Realplayer or alternative for crossfading...

[Elviza Isis]

I'm pasting this over from another thread to avoid confusion as to which answers are for which question...

I had Realplayer for years, and upgraded to Plus (first RP 10, then 11) for the main reason you could burn CD's with the songs crossfaded into each other by a few seconds or manage the number of seconds between songs. But the last time I downloaded it- about 3 years ago, I had a lot of issues with my computer as well as sometimes the program. Although I will say the tech support spent a lot of time with me on the phone we could not figure out why it was being hinky, and of course nobody would believe it was causing other issues with the computer. Now granted the computer was a POS but so was the one I had before it which had run RP without trouble for the most part.

Anyway, I have not bothered to download it onto my last couple of junky computers so just lived without the crossfade burning ability for the past three years since I have yet to find another program that did it. Now I see that CNet gave the newest Realplayer SP version a really good rating so was going to try it on my new, finally decent (I hope!) computer. But having called ahead to check, I find that they want to charge me full price for the Pro version as it is an "all new platform" (although said I could speak to management about a discount) but was assured that the free version now includes the crossfading?? Anyone know if this is true? My other option would be to download the old Realplayer 11 and activate my pro status but not sure I want to chance that. I was willing to try the newest one with trepidation just because of CNet's review.

Any advice, suggestions or tales of your experiences would be appreciated.

I have Winamp Pro, JetAudio, iTunes and WMP, and just added Mediamonkey- haven't been burning many CD's these days since I'm home with baby so maybe cross-fading burns (or removing the break between songs- without actually pasting them together/mixing) have been added to one of these and I just haven't run across it? I can't believe Realplayer would still be the only one that does this!

[steffib]

Audacity has the editing functions you're looking for and it is free, which is always good :-)

[Elviza Isis]

Thank you so much, but I don't really mean editing functions- I mean in RP you can select your 5 songs to dance to and just burn the CD immediately with all the songs crossfaded by 1-10 seconds, or if you prefer not crossfaded but with something like 0-10 seconds between songs, your choice how long. That's a lot less work then loading songs into a program and pasting them together every single time you wanna burn a CD. That's great if your cutting the length of songs or mixing two songs so you have that saved mix but most of the time we are using individual cuts. If I'm dancing a whole set it was great to just have the next song start right up... :o)

[Lauren_]

Thank you so much, but I don't really mean editing functions- I mean in RP you can select your 5 songs to dance to and just burn the CD immediately with all the songs crossfaded by 1-10 seconds, or if you prefer not crossfaded but with something like 0-10 seconds between songs, your choice how long. That's a lot less work then loading songs into a program and pasting them together every single time you wanna burn a CD. That's great if your cutting the length of songs or mixing two songs so you have that saved mix but most of the time we are using individual cuts. If I'm dancing a whole set it was great to just have the next song start right up... :o)

I don't have an answer but this sounds like an AWESOME feature.

I usually burn my troupe show CDs in itunes with no gap between tracks and we practice overlapping entrances/exits for each number. If I could crossfade (without having to edit all the tracks together into one 45 minute track!!!) I'd be in heaven!

I do hope someone has an answer, I'll be stalking this thread!

[Elviza Isis]

Yes, Lauren- it was great!!! Like I say it's really weird that the other programs didn't jump on the bandwagon long ago to compete with this as it's a good 5-6 years ago I first started using that feature with them. Seems like they allow you to cross-fade while listening, but not burning. I guess I'll see if there is anywhere that gives more detail as to whether this is included in the free RP now- otherwise it would definitely (I assume) be available in the Pro version. I just hate to pay $40 (nor do I have it right now) when I have already paid twice before for previous versions of the same program, and hardly used it the second time due to issues. I had talked about it on here before but at the time never came up with an answer as to an alternative. I know Realplayer had a bad rep for a while, but have heard they have tried to fix some of the problems so I'm happy to use them if it won't blow up my computer or if the burns won't fail half the time as happened in my later usage. Thanks for reminding me that iTunes at least has the 'no gap' option- that's good, too. :o)

[Elviza Isis]

Well, I am burning a disc in MediaMonkey right now and it does give the option to either burn with no gaps or a 2-second gap- so that's another program to keep in mind- I've only just started using it so don't know much about it; we'll see how the CD actually comes out...

[Elviza Isis]

So with this many people burning CD's is there anyone who has used the current version of Realplayer (free or pro) and can advise whether it has given them any issues (spam, pop-ups, installing unwanted stuff, charging you monthly fees they're not supposed to, etc.) and/or whether the current free version does offer the crossfading (from the way it looks on the site it seems it does, but trying to confirm). Or, alternative programs that offer this feature?