This chapter describes the elements of the default edit, track, editor profile and transport toolbars. The track and editor profile toolbars are only present in the arrangement editor. The transport toolbar is only present in the arrangement editor and the standalone sound editor, since sounds, note sequences and curve sequences placed on tracks are controlled by the arrangement editor transport.

You can customize the elements in the toolbars, if you for example want to remove elements you have no need for, or if you want to join the edit and transport toolbars into one toolbar. See the editor profiles chapter for more information about how to configure an editor profile.

You can specify the height of a toolbar in the toolbar setup dialog. You can also adjust the height directly on the toolbar: Move the mouse cursor onto the toolbar and use the mouse wheel while holding the Ctrl key down. The elements in the toolbar will resize accordingly. Note that the Default button size setting in preferences controls the height of all buttons in the UI, including those in toolbars. To adjust the default button size: Move the mouse cursor onto the project window menu bar and use the mouse wheel while holding the Ctrl key down.

• File menu: See the File menu section.

• Track menu: See the Track menu section. Only available in the arrangement editor.

• Edit menu: See the Edit menu section.

• View menu: See the View menu section.

• Undo, Redo: When you move the mouse cursor over either of the buttons, a popup will show a description of the next undo or redo action. The buttons are dimmed if there are no undo or redo steps available. Press Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y to redo. Right-click either button, or press Alt+Y and Alt+Z, to show a menu listing the edit history. Each edit step in the menu has an hour:minute:second timestamp that shows how long ago the edit action was applied. Click a step in the menu to undo/redo all the steps up to and including that step. See the edit history section for more information.

• Tool: The selected tool button will determine the primary edit function of the left mouse button. The tools included in the default arrangement editor profile are: Select, Segment, Pencil, Eraser, Scalpel, Slide, and Zoom X/Y. Some of the actions you can do with a certain tool can also be done with other tools, using key modifiers. Selecting a tool for a specific purpose can speed up editing in some situations. Press D or F to cycle the currently selected tool. Enable the Include editor tool shortcuts in timeline context menus option on the Application tab in Preferences to allow selecting tools from the right-click menu in the editor timeline.

• Snap: When enabled, all mouse actions on the timeline will be snapped. Snapping can be configured using the adjacent Grid & Snap menu. Press A to toggle snap on and off. Hold Shift while moving or editing events to temporarily disable snap.

• Grid & Snap menu: In the menu you can select grid values from a whole bar down to 1/128 notes, as well as options for snap behaviour. The current grid value is displayed on the menu button. Press Shift+D or Shift+F to cycle through the grid values. See the Grid & Snap menu section.

• Mouse cursor: Displays the position of the mouse cursor, if it is positioned within the timeline. Time is displayed with a subdivision of the editor grid value. If snap mode is disabled, a percentage value is displayed to indicate the relative position between the two nearest grid lines.

• Segment range: Shows the start and end position of a segment selection.

• Add new track: Left-click to open the Track Properties dialog for a new track. Right-click to show an options menu. The menu contains the Add New Track command (same command as left-click) followed by a list of all your track templates. The new track will be added to the bottom of the track list.

• Global solo, Global mute, Global record arm: The buttons are lit if there are any soloed, muted and record armed tracks. Hovering the mouse cursor over a button will show a popup listing the names of all affected tracks. Clicking the button will reset the mode on all tracks. The buttons are useful for quick overview, in case you work with a lot of tracks that don’t fit on the screen at the same time.

• Track tag bar: Clicking the Tags button opens the Track Tags dialog. If there are any tags defined in the arrangement, these will be presented as buttons to the right of the Tags button. See the track tags section for more information about track tags and how to configure them.

Clicking a tag button will select/reset the tag. Selecting a tag that is part of a mutually exclusive group (buttons that are joined with no space between them) will reset other tags in the group. Ctrl+click a tag to toggle it without resetting other tags.

Each tag button has a small check button inside it. Check buttons indicate which tags are assigned to the focus track. Click a check button to assign/remove the tag on the focus track. Note that if you remove a tag from the focus track, the track may become hidden if the tag is selected.

Right-clicking a tag button will show an options menu:

• Solo, Mute, Record Arm: Toggles the solo, mute or record arm state off/on for all tracks that has this tag. The state is enabled for all tracks, if the state is off for one or more of the tagged tracks. Otherwise the state is disabled for all tracks.

• Customize tag: Opens the Track Tags dialog with the tag selected in the list, and key focus set to the tag name edit field.

The editor profile toolbar is used to quickly switch between editor profiles. In the default setup this toolbar is only included in the arrangement editor. The available arrangement editor profiles are: Tracks, Editor, Mixer, and Big Transport.

The only element contained in the toolbar is the Editor profile bar element. The profile bar shows a row of buttons that represent the available editor profiles. Editor profiles are designed specifically for either arrangements, sounds, note sequences or curve sequences. Only profiles that are compatible with the editor are shown in the profile bar. In addition to the editor specific profiles you also have generic profiles, such as the Event List profile, which can be selected in all editors. Generic profiles are rarely used, so they are not included in the profile bar.

Click a profile button or press the 1-9 number keys to select a profile. You can also select a profile from the list in the View menu.

You can customize the editor profiles by right-clicking one of the profile buttons to bring up an options menu:

• Customize Editor Profile: Opens the Editor Profile Properties dialog. The same command is also available for the current profile in the View menu.

• Duplicate Editor Profile: Creates a copy of the profile, next to the original. The copy can for example be modified by stripping away regions you rarely use, in order to maximize the available vertical space for timeline editing.

