How to Crossfade Songs in Windows Media Player 12

This article explains crossfading and how to enable it in Windows Media Player

Enhance Your Music Playback With Crossfading

Luckily, Windows Media Player 12 has just the feature to make this a reality (for Windows Media Player 11, read our tutorial on how to crossfade music in WMP 11 instead). The audio enhancement facility in question is called Crossfading and can be easily set up to automatically occur (when you know where to look, that is).

Listen to Your Music Library in a New Way

Once configured, you can listen to your music library in a new way; this audio mixing technique suddenly makes the way your music collection is played sound more professional and makes listening to it more interesting. If you've already created your own custom-made playlists, then these will also be processed when crossfading is set up -- however, the caveat in using this facility is that you can't crossfade tracks on audio CDs.

If you fancy setting up this great audio effect rather than having to suffer (the sometimes annoying) silent gaps between songs, follow this short crossfading tutorial for Windows Media Player 12. As well as finding out how to turn this feature on (which is deactivated by default), you will also discover how to vary the amount of time that songs overlap each other for that perfect crossfade.

View the Windows Media Player 12 Crossfade Options Screen and Enable It

With the Windows Media Player 12 program running:

1. Open up Windows Media Player, and start playing a song.

2. Select the Switch to Now Playing icon in the lower right of the screen, designated by three squares and an arrow.

   Alternatively, you can use the keyboard by holding the [CTRL] key and pressing [3].

3. Right-click anywhere on the Now Playing screen and choose Enhancements > Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling.

4. A new window will pop open with options for crossfading. Press Turn on Crossfading to enable it.

5. Use the slider on the window to set the duration of the overlap between songs. When you're done, close the window and return to your music.

Test and Adjust Automatic Crossfading

1. Click the icon in the top-right hand corner of the screen (3 squares and an arrow) to switch back to the Library view. Alternatively, hold down the [CTRL] key and press [1].

2. One of the simplest ways to verify that you have enough crossfading time is to use an existing playlist you have already created and done a test run. If you have previously created some then you will find them in the Playlists section in the left menu pane. For more information on playlists in Windows Media Player, our tutorial on how to create a playlist in WMP 12 is recommended in order to quickly get one set up. As an alternative method that is super-quick, you can also create a temporary playlist in Windows Media Player by dragging and dropping a few songs from your digital music library into the right-hand pane where it says, "Drag Items Here."

3. To start playing songs in one of your playlists, simply double-click on one to begin.

4. While a track is playing, switch to the Now Playing screen, as before. To fast forward a song instead of having to wait for it to get to the end (in order to hear the crossfade), slide the seek bar (that's the long blue bar near the bottom of the screen) to almost the end of the track. Alternatively, the skip track button can also be used to fast forward the song by holding down the left mouse button on it.

5. If the overlap time needs adjusting, use the crossfade slider bar to either increase or decrease the number of seconds -- if you don't see the crossfade settings screen then drag the Windows Media Player main screen across your desktop a little to see it.

6. Recheck the crossfade again between the next two songs in your playlist and repeat the above step if necessary.