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[Vocalpoint]

Now that I see Matt is moving into making specific song pairs always play in a certain order (awesome!) - I would like to see some improvements in the ability for MC to ensure that all tracks in a playlist could be (tagged?) to react favorably to the next song coming up.

Specifics could include being able to specify start and ending types (cold, fade) etc so that when a track with a dead cold end is encountered - and the next track has a dead cold start - that sequence is seamless. Right now - I have many a cold end tracks come up and depending on the mood that MC is in that day - or when the upcoming tracks starts - there many be a half second gap in the mix - completely blowing the flow of the mix.

Additional to the above - improvements to cross fading would be nice too. I tend to lean on the "aggressive" modes (1.0 or 1.5) - as those seem to be the closest I can get to my old FM radio mixing tactics - but even then - most smartlists give me tracks that seem to take their sweet time to start - usually after the track before it has almost completely faded down...would be nice to have some facility to tighten this up a bit to arrive at a more seamless presentation than watching some cut fade down to almost silent and then have the next track come blaring in....maybe a way to set start/end volume thresholds (Start next when previous hits -43db) based on actual song levels?

Cheers!

VP

[6233638]

Is that not already handled by the "Do not play silence (leading and trailing)" option?

[Vocalpoint]

Is that not already handled by the "Do not play silence (leading and trailing)" option?

I guess not. In my testing - with that option ticked - you would think a song with a nice cold start would start immediately - but that's simply not the case. I have many song ripped directly by MC with noticeable "gaps" at the start - like it takes a few milliseconds (or longer) for the actual data to fire up or the opposite - a track is starting to nicely fade - and I am anticipating the next track to be coming in any second - when MC suddenly clips the fading track (usually on Crossfade Aggressive) when it reaches MC's definition of silence. What I need is for MC to have that next song come in just before it decides to clip the former song out.

Granted - all FLACs are not created equal and to really be definitive - one would need to pull every track into an editor and make sure there is no other data whatsoever at the start of a song - and do a consistent custom fades on every song - to make them truly behave.

I would also need to understand exactly what db level MC considers "silence" because I have heard some pretty strange mixes from things in my library.

I have messed with all the different crossfade options - a lot. While I can get close to what I feel is a "radio mix" sometimes - it usually does not take long for a track to come along to put a damper on things.

Overall - the "cold to cold" concept is what's really bothering me. MC consistently fails in butting a very tight cold ending against a tight cold start without some sort of oddball space in between. I like these transitions to be airtight (like I would do it mixing live) - and you would think that ""Do not play silence (leading and trailing)" would cue that next track up airtight - but it does not.

Again - maybe I am missing something here - I would be a very willing participant to try out any other suggestions that anyone may have.

VP

[6233638]

Perhaps the solution would be improvements to the behavior of this option, rather than requiring manual intervention?
Or am I misunderstanding the problem? (it seems that you just want to change how "silence" is handled at the start/end of tracks?)

[Vocalpoint]

Perhaps the solution would be improvements to the behavior of this option, rather than requiring manual intervention? Or am I misunderstanding the problem? (it seems that you just want to change how "silence" is handled at the start/end of tracks?)

Well - it's a bit of both. Ideally I would like to see MC be able to make decisions mid-playlist so that any combos of fades, starts and ends can be accommodated. Let's take a three song combo like this:

1. Heart Barracuda
2. The Eagles - King of Hollywood
3. The Cars - Best Friends Girl

In this case - track 1 has a very abrupt cold end - possibly one of the coldest out there. Ideally - MC should be able to "see" this abrupt cold end approaching - well in advance and use that information to act on track 2 - which features a long "fade in" to start of with.

If I cued up these three in MC19 - these two songs in a playlist will always sound bizarre - Barracuda will come screeching to a dead halt and there are the Eagles - huffing and puffing from virtual silence - taking maybe 20 seconds to get up to a decent volume.

Then once KOH is drawing to a close - it also features a long fade out - one that tends to fade out way too long for my tastes. But if you turn on "Do not play silence (leading and trailing)" - this track will begin to fade and then at a certain point (due to the Aggressive crossfade settings) and MC's definition of silence is reached - it will simply get clipped off and supposedly - The Cars will start up.

If I was doing this set on the air - The Eagles would be already rolling at the last 10 or 12 seconds as Barracuda comes grinding to a halt. The Eagles track would suddenly "appear" when Barracuda ends - already at a decent volume with no huge silence gap as we wait for it to gain traction. And as we move from the Eagles to the Cars - I would let the track fade to a specific volume level (but no where near what MC uses as "silence") and then kick the Cars in to retain a seamless mix without letting the Eagles trail off to nothingness (or worse - get clipped off) before the third track came blazing in out of the supposed silence.

Now - I fully understand that human real time decisions are unique and I would not expect MC to handle it that good automatically - but it would be nice if we had some way to coax it in the right direction.

I am thinking off the top of my hat of course but it would be great if we could tell MC to combine different crossfade combinations (Cold To Fade In), (Cold To Cold) or (Fade to Cold) within a single Smartlist or have a way to tag a track to allow MC to intelligently "look ahead" at how "this" song (playing) ends and how "that" song (next up) starts and make some decisions based on that criteria.

All we really have now is a time parameter (How long the crossfade distance should be) and whether the silence is clipped from the tracks. Usually leading to some weird crossfade action.

Practically every time we use MC for a dinner party and I fire up one of my stock 3 hour playlists - I always get a "What happened to the music" and when I run over the screen - it's just a long fade dying away and then next track taking too long to start or some sorta of other oddity.

Again - thoughts...

Cheers,

VP

[Matias]

+1

[rec head]

I know this isn't what you are looking for but you can edit the playback range of songs. I do this to take out a lot of nonsense at the start and end of tracks. I can hear minutes of cheering from a live album once and not need to hear it again.

[Vocalpoint]

I know this isn't what you are looking for but you can edit the playback range of songs. I do this to take out a lot of nonsense at the start and end of tracks. I can hear minutes of cheering from a live album once and not need to hear it again.

How do you adjust this in MC?

VP

[rec head]

Ok, there might be a better way but here is what I do using "Files" view.

Right click on the bar that lists Name, Artist, Album, etc. Check the Playback Range option. Now Rename that field with the start and end times you want.

Example: You have a song that is 4:00 long. It has 10 seconds of nonsense at the beginning and 15 at the end. In the Playback Range field enter 0:10 - 3:45.

[Vocalpoint]

Ok, there might be a better way but here is what I do using "Files" view.

Right click on the bar that lists Name, Artist, Album, etc. Check the Playback Range option. Now Rename that field with the start and end times you want.

Example: You have a song that is 4:00 long. It has 10 seconds of nonsense at the beginning and 15 at the end. In the Playback Range field enter 0:10 - 3:45.

SO you have to do it manually per song? If that's the case - that's not what I need.

VP