Adding fades to midi tracks

What's the best way to add Fade Ins and Fade Outs to midi tracks?  I'm guessing you can't do it directly to the midi track since that's just a digital representation of notes.  Do you simply create a volume envelope for the soft synth the midi is powering or is there another way?

Thanks

That's how I do it.

Envelopes yes, but like Scott said, always on the audio track.

If I want to do the fades on the MIDI track itself (when I'm in the early stages of a song and want to fiddle with the MIDI tracks before locking them down once as audio) I use an Expression fade as shown in this pic.  You can use Shift/Alt/Left mouse click to draw the slope in, which is handy because you can trial and error with different drawing attempts, and this is what I did here to have a final bass note fade slowly.  Note the single Expression change after the fade out slope to return things to the pre-slope level or you could get unintended silence/low volume if you replay from somewhere that doesn't tell your synth a 'default' Expression level.
http://www.johnsongs.com/ExpPic.jpg
(Sorry, couldn't post the image direct here as when I click Reply on this forum there is a menu which appears and disappears in under a second which I think shows the usual options., e.g. URL, Img, etc.  I assume this is a bug.)
   
John

garrigus

I like to use a volume envelope on the audio track being used as the synth output. Or if using a simple instrument track, I'll just add a volume envelope to that, which is basically the same thing.

That way, if I decide to freeze the synth, I still have access to the envelope for adjustment because it doesn't get frozen with the track.

Scott

I'm trying to add a fade out to a simple instrument track, and came across this thread.
 
What is the procedure for adding a volume envelope to a simple instrument track?  There's nothing in a simple instrument track to select; no waveforms, no events, nothing. 
 
It's nowhere near as intuitive as adding a fade out to an audio track, where there's a mouse-over icon in the upper-right-hand corner of the track that you can grab and drag across the waveform - so simple.  There's no such icon on a MIDI track or simple instrument track...
 
Any assistance appreciated.
 

In this picture a fade is shown on an audio track. On every clip and track at the beginning and the end there are handles toward the top for fading in and out.



In this picture MIDI CC7 is used with the Line drawing tool have a fade out of MIDI.

You can also use the scale velocity tool. Just highlight the section you want to fade in or out. That way if youre using layered drum samples, the timbre changes also more like a live fade out.

The problem with Scale Velocities is that it will over-write all the dynamics of the existing note velocities, replacing them with a straight line. Automating Velocity Offset (a.k.a Vel+, a.k.a. MIDI Gain) gives the same "live fade" effect without changing the existing dynamic variation.


John mentioned using CC7 controllers; that can also work to achieve a more conventional audio fade, but some synths do not respond well to changing CC7 while notes are sounding as shown in his screenshot. Incidentally, I usually prefer a Fast Out curve for a smoother ending.


For a conventional audio fade, automating the volume on the track hosting the synth output is the way to go.

Calkwalker

Thanks for the explanation Scott - so easy once you know how!
 

No problem... glad I could help!


Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
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