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Playback and the Transport panel
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 265). 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
“Editing markers on the Marker track” on page 39).
• 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.
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 AI 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 of-
ten 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 unnecessary
load on your disk system, so using “Disable Track” is rec-
ommended for such situations.
• Select “Disable Track” for tracks that you want to keep in
the project for later use but do not want to play back now.
The track color changes to indicate that the track is disabled.
• Select “Enable Track” from the track context menu to
re-enable disabled tracks.