Reference Guide

1738 Dialog box reference

Fit to Time dialog

The Process > Fit to Time command opens the Fit to Time dialog box, which you can use to

stretch or shrink a selection so that it ends at a specific time, expressed in either measure:beat:tick

(MBT) or hours:minutes:seconds:frames (SMPTE) format. This command gives you a choice of

modifying the events or modifying the underlying tempo. This is useful when you want to alter a

portion of a project to have an exact length. The start time of the selection does not change, but the

end time is altered as necessary to fit the required time interval.

Audio can be stretched or condensed up to a factor of 4 (e.g., it can be shrunk to as little as 25

percent of its original length, or expanded to as much as 400 percent of its original length).

The Fit to Time dialog box has the following fields:

Original Time Span

This field lists the beginning location of the selection (the From value), and the ending location of the

selection (the Thru value). You can toggle between MBT format and SMPTE format by clicking the

Format button.

Adjust to End at New Time

Enter a value into the New Thru field of the new location where you want the selection to end.

Modify by Changing

Choose how you want to change the selection to change its duration. Usually, you change the

Tempo Map; this method preserves the note durations and bar lines of your project. Choose from

these options:

• Tempo Map. Choose this option to change only the tempo(s) of the selection, leaving note

durations and their relationships to bar lines unchanged.

• Event Times. Choose this option to change the starting and ending times of all events in the

selection, leaving the tempo(s) unchanged. This option is not available if any selected data

contains a Groove clip.

• Stretch Audio. Choose this option to cause any audio data in the selection to stretch or shrink

to fit the new end time. This option has no effect on Groove clips.

• Type (disabled unless Stretch Audio is checked). (this is a SONAR Producer feature

only) choose options based on the source material: single voice or instrument versus a group

of instruments (ensemble or polyphonic), and how long you want to wait for processing to

finish: better quality can take a long time if you’re processing several tracks.

• Formant Scaling (disabled unless Stretch Audio is checked). (this is a SONAR

Producer feature only) possible values range from -2.000 to 2.000 octaves. Formants give a

voice its characteristic sound. If you find that changing the length of your audio changes the

timbre too much, you can raise or lower the formant to try and maintain the characteristics of

the sound.