+
-- Ardour's editor utilizes a grid to assist in the placement of regions on the timeline, or with editing functions that need to happen at a specific point in time. You can choose if you want the cursor and various objects to snap to this grid, and how you want the snapping to behave. You can modify the grid units to fit your needs. -
- -
+ - There are two ways to think about aligning material to a grid. The first and most obvious one is where an object's position is clamped to grid lines. In Ardour, this is called absolute snap and is commonly used when working with sampled material where audio begins exactly at the beginning of a file, note or region. -
+- The second, relative snap, is used when an object's position relative to the grid lines is important. In music, this allows you to move objects around without changing the "feel" (or timing) of a performance. + Snap will cause region drags and other mouse-driven + operations to jump to positions determined by the nearest snap + setting when the mouse is close enough to this snap point. Snapping + is sometimes (improperly) referred to as magnetism.
-- Absolute snap is the default method of snapping in Ardour. + The Snap options are set in the Preferences. Those + include the Snap Threshold which determines how close the mouse has + to be to a snap anchor to induce a snap, and the snap anchors + themselves, among:
+- While dragging objects you may switch from absolute to relative snap by pressing the absolute snap modifier key(s). + The Grid helps visually placing items in time. It will draw + lines at selected intervals as chosen in the drop-down selector. + Musical grid settings (Bar to Sextuplets) obviously + depend on the tempo and meter, so + changing the tempo or meter will rescale the grid, while absolute grid + settings (Timecode, etc…) won't be affected.
-- You may also disable snap entirely by using the snap modifier (see below). +
+ A word about time signature in this context: a time signature + consists of 2 numbers. The upper one determines how many beats are in + a bar, the lower one, what division of a note a beat represents (e.g. + : 4 stands for a quarter note). At e.g. 80 bpm, one beat lasts 1/80th min, so + 0.75 sec. If the time signature is 3/4, there are 3 beats in a bar so + a bar lasts for 3 × 0.75 = 2.25 sec. Choosing 1/8 Note + as the grid setting will draw grid lines every 0.75 ÷ 1/4 + × 1/8 = 0.375 sec.
- Note that in relative snap mode the reference point is taken to be the distance to the nearest grid line. + The grid density can be either based on musical time:
-- Note also that when an object lies exactly on a grid line, there will be no difference between relative and absolute snap modes. -
+- The realtive snap and snap modifiers (along with other modifier keys) may be set in Edit > Preferences > User Interaction + Or absolute time:
-- For common use patterns, it is recommended that you assign a unique key for one snap modifier and two keys for the other in such a way that they share an otherwise unused key. For example, you may choose the snap modifier to be the key and the relative snap modifier to be the and keys. -
. - -- Using the above modifications, Ardour supports three different modes of snapping to the grid: +
+The grid consist of lines running vertically in the edit canvas. When +zooming too far out, the grid can become too coarse. Ardour tries not +to show âtoo manyâ or âtoo fewâ grid lines depending on the zoom level, +based on the Approximate Grid/Ruler granularity (pixels) Preferences parameter. +As a consequence, when the Grid is in the Snap anchors, it is possible +that items snap in-between the grid lines sometimes. Thatâs expected +behavior.
-- By default, a region's beginning will be used as the reference for both types of snapping, but you can change this behaviour by setting a sync point in the region. Select the region(s) and press V. This will set the sync point to your edit point. + By default, a region's beginning will be used as the reference for + both types of snapping, this behaviour can be changed by setting a + sync point in the region, by selecting the region(s) and + pressing V. This will set the sync point to the current edit point.
-- The selector next to the grid mode selector defines the size of the grid elements. You can set your grid to several different units: + Snapping can be temporarily disabled by using a keyboard modifier while + editing, by default.
- -- To use Region starts/ends/syncs/bounds as snap choices, you must have either + Snapping can also be temporarily set to relative, i.e. snapping will + occur relative to the current position of the dragged item. E.g. if + the Grid is in the Snap options, and the grid is set to + Bars, using this keyboard modifier while dragging will snap + at every bar relative to the region's beginning (or sync point) + instead of the absolute musical bars.
- -- If you are moving items on a track, and only the current track is selected, then you will only be able to snap to other regions on the same track. This means that enabling Edit > Preferences > Editor > Link Selections of Regions and Tracks will make the "Region" grid unit unusable. Avoid the use of this option if you are going to use any of the Region grid units. + The keyboard modifiers are defined in the Preferences.