Feature Request: Playlist Item Crossfades

FMOD Studio
1

(NOTE: I’m still on FMOD 2.02 and haven’t yet tried 2.03, so if this is already a feature that I didn’t find the documentation for please link to it).

Hello,

In my DAW I was designing a looping sound that consists of chaining multiple individual variations (each with varying lengths) one after another and crossfading them to make to make a smooth transition between each. I had the idea of rather than rendering a baked loop, I could maximize variation by rendering the individual variations and in FMOD use a looping multi instrument with AHDSR crossfades.

However, it seems this is not currently possible for sounds that are of dissimilar lengths without making a really tedious transition marker configuration :confounded:

From what I could find, these are the known workarounds (which only work well if your playlist items are of similar lengths):

I suggest adding something like a “Playlist crossfades” button to the deck (see concept images below, I figure the icon would be either crossfade curves or a venn diagram to convey overlap):

  1. Activating it would bring up an AHDSR-like pane to adjust the global playlist crossfade properties.

    • For full flexibility, if possible, I suggest also letting the user set crossfade overrides for specific playlist items via right-click “Custom playlist crossfade”.

  2. In the AHDSR-like pane, I suggest a “Start Offset” time property that controls at what relative point in the current playlist item will the next item start to fade in.
    For example, if the current audio asset is 4 seconds and the crossfade start offset is 0%, then the next item will trigger immediately and they’ll both crossfade over 4 seconds; whereas if the crossfade start offset is 50% then the next item will trigger 2 seconds in and the crossfade will last 2 seconds (although if the current item has loop enabled the crossfade could last for longer according to the playlist crossfade settings).

    • For playlists in a timeline, it might also be useful to set the crossfade start offset as musical beat values (similar to the Delay/Quantization pane) rather than only percentage.

Playlist Crossfades - Rough Concept Mockups:

FMOD Playlist Crossfade Button Concept 2 Edit
FMOD Playlist Crossfade Button Concept - Edit

Those are all my thoughts. Thank you for reading my post.

2

Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll add a link to this thread to the relevant entry in our feature and improvement tracker.

We may not implement this feature exactly as you’ve envisaged it, but the screenshots you’ve provided here are an invaluable insight into what you want the feature to be capable of and how you imagine it fitting into your workflow.

If you don’t mind my picking your brains a little, do you want the AHDSR-like widget to set the behavior of all entries in the playlist together, or only of the playlist entry that’s currently selected?

If different playlist entries have different lengths, should the crossfade offset calculate the length of the crossfade based on the length of the playlist entry being faded out or the playlist entry being faded in?

Should it be possible for the fade-in or fade-out period of a playlist entry to be longer than the other playlist entries it is crossfaded with, such that the second entry to be played can begin, play in its entirety, and reach its end while the first playlist entry is still fading out? If so, should the second playlist entry begin crossfading with the third while the first is still playing - and if not, what should happen instead?

In cases when the currently-playing playlist entry has a variable and unpredictable length (for example, if it is an event instrument or programmer instrument), when should the multi instrument begin fading out that entry and fading in the next one?

Knowing your answers to these questions would aid us in understanding what you want to use this feature for and what you need this feature to be capable of, and thus will make it easier for us to make sure it suits your needs.