2 replies to this topic

[Geof]

I have Mac OS X 10.4.11 and Toast ver. 9.0.5.

When I attempt to use the fade in or fade out button on the first or last tracks, I put my cursor over the icon and it brings up a box with selections like slow, fast, custom etc. which appear to be for cross-fades, but the words at the top of this menu box, "set fade in" on the first track and "set fade out" on the last track, are grayed out and can't be selected.

Through trial-and-error, I figured out I can select the slow, fast etc. choices and then set a time for the fades in and out on the first and last tracks, but why is the proper menu choice grayed out?

Furthermore, how do you fade in or out a track that isn't the first or last in a group? I don't want to do a crossfade; for example, I want track 3 of 10 to fade out 20 seconds early. Using the above method on any track but the first and last creates an unwanted crossfade, not a fade-out.

Thanks for any assistance. I did look at the topics on this page www.roxio.com/enu/support/toast/ and didn't see one addressing fade ins and outs...

[SomeRandom]

Hi, Geof -
The words at the top of the menu boxes aren't "grayed out", so to speak.  Rather, they can't be selected because they are the titles of the menu box, denoted by the ":" following the text, and the font is set to appear differently - the developers just happened to have chosen a lighter gray for this.  The items listed in the menu that can be selected are common styles/variations of fades.
With regard to your question on the crossfade:

1. Select the third track in the project
2. Click on the crossfade button
3. Select the menu item, "Custom..."
4. Identify your selected track in the crossfade UI (usually the top song)
5. Adjust the starting marker of the fade out to the point you want to start fading out at (the top-most blue box on the blue line)
6. Adjust the ending marker of the fade out to the point you want to end the fade out (e.g. 20 seconds before the end of the song)
7. To remove the now silent sections of the track, identify the black box on the red line that marks the start of the next track
8. Drag the red line to the time marker where you want the next track to begin
9. To eliminate a crossfade and begin the track normally, drag the start and end points of the next song's fade markings to the red line - this will remove the fade in

[Geof]

Thanks for the — lengthy! — instructions. You'd think they could make doing a fade-out as simple as: 1. select fade-in/fade-out on any track. 2. select the time in the song to begin the fade in or out.

So, If you have a song that is 4:20 and you want it to start fading out at 4:12, you enter 4:12 into the 'start fade' box and it fades out during the last eight seconds. Two steps. Two simple, obvious steps.

Instead, it apparently takes NINE STEPS to fade out a track that isn't the first or last; sighhhh, if only we who use these programs could design the features to be more user-friendly and common-sense based...