User manual

62
Playback and the Transport panel
Ö If Snap is activated when dragging the project cursor,
the Snap value is taken into account. This is helpful for
finding exact positions quickly.
Ö There are also numerous key commands available for
moving the project cursor (in the Transport category in the
Key Commands dialog).
For example, you can assign key commands to the “Step Bar” and “Step
Back Bar” functions, allowing you to move the project cursor in steps of
one bar, backwards and forwards.
About the Transport panel display formats
Primary time display (left) and secondary time display (right).
The time unit shown in the ruler can be independent from
the time unit shown in the main time display on the Trans-
port panel. This means that you can display timecode in
the transport position display and bars and beats in the
ruler, for example. In addition, there is a secondary time
display to the right of the primary time display which is
also independent, giving you three different time units
shown at the same time (in the Project window, you can
also create additional ruler tracks – see “Using multiple
rulers – ruler tracks (Cubase only)” on page 34).
The following rules apply:
• If you change the time format of the primary time display
on the Transport panel, the time format of the ruler will be
changed as well.
This is the same as changing the display format in the Project Setup.
Therefore, to have different display formats in the ruler and the main time
display you should change the format in the ruler.
• The primary time display format is set on the pop-up
menu to the right in the main position display.
• This setting also determines the time format displayed
for the left and right locators on the Transport panel.
• The secondary time display is completely independent,
and the display format is set on the pop-up menu to the
right in the secondary time display.
• You can swap time formats between the primary and
secondary time displays by clicking the double arrow sym-
bol between them.
The left and right locators
The left and right locators are a pair of position markers
used for specifying punch-in and punch-out positions dur-
ing recording, and as boundaries for cycle playback and
recording.
Ö When cycle mode is activated on the Transport panel,
the area between the left and right locator will be repeated
(cycled) on playback.
However, if the right locator is positioned before the left, this will work as
a “jump” or “skip mode” – when the project cursor reaches the right lo-
cator it will immediately jump to the left locator position and continue
playback from there.
There are several ways to set locator positions:
• To set the left locator, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click
at the desired position in the ruler.
Similarly, pressing [Alt]/[Option] and clicking in the ruler sets the right lo-
cator. You can also drag the locator “handles” directly in the ruler.
The locators are indicated by the “flags” in the ruler. The area between
the locators is highlighted in the ruler and in the Project window (see
“Appearance” on page 469). Note that if the right locator is before the
left locator, the color of the ruler between the locators will change (from
blue to red).
• Click and drag in the upper half of the ruler to “draw” a
locator range.
If you click on an existing locator range, you can drag to move it.
• Pressing [Ctrl]/[Command] and pressing [1] or [2] on
the numeric keypad sets the left or right locator to the
project cursor position.
Similarly, you can press [1] or [2] on the numeric keypad (without [Ctrl]/
[Command]) to set the project cursor position to the left or right locator
position. Note that these are default key commands – you can change
these if you like.
• By creating cycle markers you can store any number of
left and right locator positions, which can be recalled by
simply double-clicking on the corresponding marker (see
“About cycle markers” on page 108).