Fading audio tracks in Photostory Deluxe

emmrecs wrote on 4/18/2018, 3:57 AM

Hi, welcome to the Magix forums.

If you want to simply crossfade one audio track into the next one the easiest way to do this, in Timeline mode, is to drag the beginning of the second track over the end of the first. You will then see something that looks like this:

The area of the actual crossfade is shown by the crossing white lines; you can drag this overlapped area to be as short or as long as you wish.

If you want to simply fade out the end of an audio track, place your cursor right at the very end of the on-screen display of that track and it will change to two parallel lines and a white dot will appear at the very end of the white line (which is actually the overall level control). Simply drag that dot to the left and the white line will appear to gradually descend; that represents the fade-out. Again, it can be as long or as short as you wish.

HTH

Jeff

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/18/2018, 5:52 PM

Thank you for your help however that is the problem,I can overlap the tracks but I have no control. I do not get the proper arrows, lines or the dots, but I do get a "hand". I also couldn't get the beat editing to work :( Very frustrated. I'm uploading photos of what I get when I try to fade. I get cross lines for photo transitions. I've tried the audio on track 2 and 4...any other suggestions?

thank you! (also wondering if this program eats up a lot of resources as my system is SO slow)

Thanks!

johnebaker wrote on 4/19/2018, 3:09 AM

Hi

. . . . I do get a "hand" . . . .

That is the correct mouse icon for dragging an object - see the short clip below

HTH

John EB

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/19/2018, 7:06 PM

Thank you but if you look at the first photo I shared, the hand is there but the "dots" arent nor are any other cross bars or draggable item :(

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/19/2018, 10:15 PM

I'm finding more and more things I can't do with the audio tracks, is it possible my video and sound cards are too outdated for the program? Video card is Nvidia GeForce 635. I've done a bunch of online searches and my audio tracks don't look anything like pics I've seen of how it should look. I need to fade one song briefly for a short clip and then fade it back up to the original song and if I use an actual cut the transition is too abrupt. I'm so frustrated trying to figure out how to utilize a fade. Still no handles to drag. Is there a way to indicate which audio track should play over all others? I tried the "effects/decrease volume" setting but that didn't do it. Thanks again for any suggestions or work arounds.

johnebaker wrote on 4/20/2018, 3:37 AM

Hi

To clarify are you saying:

You can drag images and create crossover fades, however if you do the same with audio, the objects will not drag - is this correct?

Can you drag any objects at all to move them on the timeline?

When you left click the mouse, with the hand icon over an object, does it close to make a fist?

Can you drag with the mouse in other programs?

What version of Windows do you have - press and hold down the Windows key and the R key - in the dialog that opens type in winver and press enter.

. . . . I've done a bunch of online searches and my audio tracks don't look anything like pics I've seen of how it should look . . . .

How should it look compared to what you are getting? Links to what you are finding may help.

. . . . is it possible my video and sound cards are too outdated for the program? Video card is Nvidia GeForce 635 . . . .

It is unlikely however there have been issues with another Magix program and mouse actions being offset from where clicked. I have a GTX 630 on my old PC and do not have issues with dragging.

If you have Windows 10 then try restarting the computer - Windows key, Power button, Restart this will reload all the drivers correctly

. . . . I tried the "effects/decrease volume" setting but that didn't do it . . . .

You can use a 'Volume curve' on audio to achieve what you need - right click the audio and select the option shown below - then follow the instructions in the pop up that appears

Tip: you do not have to use a camera to take screenshots - if you press the Print Screen (PrtScn) key on your keyboard you can grab a screen shot, it will be copied to the Windows clipboard, then paste this into an image editing program for cropping and saving.

HTH

John EB

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/22/2018, 12:53 PM

Hi John EB

Thank you for your post. First let me say the only reason i did camera shots was because when I used the prtscn funtion, it took too long to open another program to paste the shot into and save so it was faster to use my cell and upload it to dropbox and attach it here. My resources are so consumed by the slideshow program that even opening Word takes too long! :)

You can drag images and create crossover fades, however if you do the same with audio, the objects will not drag - is this correct? CORRECT

Can you drag any objects at all to move them on the timeline? yes photos and I get the "criss cross" lines on photos showing length of transitions etc

When you left click the mouse, with the hand icon over an object, does it close to make a fist? yes but on audio tracks i can only shorten the clip or drag to a different track

Can you drag with the mouse in other programs? yes

What version of Windows do you have - press and hold down the Windows key and the R key - in the dialog that opens type in winver and press enter. Window 10 ver 1709 (OS build 16299.371)

. . . . I've done a bunch of online searches and my audio tracks don't look anything like pics I've seen of how it should look . . . .

