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From SpacialAudio

Having two player decks allows SAM Broadcaster and SAM Party DJ (collectively known as SAM) to professionally crossfade between songs. Remember, you must set up the crossfade to match the format and sound of your station. A rock station should not have the same crossfade as a classical or dance station.

The SAM crossfader also comes with a gap killer capable of removing silence at the beginning and end of a song. This is vital for a good-sounding fade. We recommend leaving gap killer with the default settings.

The improved crossfading in SAM features auto-crossfade point detection, and various fade curves that can be set globally, or on a "per-track" basis.

Basic Configuration

• Enable Fade out: Specified whether the track should contain a fade at the end of the track.
• Enable Fade in: Specifies if the track should contain a fade at the start of track.

• The following pertains to both Fade-in/out settings:
  • Curve: You can specify 3 types of fade curves
  • Default/S-curve: The S-Curve provides a nice "COS" style curve that really sounds the best in most situations. (See S-Curve below)
  • The S-Curve: Starts out slow, then accelerates quick before slowing down again. This produces a nice-sounding fade. The resulting shape of the curve looks like an S, thus the name S-Curve.
  • Exponential: This curve starts out slow, but increases exponentially to produce a very quick fade during the end of the fade.
  • Linear: The linear fade produces a constant rate of change in the volume during the fade. (Aka. the old SAM2 style fades) Sounds best in conjunction with tracks that already has a slow fade. (If you wish to force the track to fade out quicker) Sounds OK with most other tracks

• Time: The duration of the fade
  • Note: This setting has no effect on the Fade-Out during auto-detected crossfades.

• Level: Specifies the start/end volume level of the fade. A value of 100% means the fade will start/end at the minimum volume.
  • For example, during a fade-out this means the fade will go to zero volume (i.e. -100dB). During Fade-in this means the fade will start at zero volume. Anything other than 100% means the volume level will start/end a bit higher. For fade-outs it is sometimes best no to fully fade out the track, so that the vocals can be heard during the final milliseconds of the track. Same goes for the fade in, starting at a higher volume allows the audio to be instantly audible while we continue with the fade.

• Crossfade settings:
  • Default/Auto detect: Will automatically scan the song for a certain dB level, and when the song drops below that value towards the end of the track - the crossfade will be triggered.
  • Disable crossfading: No crossfade. The next track will start immediately after the current track has completely finished playing.
  • Fixed point: You can specify how many seconds before the end of the track the next track will start playing.

• Fixed crossfade point (Time): Works in conjunction with Fixed Point mode above; specifies how many seconds before the end of the track the next track will start playing.

• Crossfade point detection: Works in conjunction with Default/Auto detect mode above.

• Trigger at [xx] dB: This specifies the dB level the automatic crossfade point detection algorithm will look for. As soon as the song drops below this level, towards the end of the track, the next song will start playing. The current song will also be faded out according to the time left till the end of the song. (See below)

• Min/Max fade time: These values specify the min/max values the fade-out duration can be.
  • For example, say the crossfade point is detected 10 seconds before the end of the track, and the maximum fade-out is only 6 seconds - then the fade will be only 6 seconds, resulting in the song being stopped 4 seconds earlier. If the crossfade point is detected 1 second before the end of the track, and the minimum fade out is 3 seconds, the following will happen. The fade out will be started 3 seconds before the end of the track, but the crossfade will actually start 1.5 seconds before the end of the track (3sec/2)

Note: All the above settings can of course be overridden for each and every track.

• [x] Do not crossfade or fade tracks [xx] seconds or less in duration: This will avoid crossfading or the fading of very short tracks like advertisements, promos and sound effects. Fading media like this usually sounds very bad. Imagine applying a 3 second fade-out to a 4 second track!

Note for SAM Broadcaster: Any content marked as "Allow overlay", i.e. "overlays" will not be crossfaded.