Crossfade to next song

[Guest]

I would love to see this feature in the future.

I like the current cross-fading options I have for at the end of the song, but I you LOVE it if I could initialize the change to the next song, at any point during the song. I like to keep constant noise when transitioning to songs, so when I have to change in the middle of the song now, there is no cross-fading.

[sierraskatherine]

Good idea. I think.

[Aminifu]

Hi dafatman,

Winamp already supports this. Use the fading options of the DirectSound output plugin to enable and set a custom length for the fade on the "pause/stop" option. I have it set to 3.5 seconds (3500) on my system so that when I pause, stop or change to another song the current song keeps playing for the 3.5 seconds.

Winamp also supports gap-less playback where the next song starts at the end of the current song with no silence between them instead of overlap (cross-fading) of the songs. To set this up, disable the DirectSound output plugin fading options and use it's silence remover option on the "Other" tab. It may also be helpful to disable this plugin's volume control options which are also on the "Other" tab.

Or if you have songs that begin and/or end with silence or a very low volume level and you want to cross-fade them with no silence, use the silence remover and the fading options.

Play around with these options and I'm sure you can get the playback response you want.

[ralfk]

Saw this post, and it really helped out. Thanks!

[Aminifu]

Saw this post, and it really helped out. Thanks!

Glad to be of service. Keep On Rocking!

[MrSinatra]

i wish winamp offered beat matching when crossfading songs. great in a random mix. overlap for two seconds or so, i have seen DJ programs do this flawlessly and it sounds amazing.

i also would like to see "smart crossfading" where crossfading is enabled, EXCEPT and only during when 2 or more album tracks (from the same album) in sequential order are presently playing in the playlist.

[Aminifu]

i wish winamp offered beat matching when crossfading songs. great in a random mix. overlap for two seconds or so, i have seen DJ programs do this flawlessly and it sounds amazing.

i also would like to see "smart crossfading" where crossfading is enabled, EXCEPT and only during when 2 or more album tracks (from the same album) in sequential order are presently playing in the playlist.

Both good ideas for a plug-in. Only problem, WA uses the directsound output plug-in to support crossfading. So the plug-in would have to work with that plug-in or duplicate the sound processing that it does.

What I do to come close to beat matching is sort my playlist by BPM and use a 2 second crossfade (and the directsound output plug-in's silence remover to prevent gaps). Not great, especially when the BPMs of the songs in the playlist are not close. But it's better than nothing. Works better when the BPMs are close and a longer crossfade can be used.

I use the ATF (advanced title formatting) codes to add the BPM tag to the beginning of the song title displayed in the playlist editor. Then I use the editor's 'misc - sort - title' command to rearrange the list in ascending or descending order. I use DrO's TTM plug-in to prevent the custom title string from being displayed in the taskbar. Instead I display artist, title, and genre there. With the skin I use the custom title string is only displayed in the playlist editor, since it's blocked from the taskbar.

[Aminifu]

There is an output plug-in that offers beat matching when crossfading songs, called "SqrSoft Advanced Crossfading Output v1.7.6 for Winamp". Although old, it still works quite well on my system. All such beat matching apps work best when the BPM of consecutive songs are not very far apart.

http://www.sqrsoft.com.ar/index.php?show=1&cont_id=products&contitem_id=acf&mode_id=0

It may take a few attempts to set it up appropriately for your system. A number of presets are provided. One or more presets must be imported from the "Winamp/Plugins/ACF Presets" folder before one can be selected. This plug-in was last updated in 2008, so there are a few things to watch out for.

1. The configuration file "out_sqr.ini" is written to the "Winamp/Plugins" folder. This is a restricted folder on Win 7, so in order to have any changes to the default settings saved, Winamp needs to be run under Administrator mode for the session(s) in which any changes are made.

2. A control panel is installed that may interfere with some WA skin functions. The control panel file "gen_acf.dll" can be renamed or removed from the "Winamp/Plugins" folder without affecting the main output plug-in file, "out_sqr.dll". The set up options can still be accessed through the "Winamp Preferences - Plug-ins - Output" page.

3. The default sound device selected is the "Microsoft Sound Mapper". Your sound card/chip may also be selected. See item 1 above if you want to save this change.

4. The output will follow the bit depth and sampling rate (no greater than 16 bit@48KHz) and channels (mono or stereo) of the source file when set to auto (default). The output may also be set a particular bit depth, sampling rate, and mono or stereo channel setting.

Those with a multichannel speaker setup will need to use their sound card/chip up-mix utility or the Windows "speaker fill" feature to get sound on all of their speakers (assuming your sound card/chip driver supports this).

Upsampling beyond 16 bit@48KHz, if desired, would also have to be supported external to this plug-in. Win 7 (and Vista) provides upsampling in shared mode (controlled through the Windows sound control panel) if your sound card/chip driver supports higher bit depth and/or sampling rates.

It should be noted that Windows will also provide mixed sampling in shared mode, i.e. if the SqrSoft ACF plug-in is set to 16 bit@48KHz and Windows is set to 16 [email protected] or 24 [email protected] or 16 bit@96KHz or 24bit@96KHz, then the output to the sound card/chip will be 16 [email protected] or 24 [email protected] or 16 bit@96Hz or 24bit@96KHz.

The default WA output plug-ins and this one work in shared mode.