WTF and I looking at? a/k/a the Fade Editor Window

[StephenMarsh]

New to Pyramix - can anyone put logic to this fade editor window for me? Is there any way to actually SEE the fade shape and envelope or is guessing the recommended method?

[fl]

The Fade Editor Tab/Window is described in the manual starting on page 191, but you've probably already discovered that. There may a number of reasons why you cannot view what you wish depending on how you are viewing things so I'm going to have to guess.

By default, when you call the Fade Editor, the Tab at the bottom opens, but only far enough for you to see the various slider controls, and not the graphic representation of the crossfade. You can hover the mouse pointer over the top edge of the Tab and drag it upwards to reveal the rest of the contents OR, you can do what I prefer to do which is to call the Fade Editor a second time, which will open it into its own window. This can be re-sized to occupy your whole monitor if you wish.

Now you should be able to see the crossfade, but in case you can't, it may be because you haven't zoomed in sufficiently, or it may simply be a case where there is no crossfade at all - it's a butt splice. If you wish to have a crossfade, a quick, easy way to get started is to click on the "X-ify" icon at the top of the window, ninth from the left. This will apply a default 5 ms. crossfade to your material, which you can now tweeze to your heart's content.

Fade shape can be determined by selecting one of the preset shapes from the "X Presets" section over on the right side, or can be modified by hand by dragging the spline curve controllers in the actual fade graphic. You can slide the media, the crossfade and change the length with the mouse or with the associated control sliders at the bottom.

Note that any changes you make in this window are immediately applied to your material in the main Timeline, even though it may be out of sight at the moment. When you're done, you can click on the "Thumbs Up" icon to indicate that you're satisfied with what you've done and the window will revert to being an opened Tab, which then needs to be closed by clicking on its "Map Pin" icon in the upper right corner (so it changes from vertical to horizontal). If this is too fussy for you, as it is for me, when you're finished in the Fade Editor window, just click on the window closer ("X" icon, upper right) to close the window directly without having to go back through the Tab. I only use the "Thumbs" icon when I need to use the "Thumbs Down" choice, when I've made a mess of things. The rest of the time, I use the Window closer, which means that the next time I call the Fade Editor, it opens to the window directly.

Note also that the edit displayed in the Fade Editor will be the one that is on the left edge of the selected clip in the timeline - you want to make sure that you are adjusting the correct crossfade you intend. You can jump from one edit to the next/previous using the arrow icons at the top (fourth and fifth from the left).

[StephenMarsh]

Thanks you for the primer. it turns out there was a display error that caused the window to not display all the colors going on, which made it pretty confusing! Now that it's displaying properly I can see the envelope etc and am finding the 'pull-string' (or whatever it's called!) method of adjusting fades quite intuitive.

[Perfect Record]

In a heavy music editing environment there's a real advantage to using 2 monitors. I keep the project window on one monitor and the fade editor on the other.

Of course when we're done editing and it's time to mix, we use the second monitor for the mixer window.

[fl]

it turns out there was a display error that caused the window to not display all the colors going on, which made it pretty confusing!

I bet! I have something similar on my system, where the first time I open the Fade Editor after launching Pyramix, the little button icons along the top of the window/tab are not displayed until I run my mouse pointer over them. From that point onward, everything displays as it should. A similar bug afflicts the Take Manager, where the colour boxes for the Clip Markers aren't displayed until I'm in record, and I run the pointer over where they should be.

the 'pull-string' (or whatever it's called!)

The Manual refers to them as "Bezier Control Point Handles", but I call them Spline Curve Adjustments from the time when I was dabbling with Font design. I suppose "Pull String Thingy" is just as valid.