#14 in the Series Pro Tools Pointers by Dave Whittaker A Short Treatise On The New And Improved (?) Version 4 Fades Window In an apparent effort to keep a step ahead of their competitors, Digidesign's software designers decided to add all sorts of features to the Fades function with Version 4. I suspect most of them are there to appeal to the music recording world, which makes up the majority of the Pro Tools market. Once you recover from the shock of all that new stuff in the Fades window, however, you will find that it's actually still the same user-friendly, flexible window as before, just dressed up in fancier duds. The types of fade ballistics (the shape of the line representing the virtual fader travel) are the same as before, and essentially all that's been added to this part of the function is the buttons in the middle that "link" the In and Out shapes, so with one click (or a macro you've written) you can get an 'Equal Power' or 'Equal Gain' type fade or dissolve (more on this below) or create a custom crossfade using the 'None' button. My favorite retained feature is that the Left and Right Arrow keys still work to toggle between the various preset fade shapes; either arrow key will cycle through the whole set and then start over again with continued keystrokes. When making dissolves in Equal Power or Equal Gain modes hold down the Control or Option keys while using the arrow keys; this simultaneously alters the Fade In and Fade Out shapes. To get a custom combination of fade shapes, select the None button. Hold down the Control key with the arrow keys to toggle through the Fade In shapes, the Option key for Fade Out. The Up and Down Arrow keys toggle between the Equal Power, Equal Gain, and the None buttons in the "Link" box. 'Equal Power' crossfades are designed for marrying material with little "phase coherency", which is how an audio engineer might characterize production tracks and most sound effects. "Phase coherency" means the material is so similar in waveform shape that the sound will "pile up" when crossfaded and create a "bump" in loudness; this characterizes some types of music, especially individual instruments, and 'Equal Gain' is designed for this situation. If you've cut a fair amount of dialogue or backgrounds with Pro Tools you've probably already discovered that Equal Power is most often the best choice. But often I find myself using all sorts of custom combinations to better tailor the crossfade to the material. If you haven't experimented much yet with different fade combinations I urge you to take a few minutes to try them out; it's worth your time. Altering the fade shapes using Control and Option with the Arrow keys sends the Fades window into Preset fade shape mode. But Standard and S-Curve modes allow the user to alter the curve by clicking and dragging on the curve itself. Try this out to get a feel for it. Making dissolves in the None link mode you can alter the Fade In and Fade Out curves individually using the Option or Command keys; you can even move the start and finish points on a curve by clicking and dragging on the little black box at the end of each curve! Take note that the fade shapes that Pro Tools will draw in your session is dependent on whatever shapes are showing in the small Preset fades windows; the software doesn't look to the large Fade display window for this information. That is why fades will often display a different shape in your session than the shape you selected using the Equal Power or Equal Gain buttons in the Standard mode. It's annoying, and perhaps someday someone at Digidesign will work on this oversight in the programming. Tips and reader feedback to this column are most welcome. Contact Dave Whittaker via email.   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 19, No. 3 - May/June 1998   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776