How should it look compared to what you are getting? Links to what you are finding may help. In videos I've seen, the audio track has criss cross lines that can be dragged and the white dot appears in the corner allowing it to drag across almost looking like the track is cut in half which I figure shows the track fading out so the next one can fade in

. . . . is it possible my video and sound cards are too outdated for the program? Video card is Nvidia GeForce 635 . . . .

It is unlikely however there have been issues with another Magix program and mouse actions being offset from where clicked. I have a GTX 630 on my old PC and do not have issues with dragging.

If you have Windows 10 then try restarting the computer - Windows key, Power button, Restartthis will reload all the drivers correctly Have restarted multiple times and before I purchased the program I updated my drivers and checked them all for being current

. . . . I tried the "effects/decrease volume" setting but that didn't do it . . . .

You can use a 'Volume curve' on audio to achieve what you need - right click the audio and select the option shown below - then follow the instructions in the pop up that appears When I right click and click on volume curve it says that waymarkers will now be shown, I see nothing In fact, when I click on an audio track in my timeline I only see a red line showing at what point in the song it's at, I guess what is so frustrating to me is that I am quite computer literate (although no pro), I have used Windows Movie Maker in the past with much success (but read it's not compatible with Windows 10), I have a background in film (although my schooling is highly outdated) but I have had some experience and understand fading, and what I think "should" be happening but I can't get this audio part to cooperate!

I do appreciate your efforts and think i'm probably in a different time zone than you but apologize for my delay in responding to your latest response (had a big family occasion this weekend). The party I am creating this slideshow for is next week so I'm a bit panicked!

Thanks again for any help.

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/22/2018, 1:25 PM

Another odd thing has been happening, I have been putting in my own transitions by dragging them in storyboard mode in between two photos, about 3 minutes into the slideshow now when I drag the transition into the storyboard, it inevitably drops one or two lines BELOW where I actually want it! So the red arrow is pointing down, the red line exactly between the 2 photos and pointing to the small transition box between the 2 pics, yet when I release the mouse it still doesn't drop where I want it! So frustrating even after a reboot!!!!

johnebaker wrote on 4/22/2018, 2:37 PM

Hi

. . . . So the red arrow is pointing down, the red line exactly between the 2 photos and pointing to the small transition box between the 2 pics . . . . it inevitably drops one or two lines BELOW where I actually want it! . . . .

Can you clarify please what you are describing - I do not see a red arrow pointing down - are you referring to

the timeline cursor
the insert marker

as shown in the images below.

. . . . it inevitably drops one or two lines BELOW where I actually want it . . . .

The story board has 2 modes of operation - your description appears to be a mix of both modes - are you referring to:

single line mode and has transition boxes between images, as shown in the top image above

or

multi line mode as shown in the lower image above - note the transition boxes between images appear when zoomed in.

Thanks

John EB

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/22/2018, 10:20 PM

Hi John, I apologize, I didn't mean "red" arrow, I'm in the first storyboard mode, it's the red line with the black arrow pointing down. It takes sometimes up to 4 tries to drop the transition in the correct spot. First photo shows where it was supposed to drop, 2nd shows where it did, one row BELOW.

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/22/2018, 10:22 PM

As a side note, I'm actually making progress despite all of these obstacles and some of my audio cuts aren't horrible (overlapping the tracks) but it would certainly be faster and less frustrating if I could figure out my issues 😉

johnebaker wrote on 4/23/2018, 7:16 AM

Hi

I must also apologize - I said Storyboard second mode does not show a transition box between images - after seeing your images I realised I was not zoomed in enough - my last post has been corrected.

I cannot replicate the problem, however try the following:

Deselect any image(s) that are selected then add the transition where you want it.
Resetting the program to its default settings - File, Settings, Reset program settings . . . . - note this will reset any custom settings you have made eg folder locations etc.

If that does not fix the issue, I have a slight suspicion this is similar to an issue that can occur with Magix Music Maker and certain non Intel graphics where the mouse action is offset from where it is pointing - in which case you will need to raise a support ticket here.

HTH

John EB

sparklinbluiz wrote on 4/23/2018, 6:06 PM

Thanks again for all your help. Once this slideshow is finished I'll play around with it. I have to finish it tonight for a test run tomorrow. Hoping i don't run into any issues rendering it to an output format! I'll have to live with the audio transitions the way they are for now but for the $$ spent on the program,I'm hoping I can get it to work properly as it's very time consuming the way it is and now that I realize there's a simple slideshow maker already as part of my photo viewer in Win10, I would prefer the paid program work properly :)