Audio: add a Move tool and Color the waveform

[goddi]

Greetings,

We had a good discussion about Crossfading back in January:

http://www.picturest...o-overlap-mp3s/

It continued in:

http://www.picturest...h__1#entry92526

I think most of us agreed that there was something wrong with the current Crossfading when it not only faded-in the end of Song1 with the beginning of Song2, but it also faded in the beginning of Song1. Hopefully, that will be corrected in future versions.

However, at the end of this discussion I had suggested that we should also have a choice to Overlap two songs without the fade-in or fade-out. I have come up with a better option, I think.

Add a Move Function:

In a recent slideshow, I have been using 5 MP3s. I wanted to have the MP3s' endings and beginnings to overlap without fade-ins or fade-outs (that Crossfading provides). So, what I wanted to do was to actually move the MP3s to the left or the right in the waveform so the endings of one would overlap the beginning of the next MP3.

What I would like to suggest is to have a Move tool where you can simply highlight a single or multiple MP3s (must be in sequence) and provide a negative value to move the highlighted MP3 (or a sequence of MP3s) to the left or a positive value to move them to the right.

If moved to the left, the highlighted MP3 would just overlap the MP3 on the left by the given value. If more than one MP3 were highlighted, the entire highlighted group would move to the left. Same if the highlighted MP3(s) were moved to the right.

Color the Different MP3s in the Waveform in the Timeline:

Another suggestion is to have some visual indicator to distinguish between the individual MP3s in the Timeline. Right now, it is very difficult to determine where one MP3 ends and the next one starts. How about showing each MP3 in a different color? And when the MP3s are Crossfaded or Moved, the colors would be combined to indicate visually the extent of the overlap.

Gary

[fh1805]

Gary,

Your suggestions have some merit, especially as Igor has indicated that he will be re-working the audio interface in v7.5 But you could have achieved what you wanted in v7.0 if you had placed each MP3 in its own Track. You could then have applied offsets to each of the last four to delay their start until the desired point on the timeline.

Peter

I

[goddi]

Gary,

Your suggestions have some merit, especially as Igor has indicated that he will be re-working the audio interface in v7.5 But you could have achieved what you wanted in v7.0 if you had placed each MP3 in its own Track. You could then have applied offsets to each of the last four to delay their start until the desired point on the timeline.

Peter

I

==========================

Peter,

Yes, I realize that I can put each MP3 in its own Track and use Offset to achieve the overlap of the music. I had pointed this out in one of my original posts And I did this with my recent slideshow. But I think using multiple Tracks to achieve this is not the better way. Take a look at my two attachments. The attachment that uses Tracks is too complicated visually if you just want to overlap MP3s. The attachment that shows the MP3s without having to use Tracks makes it more straightforward. I am sure some indicators can be added to inform the user which have been 'Moved'.

And I hope some visual indicators can be added to the MP3s in the Timeline to help distinguish each one.

Gary

[davegee]

I'm tending to agree with Gary that the Tracks need to be displayed differently in the Waveform Display in Project Options>Music.

I would like to see a track which has, for instance, been offset to have a flat line for the duration of the Offset and the Total Time for the Track shown.

In multiple tracks this would allow for a better visualisation of the exact time the one track fades out and the next fades in.

Seeing them all at the same time would be even better.

DG

[8321]

Sorry if I missed something. Have been a bit out of touch with the forum.

Is there news about a waveform being included in the O&A view?

Regards, Jeff