To cross-fade in Logic Pro requires you to first select the region you would like to cross-fade and then use the “Fade Out” slider to adjust the cross-fade amount, after first switching the “Type” pop up button to X for crossfade. in the inspector. The “Type” pop up button is found immediately under the “Fade Out” slider.
Selecting Regions From The Track Header Area
When you navigate to a track in the track header area, you will in turn select all the regions on that track. Since doing a cross-fade requires you to first select the regions you’d like to have the fade effect, if the track has multiple regions you will want to select the first region to work with. This can be accomplished by using the left and right arrows to move to the previous and or next region on the track respectively. As this acton doesn’t speak with VoiceOver, you can move the playhead to the start of the selected region with Control Home (Control FN LeftArrow on a laptop keyboard) or to the end of a selected region with Control End (Control FN RightArrow on a laptop Keyboard). VoiceOver will announce the start and end measures or bars when the playhead moves to them. Once you have the first region selected, you can use Shift Left or Right arrow to select the region before or after the selected region as well. Once you have both regions selected you can apply the cross-fade in the inspector.
Putting it all into Practice
So once you navigate to the track you would like and select the appropriate region, you can then navigate to the Inspector. (See the YouTube tutorial for a handy way to do this that minimizes on the amount of interacting required).Once in the inspector, you can navigate to the region inspector table. If this isn’t visible you will need to VO Space on the collapsed button just before where it says region to expand it. Once you interact with the region inspector table, you will need to navigate down past the more option to see the fade out options. If the more option is collapsed, interact with it and VO+Space on it to expand it.
First you will need to navigate to the type pop up button and change it from “Out” to “x”. This will change the “Fade Out” slider above it to now be a cross-fade slider. After adjusting the “Fade Out” slider, you can press the SpaceBar to playback the project and hear your handy work. Adjust and playback till satisfied with the results.
You can adjust the Fade amount in large increments with VO and Shift with Left and Right arrows, or in small increment with VO and Left and Right arrows. You will most likely use small increments most times with cross-fades.
While in the inspector, you can still move the playhead to where ever you would like to start playback from without affecting your selection, thus allowing you to better hear your fade in context with parts before or after it.
Once again see the YouTube tutorial to see this process in action.
Wrapping Up
Once you have the cross-fade sounding the way you like, that’s it. Stop interacting with the “Fade Out” slider you were working with and you are free to move on with whatever is next in that particular Logic project for you.
