Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual

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Fades, crossfades and envelopes 9 – 191
Curve shape buttons
These buttons give you quick access to some common curve shapes.
Fade Length Value
The Fade Length Value is only available when editing fades made by 
dragging the fade handlws. It can be used to enter fade lengths nu-
merically. The format of values displayed here are determined by the 
Primary Time Display in the Transport window (see page 39).
When you activate the “Apply Length” option, the value entered in the 
Fade Length will be used when clicking “Apply” or “OK.” This setting 
is deactivated by default each time you open the Fade dialog.
When you set the current Fade as the Default fade, the length value is 
included as part of the default settings.
Default button
The Default button is only available when editing fades made by drag-
ging the fade handles. Clicking the “As Default” button stores the cur-
rent settings as default fade. This shape will be used whenever you 
create new fades by dragging event handles. Both the shape and 
length will be used whenever you create fades using the “Apply Stan-
dard Fade...” commands from the Audio menu.
Presets
If you have set up a fade-in or fade-out curve that you may want to ap-
ply to other events or clips, you can store it as a preset by clicking the 
Store button.
•To apply a stored preset, select it from the pop-up menu. 
•To rename the selected preset, double click on the name and type a 
new one. 
•To remove a stored preset, select it from the pop-up menu and click 
Remove. 
						

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9 – 192 Fades, crossfades and envelopes
Stored fade-in presets will only appear in the Fade In dialog, and fade-
out presets will only appear in the Fade Out dialog.
Preview, Apply and Process
The buttons in the bottom row are different depending on whether you 
are editing a fade made with the fade handles or applying a fade using 
processing:
The Edit Fade dialogs have the following buttons:
The Process Fade dialogs have the following buttons:
Button Function
OK Applies the set fade curve to the event, and closes the dialog.
Cancel Closes the dialog.
Apply Applies the set fade curve to the event, without closing the dialog.
Button Function
Preview Plays back the fade area. Playback will repeat until you click the button 
again (the button is labeled “Stop” during playback).
Process Applies the set fade curve to the clip, and closes the dialog.
Cancel Closes the dialog without applying any fade.
The Edit Fade dialog. The Process Fade dialog.   
						

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Fades, crossfades and envelopes 9 – 193
Creating crossfades
Overlapping audio material on the same track can be crossfaded, for 
smooth transitions or special effects. You create a crossfade by se-
lecting two consecutive audio events and selecting the Crossfade 
command on the Audio menu (or using the corresponding key com-
mand, by default [X]). The result depends on whether the two events 
overlap or not:
•If the events overlap, a crossfade is created in the overlapping area.
The crossfade will be of the default shape – initially a linear, symmetric crossfade, but 
you can change this as described below.
•If the events don’t overlap but are directly consecutive (lined up end-
to-start, with no gap) it’s still possible to crossfade them – provided 
that their respective audio clips overlap! In this case, the two events 
are resized so that they overlap, and a crossfade of the default length 
and shape is applied.
The default crossfade length and shape are set in the Crossfade dialog (see page 191).
Overlapping section.   
						

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9 – 194 Fades, crossfades and envelopes
An example:
The events in themselves do not overlap, but their clips do. Therefore, the events 
can be resized so that they overlap, which is required for a crossfade to be created.
When you select the Crossfade function, the two events are resized so that they 
overlap, and a default crossfade is created in the overlapping section.
•If the events don’t overlap, and cannot be resized enough to overlap, a 
crossfade cannot be created.
•You can specify the length of the crossfade using the Range Selection 
tool: make a selection range covering the desired crossfade area and 
use the Crossfade command.
The crossfade is applied in the selected range (provided that the events or their clips 
overlap, as above). You can also make a selection range after creating the crossfade 
and use the function Adjust fades to Range on the Audio menu.
•Once you have created a crossfade, you can edit it by selecting one 
or both crossfaded events, and selecting “Crossfade” from the Audio 
menu again (or by double clicking in the crossfade zone). 
This opens the Crossfade dialog, as described below.
Audio clips. Audio events.   
						

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Fades, crossfades and envelopes 9 – 195
Removing crossfades
To remove a crossfade, select the events and select “Remove Fades” 
from the Audio menu, or use the Range Selection tool:
1.Drag the Range Selection tool in the Project window, so that the se-
lection encloses all of the fades and crossfades you wish to remove.
2.Select “Remove Fades” from the Audio menu.
•You can also remove a crossfade by clicking and dragging it outside 
the track.
The Crossfade dialog
• The following section describes the default Crossfade dialog.
However, if you activate the option Simple Crossfade Editor in the Preferences (Editing-
Audio page), a simplified dialog will be used instead (similar to the regular fade dialogs).
The Crossfade dialog is divided into two parts:
The upper part contains a display that shows the crossfade curve and 
the waveforms.  
						

