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-- 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. This snapping of the cursor and various objects to the - grid can be toggled on or off, as does its behaviour, and grid units. -
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+ - 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. + 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.
-- The second, relative snap, is used when an object's position relative - to the grid lines is important. In music, this allows to move objects around - without changing the "feel" (or timing) of a performance. -
- -- 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, pressing the absolute snap modifier key(s) switches - from absolute to relative snap. + 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.
-- The snap can also be entirely disabled 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 to 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, the snap modifier may be chosen 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, 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. + 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. The grid can be set 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, it is necessary to 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 items are moved on a track, and only the current track is selected, then - snapping will only happen with 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. This option should not be used in conjunction with the use any of the - Region grid units. + The keyboard modifiers are defined in the Preferences.
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