Very rarely do I get negative feedback about my station. But the few times I have, it has been about how crossfade settings "suck sometimes" as a listener said. I run the station mainly on my own, my girlfriend helps me with music selections, and know little to none about crossfade settings. As badly as I want to make it perfect, I'm afraid me tooling with it without a clue will only make the crossfade settings worse then listeners think they are at times.

Our current crossfade settings were set by the previous owners of the station when it aired a different format. They are not the default crossfade settings on SAM.

What crossfade settings do you reccomend for me? I run a popular CHR-formatted radio station on itunes radio.

Any response is greatly appreciated, you guys are the best, and SAM is an amazing automation program that I've used since 2008 with little to no troubles.

There really are no "perfect" magic bullet settings for this, as each station programmer's tastes are different.

I don't care for auto-crossfading at all. Never use it or the gap killer. Have never found an automation system that does it perfectly every time.

Personally I disable any auto-crossfading and I have manually set the crossfade on each and every file I play. And YES, I have a large library.... and YES, it took FOREVER to manually set them all. But it was worth it. I'm NEVER taken by surprise on a crappy crossfade. And as I continually add new music weekly, it's just part of the regular maintenance of the station.

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What percentage feedback is negative towards the crossfading?
What percentage feedback is positive?

How many feedbacks (+ or -) are received on a daily basis compared to the listener count?
If the feedback count (+ or -) is inversely proportional to the listener count:
* low feedback, high listener count = rough estimate that listeners enjoy the station
* high feedback, low listener count = rough estimate that listeners do not enjoy the station

Summary; don't jump to conclusions based on a few pieces of feedback without looking at the global picture.

Furthermore, if the crossfading "sucks sometimes" without specifics on what/when (this type of feedback is the same as going to the doctor and saying "it hurts"; unless there is a sword sticking out of your body chances are the doctor will need more information) you can explain that the crossfading is done through automated software and will not be 100% smooth and "sucks sometimes" is an acceptable margin.

You just need to decide if you're a sniper, horse shoe, hand-grenade, or a nuclear bomb; each has it's own margin of error to score a hit.

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- Steve Kunitzer
- SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support) / Forum Administrator

I use both the crossfading & gap killer on my mostly alternative station and I have to say once you tweak the crossfading module just so it does a very good job roughly 99% of the time (for my tastes and music format). The 1% it poorly crossfades you can set manually in the song's setting tab (X-fade).

One crucial point that will dramatically affect crossfade is the "loudness" of the original mp3 files. It is essential that all your music be set to roughly the same gain even if you're using a DSP compressor/limiter to help level the overall loudness of your station. Think of this as "riding the gain" if you are a dj familiar with running a broadcast board with faders or pots.

I highly, highly recommend the free MP3Gain tool available here: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/ (Set the target volume somewhere around 88-92 db - I use 89.0 dB; and make sure you use the option of "don't clip when using Track Gain" in the options tab. That don't clip is extremely important especially when massaging material that is already highly clipped - e.g. modern pop music.)


As the website says:


This crucial step in preparing mp3s for broadcast is often overlooked. Your final stage compressor/limiter will do a much better job if the content that hits it is more consistent in the first place.

Standardizing your mp3s will also help the crossfader trigger crossfades at a more pleasing point (generally).

There will always be some songs that you need to set the X-fade point for, especially ones that end with a voice out cold.

There's no one size fits all setting for crossfading, but here's mine:

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The truth is that those who post after the question are quite right, because there is no general solution to the crossfade, because each has a different taste, one thing is desert, which sam configurability allows very efficient crossfade .

I suggest you play with the crossfade controls, that is set up you like and save the settings you like, in an image. they may re-install to replace your settings saved.

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La verdad, es que los que postearon despues de la pregunta tienen mucha razon, porque no existe una solucion general con el crossfade, por que cada uno tiene un gusto diferente, una cosa es sierta, que sam permite la configurabilidad del crossfade con mucha eficiencia.

Sugiero que juegue con los controles de crossfade, es decir configure hasta que le guste y guarde la configuracion que le guste, en una imagen. y cuando instale nuevamente podra volver a colocar su configuracion guardada.

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Ing. Jaime Zambrana Chacón
http://www.facebook.com/sambroadcasterlatino
http://www.tecnologiasemergentes.net
skype: jaime.zambrana.chacon
e-mail: jameszambranachacon@gmail.com

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