User manual

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Playback and the Transport panel
• The “Locators to Selection” item on the Transport menu
(default key command [P]) sets the locators to encompass
the current selection.
This is available if you have selected one or several events or made a se-
lection range.
• You can also adjust the locators numerically on the
Transport panel.
Clicking the L/R buttons in the locator section on the Transport panel will
move the project cursor to the respective locator. If you press [Alt]/[Op-
tion] and click the L or R button, the corresponding locator will be set to
the current project cursor position.
The Shuttle Speed control (Cubase only)
The shuttle speed control (the outer wheel on the Trans-
port panel) allows you to play the project at any playback
speed, forwards or backwards. This provides a quick way
to locate or “cue” to any position in the project.
• Turn the shuttle speed wheel to the right to start play-
back.
The further to the right you move the wheel, the faster the playback
speed.
• If you turn the wheel to the left instead, the project will
play backwards.
Similarly, the playback speed depends on how far to the left you turn the
wheel.
Project scrubbing – the Jog Wheel
(Cubase only)
The middle wheel on the Transport panel serves as a jog
wheel. By clicking and dragging it to the right or left you
will move the playback position manually forwards or
backwards – much like scrubbing on a tape deck. This
helps you pinpoint exact locations in the project.
• Note that the jog wheel is an “endless dial” – you can
turn it as many times as needed to move to the desired
location.
The faster you turn the wheel, the faster the playback speed.
• If you click the jog wheel during playback, playback will
automatically stop.
The nudge position buttons (Cubase only)
The + and – buttons in the middle of the Shuttle/Jog sec-
tion allow you to nudge the project cursor position to the
right or left, respectively. Each time you click a nudge but-
ton, the project cursor is moved by one frame.
Options and Settings
The “Return to Start Position on Stop”
preference
This setting is found on the Transport page in the Prefer-
ences (found on the File menu under Windows, or on the
Cubase menu under Mac OS X).
• If “Return to Start Position on Stop” is activated when
you stop playback, the project cursor will automatically re-
turn to the position where recording or playback last
started.
• If “Return to Start Position on Stop” is deactivated, the
project cursor will remain at the position where you stop
playback.
Pressing Stop again will return the project cursor to the position where
recording or playback last started.
About track disable/enable
For audio tracks, the track context menu contains an item
named “Disable Track”. This shuts down all disk activity
for the track, as opposed to using Mute, which merely
turns down the output volume for a track. For example, if
you often record “alternative takes” you can easily build up
a large number of takes on different tracks. Even though
these tracks are muted, they are actually still “playing
back” from the hard disk during playback. This puts an un-
necessary load on your disk system, so using “Disable
Track” is recommended for such situations.
• Select “Disable Track” for tracks that you want to keep in
the project for later use (but don’t want to play back now).
Select “Enable Track” from the track context menu to re-enable disabled
tracks.