Transitions

What are transitions?#

Transitions are functions you can use to switch musically between patterns. Start with a pattern on d1:

d1 $ s "bd(3,8) drum*4"

You can then perform a crossfade transition to a new pattern using xfade:

xfade 1 $ s "arpy*8" # n (run 8)

Note that the argument we give to xfade is 1, which means to apply the transition to the pattern that is running on d1.

You can use transitions on any d pattern in Tidal:

d3 $ s "bd(3,8)"
xfade 3 $ s "arpy*4"

You can also apply a transition to any arbitrary pattern name:

p "drums" $ s "bd(3,8) drum*4"
xfade "drums" $ s "arpy*8" # n (run 8)

Most of the transitions also have an "In" variant, where you can specify the number of cycles that the transition takes to complete:

xfadeIn 1 8 $ s "arpy*8" # n (run 8)

Check out the Small Reference > Transitions section to learn more about transitions.