2 <h2> What is “Snap” and “Grid”?</h2>
5 <img src="/images/toolbar-grid.png" alt="Editor toolbar's grid">
12 “Snap” will cause drags and other mouse-driven operations to jump to
13 positions determined by the nearest snap setting. Snap can be set to
14 multiple options: markers, region start/ends, and the grid (those
15 are all enabled by default. change them in prefs).
18 Grid can be enabled, and it will draw lines at selected intervals;
19 which can be musical, like 16th notes, or can be timecode based
20 (minutes and seconds). You can leave the Grid enabled, but snap
21 disabled, if you just want to see the lines but not snap to them.
24 For example: if the Grid is set to “beats” and Snap-to-grid is
25 enabled, then any operations such as split, paste, or range-select
26 will happen exactly on a beat, according to the musical timeline and
30 Alternatively, you can leave “Snap” enabled (so your mouse actions
31 can snap to Markers, or region edges) but disable the Grid.
34 <h2>A Warning, of sorts</h2>
37 The grid consist of lines running vertically in the edit canvas. If
38 you zoom too far out, you might see a coarser grid than you
39 expect. Ardour tries not to show “too many” or “too few” grid lines
40 depending on the zoom level. You might find that items snap in-between
41 the grid lines sometimes. That’s expected behavior. If you can’t see
42 or snap to the grid you’d like to use, you may have to zoom in or out.
45 <h2>About Snapping</h2>
48 There are two ways to think about aligning material. The first and
49 most obvious one is where an object's position is clamped to the
50 snap positions. In Ardour, this is called <dfn>absolute snap</dfn>
51 and is commonly used when working with sampled material where audio
52 begins exactly at the beginning of a file, note or region.
56 The second, <dfn>relative snap</dfn>, is used when an object's
57 position relative to the snap positions is important. In music, this
58 allows to move objects around without changing the "feel" (or
59 timing) of a performance.
63 Absolute snap is the default method of snapping in Ardour.
67 While dragging objects, pressing the absolute snap modifier key(s) switches
68 from absolute to relative snap.
72 The snap can also be entirely disabled by using the snap modifier (see below).
76 Note that in relative snap mode the reference point is taken to be the distance
77 to the nearest grid line.
81 Note also that when an object lies exactly on a grid line, there will be no
82 difference between relative and absolute snap modes.
86 The relative snap and snap modifiers (along with other modifier keys) may be set
87 in <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > User Interaction</kbd>
91 For common use patterns, it is recommended to assign a unique key for one
92 snap modifier and two keys for the other in such a way that they share an
93 otherwise unused key. For example, the snap modifier may be chosen to be the
94 <kbd class="mod2n"></kbd> key and the relative snap modifier to be the <kbd
95 class="mod2n"></kbd> and <kbd class="mod4n"></kbd> keys.
101 Using the above modifications, Ardour supports three different modes of snapping
106 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">No Grid</kbd></th>
107 <td>disables the grid. All objects move freely in this mode.</br>
108 In <kbd class="menu">No Grid</kbd> mode, the grid may be temporarily activated
109 by pressing the snap modifier (for absolute snap) or switch to relative snap
110 by pressing the relative snap modifier.</td></tr>
111 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Grid</kbd></th>
112 <td>activates normal snapping. All positions of objects snap to the grid. (See
113 <a href="#gridunits">Grid Units</a> below to change the grid).
114 Moving an object in "Grid"-mode, does not change its position until
115 the mouse is far enough for the object to reach the next grid line.</br>
116 To maintain an objects' position relative to the grid line, the "snap relative"
117 modifier can be used. When holding down this
118 modifier during a drag, the dragged object will jump while maintaining its
119 original distance from the line.</br>
120 New objects will always be created at grid
122 Holding down the snap modifier will disable the current grid
123 setting and allow moving the object freely.</td></tr>
124 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Magnetic</kbd></th>
125 <td>is a less strict type of snapping. Objects can still be moved to any
126 position, but positions close to the relative or absolute grid points will snap.
127 In order to move an object very close to a snap point, it may be necessary to
128 zoom in to prevent snapping to that point, or to use the snap modifier to
129 disable snap completely.</br> As with Grid mode, the snap modifier will disable
130 snap completely while the absolute snap modifier will move the "notch" of
131 Magnetic snap to the grid lines.</td></tr>
134 <h2>Syncing Regions to the Grid</h2>
137 By default, a region's beginning will be used as the reference for both types of
138 snapping, this behaviour can be changed by setting a <dfn>sync point</dfn>
139 in the region, by selecting the region(s) and pressing <kbd>V</kbd>. This will set the
140 sync point to the current <a href="@@edit-point-control">edit point</a>.
143 <h2 id="gridunits">Grid Units</h2>
146 The selector next to the grid mode selector defines the size of the grid
147 elements. The grid can be set to several different units:
151 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">CD Frames</kbd></th>
152 <td>A CD Frame is 1/75th of a second. Snapping to CD Frames (using absolute snap) can be used to avoid issues with CD track lengths.</td></tr>
153 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Timecode Frames/Seconds/Minutes</kbd></th>
154 <td>The duration of a frame depends on the timecode settings for the session.</td></tr>
155 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Seconds/Minutes</kbd></th>
156 <td>These are absolute time units, unaffected by sample rate or timecode settings</td></tr>
157 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Beats/N</kbd></th>
158 <td>Set the grid to units of 1/N beats, where N can be 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. The duration of a grid unit will depend on the tempo and meter in effect at that point in the timeline.</td></tr>
159 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Beats</kbd></th>
160 <td>Set the grid to whole beats. The duration of a grid unit will depend on the tempo and meter in effect at that point in the timeline.</td></tr>
161 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Bars</kbd></th>
162 <td>Set the grid to whole bars. The duration of a grid unit will depend on the tempo and meter in effect at that point in the timeline.</td></tr>
163 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Markers</kbd></th>
164 <td>The grid lines are the markers.</td></tr>
165 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Region Starts</kbd></th>
166 <td>The grid lines are constructed from region start points (see below).</td></tr>
167 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Region Ends</kbd></th>
168 <td>The grid lines are constructed from region end points (see below).</td></tr>
169 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Region Syncs</kbd></th>
170 <td>The grid lines are constructed from region sync points.</td></tr>
171 <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Region Bounds</kbd></th>
172 <td>The grid lines are constructed from region start or end points.</td></tr>
176 To use Region starts/ends/syncs/bounds as snap choices, it is necessary to have either:
180 <li><em>No</em> tracks selected, which means that Ardour snaps to regions on any
182 <li>Several tracks selected, which means that Ardour only snaps to regions on
183 those selected tracks.</li>
187 If items are moved on a track, and only the current track is selected, then
188 snapping will only happen with other regions on the same track. This means
189 that enabling <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > Editor > Link
190 Selections of Regions and Tracks</kbd> will make the "Region" grid unit
191 unusable. This option should not be used in conjunction with the use any of the