QLAB please help with a simple crossfade

[alfiehound]

OK so I've been using QLab for a little while and first time I used it for a show last year it wowed people who were used to hearing playout done from tracks dubbed onto CD.
I thought I was happy with it too ... until I came to putting together something for my next show which will include .... a crossfade!
(now I should point out that I've worked in radio and audio for a long time ... when I started we wrote on typewriters and cut tape with a blade)
I can quite happily put in the fade cue to bring down CUE1 say. But everytime I try to put in the fade cue to bring up CUE2 all it does is start CUE2 and fade it out. Not a lot of use. Am I missing something glaringly obvious? (probably)
Bob

 

[ScottT]

First off do you have V1 or V2? Doing this from memory so bear with me...

For V2, what I used to do (I think) was create a group which would all the cues at the same time, the fade up and the fade down cue. I think the group was called a simultaneous group... If thats not it, post back and we can work through it.

 

[alfiehound]

Thanks for getting on to this so quickly. I'm using version one of Qlab so it's the really simple one. Which was why I thought a cross fade would be a really simple thing to do.
So ... it's a music crossfade I want to do with CUE1 fading down as CUE2 fades up.

 

[DavidDaMonkey]

I sincerely apologize if I'm telling you things you already know, but let me try to explain how I do it and you can compare that with what you are doing. The basic concept is the same for v1 and v2.

Ok, so you have your first q, (we will call it qA) and your second q (which we will call qB). You want to simultaneously fade out qA while fading in qB.

You start with qA set to whatever level you want it to play at. Then you put in a fade to fade it all the way out. From your post, I'm guessing you already understand how to do this.

Then you make that fade auto continue into playing qB. qB's volume level needs to be set all the way down.

qB will also auto continue into another fade. This fade will affect qB. Its volume level needs to be set to whatever volume you want qB to fade up to.

So your playlist will look like:

1 qA
2 FADE OUT qA (auto con)
3 qB (auto con)
4 FADE IN qB


This means that when you click on the fade out (#2) then all at once you are fading out the first song, starting the second song (with the volume all the way down) and then fading that volume up to the level you want it at.
Does that make sense? Does that fix your problem, or is that what you were already trying?

 

[alfiehound]

Well yes it does does does! I was missing setting the level of the sound I wanted to fade in on the inspector window. DOH!
Thank you so so much.
Bob

 

[stagehand354]

Got this from Sam Kusentz at Figuer53, QLab's creator. Have tested it and it works perfectly. The thing to remember is the "Fade" cue levels will determine the fade from/to levels of the targeted audio cue. In order:

1. Drag your first audio track into QLab to create Audio Cue 1. Set the audio levels of this first track will begin with and fade from in the Device & Levels tab.
2. Create a Group Cue as Cue 2. In the Mode tab, make sure to turn on "Start all children simultaneously."
3. Within the Group cue, add two Fade cues. Below the second Fade cue but within the Group cue window, add the second audio track. Target each Fade cue to the appropriate Audio cues by dragging the Audio cue to its corresponding Fade cue. (Ignore the two Red X's for now.)
4. In the first Fade cue, set the fade type to Absolute in the Levels tab, check "Stop target when done" and (very importantly), in the Levels tab click and drag up/down the faders to set them at infinity. (This will be the level the first Fade cue will take its Audio cue to when it fires.) The red X should disappear next to that Fade cue. Set the desired fade duration in the Curve & Shape tab.
5. On the second Fade cue, leave the fade type as Absolute, click and drag the Levels faders to the levels you want the second Audio cue to fade to. The red X should disappear from that Fade cue. Make sure there is no check mark on the "Stop target when done" option and finally, set the duration of the Fade cue in the Curve Shape tab.

In my case I had to do some tweaking of each Fade cue's fade time and it was also necessary to trim some of the lead-in and lead-out times of the Audio cues (in the Trim & Loops tab) to cut out some silence on the tracks. In the end, this worked perfectly.

Again, thanks to Sam for the help on this but thought it may save someone time by posting it herein.