Talk:Creating a Crossfade

Gale: 03Oct12''' We don't say with what tool to create an Equal Power Fade. Should we not mention the two-thirds "rule" too if user decides it is simply easier to use Effect > Fade In?
 * Steve 17Oct12: I would envisage recommending the "Adjustable Fade" plug-in, if it ever makes it into the standard Audacity bundle.
 * Gale 17Oct12: I would still recommend the two-thirds "rule" if you think it helps with a linear fade. Wiki supports legacy Audacity too.
 * Steve 18Oct12: Where does this "2/3 rule" come from? I can see that it is a poor man's substitute for an equal power fade, but should it also carry the warning that it will probably increase the peak amplitude and may cause clipping? Although the technique does help to reduce the sense of a drop in volume in the middle of the fade, the trade-off is that there is often a sense of a drop in volume near the end of the fade. A better (though fiddly) workaround for the lack of an equal power fade is to use the envelope tool. A better and not fiddly workaround (that may be best for Audacity 1.2.x) would be to install a pair of "one-click" equal power fade effects (similar to Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade Out").
 * Gale: 19Oct12: It's Dominic's "rule" which he advocated in the 1.2 Manual and then in the 1.3 Beta Manual (in the now culled "Old Pages"). The current Manual text for it is at http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Effect_Menu#fadeout. Certainly you can add a caveat about "two-thirds" there if you think it's needed. My point on this page is that when you link back to Equal Power Fade to say this is a way of avoiding a mid fade dropout, you aren't saying how to make this equal power fade. Since the text above Equal Power Fade says you can make log curves with Envelope Tool, users may think you cannot make Equal Power curves with Envelope Tool (and its fiddly if you do). So I think you should actually say to use the two "Cross Fade" fades in the current Audacity (or with caveat, the two-thirds rule with linear fade), and put a "ToDo-2" here to update the text to recommend the "Adjustable Fade" and/or "Cross Fade" plug-ins, when/wherever they get released.