Originally Posted By: CocoTex
Thank you, Matt.

The moment I hit submit, I thought about RB. I haven't look at it much. I can certain try that, or Audacity, free is nice!, or one of the handful of DAWs I have (and barely understand). I'm getting more comfortable with BB, so thought no harm in asking.

Thanks for taking the time to help me, Matt. Greatly appreciate the input.


I use Audacity for fade ins and fade outs. Only after I have done everything else in RB. In RB I find if I'm going to fade out I save my final mix as XXXfade out.SEQ where XXX is the latest .SEQ name. Then in this copy I go to the end of the recording.
Back up about 20 seconds listen to the ending for Ideas. Some times I get the Idea to start fading some of the instruments back before the final fade.

Here is how I step down the drums gradually

1)I click about 4 seconds from the end right where there are no drums playing(silent). And select the drum track from there to the end of the song.

2)Go to Edit> Audio Effects > Gain Change and enter -3 and then process. The selected drums Wave form will shrink indicating the amplitude has decreased.

3)Listen to that track (solo) from about 8 seconds to the end. If the fade transition at 4 seconds sounds good and there is no CLICK at the beginning of the fade, do the same thing at 2 seconds from the end of the track, then 1 second. (You can also use bars as your starting point 6 3 2 1)

If you hear a click at the beginning of the fade out at 4 seconds from the end that means you chose a starting place in the drum track that had too much sound. Before you Edit > Undo Gain Change. Double click on the drum track which zooms into that track and opens up a window with just the drum track in it.

All sound is a sine wave and if you look at the track carefully (expand the wave out, on my machine my mouse wheel does this) You will see points in the track where the wave crosses the center line or there is a clear break in the wave. That is where you want to start a Gain Change. Because there is virtually no sound there.

Now go to edit Undo Gain change. In the ZOOM window select a point near 4 seconds to the end (also you can use bar numbers as a guide 6 bars from the end) Find a place where the wave crosses the center line or there is a clear break in the sound wave No Sound. In this zoom window with that point selected Then go back and repeat step 1-3.

Practice on drums, then Bass, Piano. I know this sounds difficult but I find its a great way to stop parts at a different place in the ending. Each with a nice fade out.

It is destructive but remember this is a copy of your .seq so you can return to the original.

If you want to do this to tracks and preserve the original, make a duplicate track of the original and put it on say track 20. If you mess up the track you are working on. Delete the data in the messed up track and duplicate track 20 back to the original track.

I've also used this to reduce the volume (gain) of an instrument inside the song, in this case you want to make sure both ends of the gain change are at ZERO AMPLITUDE POINTS. Case in point if you have a cymbal crash that is covering up your vocal (crash is right at the wrong time) Select the entire crash and decrease it by -2 increments until it is the volume you desire. Yes this looks complex, but, it is a great way to clean up peaks and valleys in a track. To boost volume just use positive numbers.

"When you help somebody else you are really helping yourself"