1 <h2>The transport controls</h2>
4 The <dfn>Transport Bar</dfn> groups all the actions regarding the control of
5 playback and recording.
9 <img src="/images/transport.png" alt="The transport controls">
11 The transport controls
15 <h3 id="transport_action_buttons">Transport action buttons</h3>
17 The upper row contains transport actions, that are all bound to keyboard
18 shortcuts, which allows for speedier use and more focused work:
22 <tr><th>Midi Panic</th><td>Immediately stops all midi output.</td></tr>
23 <tr><th>Enable/disable Audio Click</th><td>Toggles (on/off) a click track (metronome)
24 along the <a href="@@tempo-and-meter">tempo</a>. Right clicking brings up the
25 <kbd class="menu">Click</kbd> submenu from the Preferences. Scrolling with
26 the mouse wheel adjusts the gain of the click.</td></tr>
27 <tr><th>Go to Start of the Session</th><td>Jumps back at the beginning of the session,
28 as defined by the <a href="@@working-with-markers">start marker</a>.</td></tr>
29 <tr><th>Go to End of the Session</th><td>Jumps forward to the end of the session,
30 as defined by the <a href="@@working-with-markers">end marker</a>.</td></tr>
31 <tr><th>Play Loop Range</th><td>Repeats the defined <a href="@@controlling-playback">loop</a>
32 as defined by the <a href="@@the-loop-range">Loop range</a>, until the "Stop
33 playback" button is pressed. Clicking the "Play loop Range" button while
34 already active switches to normal Play mode, which exits the loop without
35 stopping and restarting playback.</td></tr>
36 <tr><th>Play Range/Selection</th><td>If a range has been defined using the Range
37 Mode button, plays the range, of if an audio or MIDI region is selected,
38 plays this region. In both cases, the playback stops at the end of the range
39 or selected region.</td></tr>
40 <tr><th>Play from playhead</th><td>Starts the playback and optionally record (more
42 <tr><th>Stop</th><td>Whatever the playing mode (loop, range, …) stops all
43 playback. Depending on other settings, some effects (like chorus or reverb)
44 might still be audible for a while.</td></tr>
45 <tr><th>Toggle Record</th><td>Global switch button to activate/deactivate recording.
46 While active, the button blinks red. The button doesn't start recording by
47 itself: if one or more tracks are marked as record-enabled, pressing the
48 "Play from Playhead" starts recording on those tracks.</td></tr>
52 If Ardour is synchronized with other devices then some or all of these control
53 methods may be unavailable—depending on the synchronization protocol,
54 Ardour may respond only to commands sent from its master device(s).
57 <h3 id="transport_modifiers">The Transport modifiers</h3>
58 <h4 id="transport_shuttle">The Shuttle Speed Control</h4>
60 Under these buttons is the <dfn>Shuttle Speed Control</dfn> that
61 allows to <em>temporarily</em> scrub through the audio quickly. The slider
62 decides the playback speed: the further from the center it is set,
63 the faster the playback will scrub in both directions. The range of
64 this acceleration can be set by <kbd class="mouse">right</kbd>
65 clicking the control and setting the multiplier, between 1.5
66 (± 150%) and 8 (± 800%).
69 <h4 id="transport_varispeed">VariSpeed</h4>
71 The <kbd class="menu">VS</kbd> (for <em>V</em>ari<em>S</em>peed)
72 button sets a <em>constant</em> playback/record speed. It can be set
73 in semitones (1 semitone = × 2 <sup>1⁄12</sup> ≈
74 105,9%), or cents of semitones, and is armed/disarmed by clicking the
75 button. The <kbd class="menu">VS</kbd> button will blink when VariSpeed
76 is enabled. Whether or not this VariSpeed is persistent when
77 stopping/restarting transport depends on the <kbd class="option">Reset
78 default speed on stop</kbd> parameter in the <a
79 href="@@preferences#preferences-transport">Preferences</a>.
82 <h4 id="transport_sync">Transport Sync</h4>
84 On the left of the slider is the positional sync button (which might show <dfn>Internal</dfn>,
85 or <dfn>MTC</dfn> or several other values), than can be used to control whether or not the
86 transport position and start is controlled by Ardour, or by an external positional
87 synchronization source, such as MIDI Time Code (MTC), Linear Time Code (LTC) or JACK
88 (see <a href="@@timecode-generators-and-slaves">Timecode Generators and Slaves</a>).
91 <h4 id="transport_status">Transport Status</h4>
93 The current playback status (Stop, Play, or speed %) is shown on the right of
98 <h2>Using Key Bindings</h2>
100 Ardour has many available commands for playback control that can be bound
101 to keys. Many of them have default bindings, some do not, so the list below
102 shows both the default bindings and internal command names for some of them.
106 <tr><th><kbd>Space</kbd></th><td>Switch between playback and stop.</td></tr>
107 <tr><th><kbd>Home</kbd></th><td>Move playhead to session start marker</td></tr>
108 <tr><th><kbd>End</kbd></th><td>Move playhead to session end marker</td></tr>
109 <tr><th><kbd>→</kbd></th><td>Playhead to next region boundary</td></tr>
110 <tr><th><kbd>←</kbd></th><td>Playhead to previous region boundary</td></tr>
111 <tr><th><kbd>0</kbd></th><td>Move playhead to start of the timeline</td></tr>
115 The <kbd class="menu">Transport</kbd> and <kbd class="menu">Transport >
116 Playhead</kbd> menus contain a lot more transport actions and their key bindings.