I’m trying to transition between two clips of background music on the soundtrack. Both music selections are violin & guitar instrumentals, and I want essentially to do an audio “cross dissolve” transition to blend the two musical pieces together.
I found the “Constant Gain” and “Constant Power” cross fades under Audio Transitions, however, I’m not sure what they do or if I’m using them corectly. When I try to apply the effect to the junction of the two clips, it attaches to only one, and the Left Clip/Between Clip/Right Clip dialog is grayed out. (I’ve trimmed both clips so there’s plenty of head and tail room on both).
Questions:
What’s the proper way to apply the cross fade audio transitions?
What’s the difference between Constant Gain and Constant Power?
The Constant Gain crossfade changes audio at a constant rate in and out as it transitions between clips. This crossfade can sometimes sound abrupt.
The Constant Power crossfade creates a smooth, gradual transition, analogous to the dissolve transition between video clips. This crossfade decreases audio for the first clip slowly at first and then quickly toward the end of the transition. For the second clip, this crossfade increases audio quickly at first and then more slowly toward the end of the transition.
Its funny that Premier Elements Help doesn't address this, but good to know that PPro Help is available online and can be the back up.
I've been experimenting with the two cross fades and concludethat Constant Power is best for my situation. I'm still puzzled by the "location" of the fade on the timeline. It seems to be always on one clip or the other, and never in the middle. However, in reviewing the PPro Help (and Adobe video), it shows it in the middle for PPro. Regardless, it seems to work pretty well.
Along with the Audio Transitions, one can also Keyframe Volume, to accomplish about the same thing.
Depending on exactly what one wishes to have occur, the two Audio Clips can be placed on separate Audio Track, overlapped by the a bit, and then either Audio Transitions can be added, or Volume Keyframed, to have those two Clips "fade" into each other. That is usually not what most want, in most situations, but is another possibility.
This is a bug in the software. Read the thread "Premier Elements 11 - audio cross fade problem - can't center between clips." The workaround is to close the pop-up box with the X.
The video tutorial that you point to is for Premiere Pro CS6 and not Premiere Elements 11 and has nothing to do with the audio transition placement alignment issue specific to Premiere Elements 11 audio transitions which are Crossfade/ Constant Gain and Constant Power. And, there is no Exponential Fade audio transition in Premiere Elements as is shown in the Premiere Pro CS6 video.
The following describes what I believe was the core issue that the originator of this thread ran into.
Add on...my first impression is that this matter is finally resolved in Premiere Elements 14.
When to use the concept of Constant Gain versus Constant Power audio transition is another matter and some aspects of that were pointed to in post 1 of this 2013 thread. Even then from "Premiere Pro Help" for a Premiere Elements question. Good to share the common points between different products and acknowledge the differences between them so users will not go looking for audio transition Exponential Fade that does not exist in Premiere Elements.
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