• Delete Editor Profile: Removes the profile from the setup completely. If it is the current profile, then the first available profile in the list will become the current profile.

• Move Left, Move Right: Shifts the selected profile one position to the left or right in the profile list.

The toolbars in the default setup are configured so that they will fit on a small screen resolution without being truncated. If you are working with a large screen resolution, you may, for example, want to move the editor profile bar into the edit toolbar, so that you can free up some vertical space by deleting the dedicated editor profile toolbar. To do that, follow the steps listed below. Note that you will need to repeat those steps for each of the profiles in the editor profile bar.

• Right-click a profile button and select Customize Editor Profile to open the profile dialog.
• Select Toolbar (Edit) in the Region list and click Properties to open the toolbar dialog.
• Scroll to the bottom of the Layout list and select the bottom line divider in the list.
• Select Align to right in the Elements list and click Insert.
• Select Editor profile bar in the Elements list and click Insert.
• Click OK to close the toolbar dialog.
• Select Toolbar (Editor profile bar) in the Region list and click Delete.
• Click OK to close the profile dialog. If you select the profile you should see that the profile bar has moved up on the edit toolbar.

If you have created your own additional profiles for sound, note sequence and curve sequence editors, you could also use the above procedure to add the editor profile bar to those editors.

If you accidentally mess things up while experimenting with the editor layout configuration, you can retrieve the default editors by using the Restore Default Editor Profiles command in the Setup menu.

The Power, Play, Loop, Record, Metronome, Punch In and Punch Out buttons can be right-clicked to open an options menu. Most of the menu options are shortcuts to relevant options in the Preferences dialog.

• Power: Turning the power on for an arrangement will load plugins and start monitoring of any MIDI and audio inputs that are assigned to tracks. The power button pulsates when power is off. Note that power is not turned off if you leave the arrangement editor. Only one arrangement can be powered on at a time. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Space to toggle power.

• Stop, Play: Playback will start from the edit cursor position. If the Link Edit Cursor to Play Cursor option in the View menu is disabled, clicking play during playback will restart playback from the edit cursor position. Press Space to toggle playback. Press Numpad Enter to start playback. Press Numpad Zero to stop playback. Press Numpad Zero twice to move the edit cursor back to the start.

• Loop: Enables looping around the time range shown in the adjacent loop range field. Enabling loop mode will reveal the loop region above the timeline ruler, where you can set the loop range by dragging the loop bar. Press L to toggle loop mode. Press Shift+L to set loop start or end at the edit cursor position. Press Alt+L to set loop around the current event or segment selection.

• Loop range: Shows the loop start/end positions. The positions are displayed with a subdivision of the time signature at the start/end position. The text is dimmed if loop is not enabled.

• Record: The record button arms the arrangement for recording. Recording will start on all record armed tracks once playback is started. Press K or Numpad Decimal to toggle recording mode.

• Metronome: Outputs a click on bars and beats. The metronome can be configured in the Preferences dialog. Press U to toggle metronome mode.

• Punch in, Punch out: Enables recording within the time range shown in the adjacent punch range field. Enabling punch in or punch out mode will reveal the punch region above the timeline ruler, where you can set the punch range by dragging the punch bar. Press I and O to toggle punch in/out modes.

• Punch range: Shows the punch in/out positions. The positions are displayed with a subdivision of the time signature at the start/end position. The text is dimmed if punch in or out is not enabled.

• Edit/Play cursor: Shows the position of the edit/play cursor. The play cursor position is shown during playback, and the edit cursor position is shown when stopped. If the arrangement time resolution is time signature based, the time is displayed both as hours:minutes:seconds,hundreds and as bars and beats, followed by a meter that illustrates the position within the current bar. If the arrangement time resolution is linear, the time is shown as hours:minutes:seconds,hundreds only.

• Time signature and tempo: Shows the time signature and tempo at the edit/play cursor position. Double-clicking the field will open the properties dialog for the tempo event that is placed before or at the cursor position. If there is no tempo event, a new event will be created at the start of the arrangement. Note that, since tempo events can be configured with either time signature and/or tempo settings, the displayed time signature or tempo may be set by a previous tempo event.

• Performance indicator: Shows the relative time used by the mix engine and the sound file streaming, before overload will occur. When overload occurs it can result in gaps in the audio output. If an overload has been detected, the background will be colored with the overload color (as specified in the current color setup). This can be a helpful indication whether a recording was made without any sound drop-outs. Clicking the indicator will reset the overload coloring. The following are some observations about performance:
  • Factors that will affect performance include: available computing power, the buffer size configured for the audio interface, disk read/write access time, and other programs running on the PC.
  • The mix percentage includes the processing of plugins, but the actual CPU usage of plugins may be smaller. You can verify this with the Windows Task Manager performance graphs.
  • In order to process audio without audible gaps, the mix engine must be able to complete its processing within the time of each buffer that is requested by the audio interface. Using small buffer sizes will result in low latency, but it increases the sensitivity to CPU spikes caused by software running in high priority mode. This could be a plugin that needs to do occasional CPU intensive initialization in response to program or parameter changes, or system critical processes that needs to do file access. That is why you will see a more frequent occurrence of performance spikes when you are using small buffer sizes.

• MIDI indicator: The upper part lights up when MIDI is received on any configured MIDI input interfaces. The bottom part lights up when MIDI is being sent out to any configured MIDI output interfaces.