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Adjusting a Crossfade length turns it in to fade out / fade in
Hi – I just started using FCPX after many years of using other NLEs.
A couple issues:
If I add a crossfade (say maybe 5 frames), then try to lengthen the crossfade to 2 seconds for instance, dragging the two little icons to the left and right – the crossfade switches to a fade out on the one clip and fade in on the other.
Also –
Sometimes it’s impossible to add a crossfade. If there’s a music track for instance, and there’s an edit and a crossfade is added, then, a bit further down the track if an Add Edit is applied, at that edit a crossfade can be added. But, if you then scootch the new clip to the right of the new edit down to the left a bit, then try to add a crossfade, you just get the little error beep sound.
What’s the deal?
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3 Replies
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That sounds a little familiar.
I remem ber going over some tutorials years ago that discussed this issue.
Tutorials are the way to go.
One thing I remem ber is that one cannot crossfade to no content.
FCPX does not create some content when one wants to crossfade from something to nothing. Yet usually they give that error message.
What I like doing is creating some test sequences and play with what a crossfade can do.
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FCP won’t create a transition without enough media in the clips. If you try to transition from the absolute last frame of clip 1 to the absolute first frame of clip 2, FCP will say there’s not enough media. If you drag the end of clip 1 to the left a half-second and the start of clip 2 a half-second to the right, FCP will happily create a 1-sec transition.
I’ve never seen your example of stretching the transition and getting the resulting fade to & back from black. But it makes sense. FCP is doing the only thing it can with the media. It fades to black by the time clip 1 ends & fades up from the start of clip 2.
If you don’t have enough media at the end/start of a clip, try using a freeze of the last/first frame and transition with that media. Experiment with the duration of the transition to find the one that looks best.
Hope this makes sense & helps.
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This isn’t at all what I’m talking about. I’m talking about an audio crossfade. There’s a difference between the dissolve and crossfade. You can set default lengths for both dissolve and crossfade in preferences (and you can use a dissolve on audio as well as the crossfade, but I’m talking about crossfade only here).
The indicator for crossfade are the two little curves on the end of the clips (this looks exactly like the fade out / fade in little curves, which is also an issue that these look exactly the same).
When you drag one of these curves to the left and the other to the right, lengthening the crossfade, it no longer acts like a crossfade, but like a fade out / fade in of audio.
Give it a try. Go to preferences / editing, and set the default crossfade to .5 seconds. Then, go to an audio edit point, select both sides of the edit so both clips to right and left are highlighted, and use the shortcut to apply the audio crossfade (you’ll have to check what this is, I have a custom one for it). You’ll see the two little curves applied at the edit point. Grab the little icon that looks like a 1 in a circle and drag these curves way out. When you play, unless I’m doing something really wrong, you’ll find there is not a crossfade anymore, but the clip on the left will fade out to silence and the one on the right will fade in from silence.
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