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9 – 196 Fades, crossfades and envelopes
The lower part contains a number of common settings and controls, 
as well as separate settings for the fade-in and fade-out curves in the 
crossfade. In the center of the lower part there are two sets with iden-
tical controls: The upper set controls the fade out curve, and the lower 
set controls the fade-in curve.
Play buttons
•The “Play Fade Out” and “Play Fade In” buttons allow you to audition 
the fade-out or fade-in part only, without the crossfade.
•The “Play Crossfade” button plays back the whole crossfade.
You can also use the Transport play controls to play back the cross-
faded audio events. However, that method will play back all unmuted 
audio events on other tracks as well.
Pre-roll and Post-roll
When auditioning with the Play buttons, you can choose to activate 
pre-roll and/or post-roll. Pre-roll lets you start playback before the fade 
area, and post-roll lets you stop playback after the fade area. This can 
be useful for auditioning the fade in a context.
•To specify how long the pre- and post-rolls should be, click in the time 
fields and enter the desired time (in seconds and milliseconds).
•To activate pre- and post-roll, click the respective button.
To deactivate, click the button again.
1 second pre-roll activated.   
						

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Fades, crossfades and envelopes 9 – 197
Curve buttons
•The curve kind buttons determine whether the corresponding fade 
curve should consist of spline curve segments (left button), damped 
spline segments (middle button) or linear segments (right button).
•The curve shape buttons give you quick access to some common 
curve shapes.
Symmetric Fades
As previously mentioned, there are separate, identical controls for the 
fade out curve and the fade in curve. However, by activating “Symmet-
ric Fades”, the controls are “linked” so that both fade curves are af-
fected by the same amount regardless of whether you use the fade-out 
or fade-in controls. The actual result however, depends on which con-
trol is used. The following descriptions of the controls detail what hap-
pens when you use a certain control with “Symmetric Fades” activated.
Fade Displays
Shows the shape of the fade-out and fade-in curve, respectively. You 
can click on the curve to add points, and click and drag existing points 
to change the shape. To remove a point from the curve, drag it outside 
the display.   
						

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9 – 198 Fades, crossfades and envelopes
Crossfade display
The top display shows the shape of the whole crossfade curve and 
the resulting waveform. You can perform a number of click and drag 
operations in this display.
Depending on whether “Symmetric Fades” is activated or not (see 
above), the following will happen when you click and drag the differ-
ent points in the display:
1.Click and drag these points to change the length of the fade-out 
curve (upper) or the fade-in curve (lower), respectively.
If “Symmetric Fades” is activated, these instead change the length of both the fade out 
curve and the fade in curve. The length change will be applied equally to both sides, 
without moving the “Offset Point” (see page 202).
2.Click and drag these points to move the fade-out curve (upper) or the 
fade-in curve (lower), respectively.
If “Symmetric Fades” is activated, these instead change the length of both the fade out 
curve and the fade in curve – by moving only the end or the start of the curves as well 
as the “Offset Point”.
3.Click and drag these points to move the Offset Point (the dotted line) 
for the fade-out curve (upper) or the fade-in curve (lower), respectively.
Moving the Offset Point will also move the fade curve. If “Symmetric Fades” is activated, 
the Offset Point for both curves will be moved.
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Fades, crossfades and envelopes 9 – 199
•You can also click and drag to move audio clips (along with the fade 
curve) in the display. The pointer takes on the shape of a hand to indi-
cate that it’s possible to move a clip.
•You can right-click (Win) or [Ctrl]-click (Mac) in the ruler and use the 
pop-up menu to select a time format (see page 108).
•You can scroll and zoom the display with the horizontal and vertical 
scroll bars and zoom controls. The standard zoom procedures apply 
(see the Getting Started book).
Equal Gain and Power
•If you activate the “Equal Gain” checkbox, the fade curves are adjusted 
so that the summed fade-in and fade-out amplitudes will be the same 
all along the crossfade region. 
This is often suitable for short crossfades.
•If you activate the “Equal Power” checkbox, the fade curves are ad-
justed, so that the energy (power) of the crossfade will be constant all 
along the crossfade region.
Equal Power curves have only one editable curve point. You cannot use 
the Curve kind buttons or the presets when this mode is selected.
Resizing the crossfade area
You can adjust the length of the crossfade area either in the crossfade 
display (as described on page 198), by using the Length sliders or by 
clicking in the “Length” fields, changing the value numerically and 
pressing [Return].  
						

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9 – 200 Fades, crossfades and envelopes
•If “Symmetric Fades” is activated, both the fade out and the fade in 
length will be changed by the same amount. Otherwise, the upper 
Length controls change the length of the fade-out curve, and the 
lower controls change the length of the fade-in curve.
•If possible, the length change will be applied equally to “both sides” of 
the crossfade (i.e. Nuendo tries to “center” the crossfade).
To be able to resize a crossfade this way, it must be possible to resize 
the corresponding event. For example, if the left crossfaded event al-
ready plays its audio clip to the end, its endpoint cannot be moved any 
further to the right.