Compact Project lost Crossfades

[Robby in WA]

In 9.5, I finished some mixes and decided to use Compact project. Now, when I reopen all the crossfades are gone. Is there a way to select a whole section and re-add w/out having to go in and do each one?

Also, is there a way to prevent this in the future?

Thanks

[FMiguelez]

Select all your soundbites and press control-F. Type the desired parameters, and all selected SBs will get this fade types.

I don't know how to avoid this, though. DP also loses its fades when converting sample rate,

[RodneySauer]

I often find cross-fades get lost when opening older files, or older clip files. They also disappear if you scale time in 9.5. One solution, if you are sure you like your cross fades, is to merge all of the soundbites into a single soundbite, which of course removes all of the cross fades and incorporates them into the new soundbite.

[FMiguelez]

One solution, if you are sure you like your cross fades, is to merge all of the soundbites into a single soundbite, which of course removes all of the cross fades and incorporates them into the new soundbite.

Yup. Not ideal, but it works great while MOTU fixes the problem. Fades should still be there even after sample rate conversions or whatever.

Merge also prints whatever pitch automation there is, as well as the fades.

[HCMarkus]

I never compact projects. Hard drive space is cheap.

[stubbsonic]

The bad news is that when you compacted your files, you needed to enter an amount of extra time to extend each sound file to preserve crossfades. I think the Compact... window even warns you about it, so you probably didn't read it.

I think the default is 500 ms, so maybe your crossfades were longer than that?

[FMiguelez]

One reason I really like about the Compacting command is that it allows me to record ALL my MIDI tracks to audio without me worrying if some play only little or a lot of the time and when. I just press record from beginning to end and let the machine work, and they all get printed.

Immediately afterwards, I strip the silence from the new audio tracks to get rid of the silence wasted space (which is a most of it), and apply the Compact command. This saves me a lot of time when I have lots of tracks to record, and I end up with a nice clean and lean DP session.

[stubbsonic]

Here's another lil tip for space saving.

I've found that if I zip an AIF with silence in it, it shrinks down pretty small (as if it is able to ignore the silence). Not so with some other formats. I don't remember if WAV works similarly, but it might.

[Sean Kenny]

Yes it does

[bayswater]

Using RAR compression for Audio often works better than using ZIP. IIRC it exploits silence more efficiently.

[stubbsonic]

Using RAR compression for Audio often works better than using ZIP. IIRC it exploits silence more efficiently.

Since it is specifically designed for audio, it probably compresses the audio portions more effectively, since there are things about audio data that are more "predictable" than the general data types for which zip compression is designed.

[RodneySauer]

I never compact projects. Hard drive space is cheap.

Agreed, but occasionally I need to share projects by using dropbox or other filesharing sites, and upload/download times can be pretty ridiculous if you don't compact the project.