There's a button in the toolbar that looks like a padlock. Click this on to ignore event grouping. You can now adjust the edges of the audio without affecting the video. Click the button back off after adjusting and grouping is enabled again. This avoids ungrouping the audio from the video.

This particular edit is probably better performed with auto-ripple turned off.

I've never worked in Elements so I don't know what you mean when you say you applied a crossfade to the audio only. Normally if you overlap video both the video and the audio will do a crossfade. If you want the crossfade to be only on the audio you will need to cut out part of the video.

This can be done in Vegas, but it is not an automatic function. You'll need to "ungroup" the audio and video so you can cut the video out and leave the audio.

Chris

I think Ivan's reply is probably the method you're looking for, I'll add a few more comments. The icon he refers to that will show in the upper right corner of the audio track is shaped like a quarter circle, move the cursor around that area until the icon appears, then drag left for the duration you want the fade out to cover. It will fade out to zero, and has several curves that you can select from for the transition (haven't selected them in a while so the method for that escapes me, but its a minor point). Then on the other side of the cut look for a similar icon in the upper left corner, another quarter circle icon will appear (with opposite orientation) drag that right and that will fade in the audio on the other side of the cut.

If you don't want to fade all the way to zero at the transition then I think you'll have to use keyframing to adjust the audio volume manually. Look for keyframing in the help menu and it should describe what to do. Its the same kind of 'rubber band' interface like Adobe uses in their tools, if you've ever done keyframing in Elements it will be simple to learn how to do it with Sony VMS.

Using the fade control on the events or the volume envelope won't blend the sound from one clip to the other. The only way to achieve this is to overlap them.

Using the fade control on the events or the volume envelope won't blend the sound from one clip to the other. The only way to achieve this is to overlap them.

Agreed, a true crossfade requires overlap. If you overlap the audio then you would have to overlap the video as well to keep them synchronized. That would suggest you would either have combined video for the overlap duration, or crossfaded video as well. I'm mostly a novice at this myself, but I don't think there's a way to overlap the clips and crossfade the audio only without some sort of video blending artifacts during the overlap transition, am I wrong?

So is the goal of this edit to crossfade the audio as if it were overlapped, while preserving a clean edit transition at the video clip transition, or just transition the volume lower between clips so an abrupt change is not noticed? The audio crossfade only title would suggest the former, not the latter, but I'm not sure they were using the crossfade term literally.

If that's the case then I guess they would have to replicate frames on each side of the transition and create the overlap region in two additional separate clips. Then remove the video from the replicated frame clips so that they had more audio frames than video frames. Then overlap the various audio frames in the timeline on multiple audio tracks, with the video butted together at the transition point on a single video track. I'm not sure you can apply the crossfade to just the audio tracks, is that possible? If not then they'd have to fade each audio track out/in individually as previously described to achieve the same effect as a crossfade. With random noise like ocean waves you proably wouldn't notice that the audio frames were replicated to create the transition period, but with voice or music you'd probably notice it, so this technique probably won't be useful in too many situations.

I'm kind of a novice at this, if someone could comment on whether or not my suggestion in the previous paragraph would actually work, I'd appreciate it.

If you follow the method i outlined it's possible to extend the audio from each event into the other event, creating an overlap, without overlapping the video or affecting sync at all.

Of course, this assumes that you have trimmed the clips and that there is indeed some extra audio at either the end of the first or beginning of the second available. If you have butted together the physical ends of the files then there won't be any extra to play with. But, everyone records some extra head & tail, right?

Thanks to all above for your suggestions. I've been away from the PC and didn't expect quite so many replies! dwalby's second description above is indeed correct and what I am trying to do. Chienworks method of "unlocking" the events so I can then extend the audio "into" each other to crate the audio crossfade. It is a bit of a fiddle but easier than I was doing earlier.

Here's a dead-easy way to do this -- you don't even have to "unlock" the event grouping.

Pressing the "/" key near the numeric keypad will convert any "cut" to an "overlap", creating an automatic crossfade. This works on an audio track as well as a video track. But only affects the track you clicked on.

With two events (clips) butted up against each other, click once right on the place where the two audio events are butted up against each other. This puts the playback cursor right on the edges of the events, and selects one or the other (doesn't matter which). Now press the keypad "/" key. Done.

The duration of the overlap can be specified in the Options > Preferences > Editing tab. Look for the setting that specifies "Cut-to-Overlap", "Amount (seconds)".

This works on Video or Audio tracks. On Video tracks you can instead press keypad "*" to create a disolve transition, or keypad "-" to create a linear wipe.

To convert an existing crossfade or transition back to a pure "cut", click on the transition then press Ctrl-/ (using the "/" near the keypad). This works on video and audio tracks.

Tim L

PS: As Chienworks mentioned, this requires that you have a little extra audio available on the ends of the events.

Thanks Tim - that's exactly what I was looking for. Great tip.

Pressing the "/" key near the numeric keypad will convert any "cut" to an "overlap", creating an automatic crossfade. This works on an audio track as well as a video track. But only affects the track you clicked on.

I haven't tried it yet .. but if you do this on the audio track that has video associated with it .. what happens to the video track? Is the video clipped and thrown away .. still leaving a "cut" on the video but a "disolve" on the audio?

The video clip is completely unaffected. Everything remains grouped just as it was. Nothing moves around or gets deleted.

The "convert cut to overlap" function does just that -- converts the "cut" -- i.e. two clips butted up against each other -- to an overlap (crossfade) by extending each event by 1/2 the specified time.

For example, if the "cut to overlap" setting is set to 1 second, then doing this "/" function makes the end of the first audio event 1/2-second longer to the right, and makes the beginning of the second audio event 1/2 second longer to the left, creating a 1-second overlap (crossfade).

The term "Cut" in this case means an immediate change from one event to another, without any crossfade or transition. Nothing new is being "split" or anything like that. "Cut" is simply the term that describes two events butted up against each other without a crossfade or transition.

"Cut to overlap" might be better understood if you think of it as "convert a cut to an overlap". ("cut" is a noun here, not a verb)

Tim L

For example, if the "cut to overlap" setting is set to 1 second, then doing this "/" function makes the end of the first audio event 1/2-second longer to the right, and makes the beginning of the second audio event 1/2 second longer to the left, creating a 1-second overlap (crossfade).

But where does the audio come from for the overlapped portion?