pm

Re: Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by Qman »

OK thank you! Yes, I had an "automaton" in mind which would would split a master track of multiple cuts into individual files...no problem there using "Q" points. The problem is that each track split out from the master begins and ends with no less than 4 seconds of full-level applause at each end. I'm trying to find a way using Goldwave to process each individual file (already separated from the master) so that the applause fades up from silence to the start and the applause fades down to silence at the end and saves that file.
DougDbug
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Re: Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by DougDbug »

With a limited number of tracks, you can easily to that manually. And, you probably do want to listen to what you're doing.

This is all a matter of personal taste, but here's what i do...

I usually like a shorter applause fade-in (maybe 2 seconds) and a longer fade-out (10-15 seconds). Sometimes if the applause at the end is too short, I'll steal some applause from a different part of the show and mix it in (usually with a crossfade, etc.). I've even stolen some applause from a different show! (But, it has to sound similar.) If I'm going to mix-in applause, I usually make a separate applause file with a fade-in of about 1/2 a second (so the applause can "build" at the end of the song), a couple of seconds of constant-loudness (or whatever is there naturally) and then a long fade-out for a few (or several) seconds. By the time I'm done editing a "concert", I'll sometimes have several applause files. If I'm re-using the same applause over-and-over, I'll change the fade-times and edit-out any recognizable sounds so It's no so obvious what I'm dong. And, I'll fade-out the original applause for a smooth "blend" before mixing.

When mixing, you do have to be careful about clipping (trying to go over 0dB and distorting) so you might have to adjust the levels or sometimes you can use some dynamic compression to avoid clipping.

And if you edit the tracks separately, you don't have to "cut" the applause in the middle, you can re-use some of the same applause for the fade-out of the 1st song as the fade-in of the next song.

Sometimes I'll have 2 seconds of applause at the beginning, but fade-in for 1 or 1.5 seconds so I get to full applause-volume before the song starts. And at the end, I'll usually let it go for a couple of seconds before starting the fade-out.
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Re: Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by GoldWave Inc. »

The Batch Processing section in the manual has an example that lists steps for fades and other processing. Essentially you'd use "Add Edit" to select 6 seconds at the beginning of the file, use "Add Effect" to add a "Fade In" effect, use "Add Edit" again to select the last 6 seconds, and then use "Add Effect" to add a "Fade Out" effect.
Qman
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Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:58 pm

Re: Macro to roll audio up at beginning and down at end?

Post by Qman »

YES! That is precisely the effect I needed! Guess I should spend more time reading the manual! Thank you very much!
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