Working with audio transitions

Learn when to use audition transitions and how to apply and customize them inside Adobe Premiere Pro

You can apply crossfades for audio transitions between clips. An audio fade is analogous to a video transition. Like a video transition, an audio transition allows you to fade sound in or out of your project. You can also apply crossfades between two different clips.

For a crossfade, you add an audio transition between two adjacent audio clips on the same track. To fade in or fade out, you add a crossfade transition to either end of a single clip. Premiere Pro includes three types of audio crossfade transitions namely Constant Gain, Constant Power, and Exponential Fade.

Specify the default audio transition

  1. Right-click (Windows) or control-click (macOS) either Constant Gain or Constant Power in the Effects panel.

  2. Choose Set Selected As Default Transition from the context menu.

Set the default duration for audio transitions

  1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Timeline (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Timeline (macOS).

  2. In the Preferences dialog box, enter a value for the Audio Transition Default Duration.

Adjust or customize an audio transition

  1. Do any of the following:
    • To edit an audio transition, double-click the transition in a Timeline panel and adjust the transition in the Effect Controls panel.

    • To customize the rate of an audio fade or crossfade, adjust the clip’s audio volume keyframe graph instead of applying a transition.

Fade in or fade out clip audio

  1. Expand the audio track vertically in the Timeline panel. 

  2. With visual fade handles on audio clips, simply click and drag to create a variety of custom fades.

    UI shows interactive fade handle dragged to create a fade effect in the audio clip.
    Interactive fade handles on the edges of clips can be dragged to create audio fades.

Tip:

Hold the option key while dragging to constrain the adjustment to only one axis — up-down for slope or left-right for duration.

Hold the option key while dragging to constrain the adjustment to only one axis: up-down for slope or left-right for duration.

You can hold the shift key to change one side for the crossfade effect. Or you can also hold the option key and drag it left or right to change the curve or the duration.

Crossfade between audio clips

  1. Vertically expand the audio tracks that you want to crossfade.

  2. Make sure that the two audio clips are adjacent and both clips are trimmed.

  3. With visual fade handles on the audio clip, select and drag across the neighboring clip to create a custom crossfade.

    UI shows crossfade effect between two audio clips.
    Expand the interactive fade handles on the edges of clips to create crossfades between clips.

Tip:

You can hold the shift key to change one side for the crossfade effect. Or you can also hold the option key and drag it left or right to change the curve or the duration.

TALK TO US

If you have questions about working with audio transitions, reach out to us in our Premiere Pro community. We would love to help.

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