Crossfades

When two clips on a track overlap with a transition, the transition can fade the outgoing sound out and the incoming sound in, so the cut isn’t heard as a jump.

Where: Clip tab ▸ Clip sub-tab ▸ Transition section
Agent tools: set_transition_style

Crossfade audio

A new transition already crossfades its sound, at the +3 dB shape, so most of the time there’s nothing to do. Open the section to turn the crossfade off, or to change its shape.

Select the later of the two overlapping clips, on its own. The Transition section only appears for a single clip that overlaps the clip before it.
In the Clip tab, choose the Clip sub-tab and open Transition.
Tick or untick Crossfade Audio.

Crossfade Audio	What you hear across the overlap
On	The outgoing sound fades out and the incoming sound fades in. If only one of the two clips has sound, that clip still fades.
Off	Both clips play at their own level for the whole overlap, mixed together.

The fade follows the transition’s Curve, so an eased transition eases its sound too. A new transition is Ease In Out. Curve and Crossfade Audio are separate settings, and changing one leaves the other alone.

To change the overlap’s length, use the Duration row. See The Transition section.

Choose a crossfade shape

Crossfade Shape sets the curve of the fade. It’s available while Crossfade Audio is on, and the default is +3 dB. The incoming clip follows the shape, and the outgoing clip follows it in reverse.

Crossfade Shape	What it does	Each clip’s level halfway through the fade
Linear	A straight-line pair. It dips 3 dB in the middle of two unrelated takes, but suits two parts of the same sound.	About −6 dB
S-Curve	A fade that does most of its changing in the middle of the overlap and moves slowly at both ends.	About −6 dB
+3 dB	Constant power, which holds the level steady across two unrelated takes.	About −3 dB
−3 dB	A slow start. The incoming sound rises late and the outgoing sound falls early, so the middle of the overlap is the quietest of the four.	About −11 dB

Audio-only transitions

Two overlapping clips with no picture get the same Transition section, on the same sub-tab. Only their sound changes. Crossfade Audio, Crossfade Shape and Curve control the fade, Duration sets its length, and Kind has no visible effect.

Whenever an edit makes a clip overlap the one before it, Frame Job adds a transition, for audio clips as for any other. So overlapping two music clips crossfades them straight away. See Add or remove a transition for the other ways to make one.

Crossfade after Detach Audio

Detach Audio moves a clip’s sound to its own clip on the track below and switches it off on the picture clip, so Crossfade Audio on the transition between two picture clips no longer fades that sound. The fade belongs to the detached audio clips instead.

Detach both clips of an overlap and their audio clips overlap on that track, which gives them a transition of their own that crossfades them. Audio clips that don’t overlap yet get one as soon as you overlap them. Select the later audio clip to change it.

Good to know

The crossfade multiplies whatever else is happening to the sound. Mute, solo, ducking, volume and a clip’s own fades still apply on top.
With Kind set to None, an overlap has no transition of its own. It plays as a linear cross dissolve with no sound crossfade, and the section shows Linear and Crossfade Audio off. Changing either of them gives the overlap a transition with exactly the values shown.
Choosing another style from Clip ▸ Transition on a clip that already has a transition keeps its curve and its crossfade.
A transition on a nest clip fades all the sound inside the nest. A crossfade between clips inside the nest still happens too, and you hear both.
Each clip’s limiter holds that clip alone, so two limited clips can add up past the ceiling during an overlap. An export’s master limiter catches this, but the preview has none, so it can sound louder while you edit. A track compressor or limiter is also approximate in the preview where clips overlap.

With an agent

set_transition_style sets the crossfade with audio (true or false) and its shape with audio_shape: plus_3db, linear, s_curve or minus_3db. A key you leave out keeps what’s there. See Tools: transitions.