The embedded Automatic Fader can easily manage the cross-fading between two songs loaded inside two different players (also know as "decks"): the Fader object, internally implemented as a COM object, is dedicated to this purpose and can be accessed through the control's Fader property.

When you need using the Fader object inside your development, you need to initialise it through a call to the Fader.Init method, passing the fading type and the two involved players identifiers.

The fading type can be:

Fading types described above can be started through a call to the Fader.StartManualFading method.

Once the Fader object has been initialized you can configure its behaviour through a set of dedicated properties that will manage the fade-in/fade-out transition.

As you can see on the graphic below, by default cross-fading is based upon a Time/Volume combination:

we have also added a Time/Playback-rate combination that allows the creation of the so called "Breakdown effect" that simulates the switch off of the deck rotor engine: you can choose this behaviour through the following property:

Fader.FadeOutMode

The available properties are the following:

Fader.FadeStartFromEnd: expressed in milliseconds, determines when the fader will automatically start the cross-fading

Fader.FadeOutLength: expressed in milliseconds, determines the duration of the fade-out phase

Fader.FadeInLength: expressed in milliseconds, determines the duration of the fade-in phase

Fader.FadeInSeekPos: expressed in milliseconds, determines the initial position of the song fading-in: in case that the song fading-in is in "paused" state, this parameter is ignored and the actual position is taken.

Fader.FadeOutDelayFromMixStart: expressed in milliseconds, determines the delay applied for the fade-out

Fader.FadeInDelayFromMixStart: expressed in milliseconds, determines the delay applied for the fade-in

Fader.FadeInEnabled: boolean value that determines if the fade-in is enabled

Fader.FadeOutEnabled: boolean value that determines if the fade-in is enabled

In case you should need to give the possibility to start a manual cross-fading, without the need to wait reaching the predisposed position, you can use the Fader.StartManualFading method.

The total time required for the cross-fading is immediately available inside the Fader.TotalMixingTime property (read-only).

If you need to disable the use of the Automatic Fader, you will have to call the Fader.Exit method that will remove the involved synchronisation; a new call to the Fader.Init method will enable again the Automatic Fader.

You can synchronize the container application with the cross-fading process catching a set of predefined events:

FadingPointReached: occurs when the playback of the song that will fade-out reaches the Fader.FadeStartFromEnd position

FadingVolumeChanged: occurs several times, for each of the involved players, during the volume sliding: allows to know in real-time the player's volume.

FadeInStarted: occurs when the song fading-in starts playing

FadeInCompleted: occurs when the fade-in is completed

FadeOutStarted: occurs when the song fading-out starts lowering its volume

FadeOutCompleted: occurs when the fade-out is completed

The Fader.Display property

Another useful feature of the embedded Automatic Fader is the possibility to display its visual representation through the Fader.Display property that works in a way very similar to the other Visual Feedbacks: this property must be associated, through the call to the Fader.Display.Create method, to an existing window that will be used as a surface for the graphic rendering; below you can see a screenshot of our Demo application that shows it:

Note that also the Fader.Display property is internally implemented through the Fader.Display COM object, so you have full customization capabilities about the display coloring; here is the set of available properties and methods:

Fader.Display.ColorSongFadingOut: the color used to render the line representing the song fading-out

Fader.Display.ColorSongFadingIn: the color used to render the line representing the song fading-in

Fader.Display.ColorLineMixPoint: the color used to render the line representing the Mix point

Fader.Display.ColorLineSongEnd: the color used to render the line representing the end of the song fading-out

Fader.Display.ColorBackground: the color used to render the Display background

Fader.Display.WidthSongLines: the width in pixels of the song lines

Fader.Display.WidthReferenceLines: the width in pixels of the reference lines

Fader.Display.SetBackPictureFromFile: sets a background picture obtained from a BMP file

Fader.Display.SetBackPictureFromHandle: sets a background picture obtained from a bitmap handle

Below you can find a graphic that gives an idea of the involved elements:

This graphic can be shown/hidden through the call to the Fader.Display.Show method.

A sample of use of the Fader object and of the Fader.Display object in Visual Basic 6 and Visual C++ 6 can be found inside the following sample installed with the product's setup package:

- Fader