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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. 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. - + 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.
- - - -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. - - Absolute snap is the default method of snapping in Ardour. - - While dragging objects you may switch from absolute to relative snap by - - pressing the absolute snap modifier key(s). - - You may also disable snap entirely by using the snap modifier (see below). - - Note that in relative snap mode the reference point is taken to be the distance - - to the nearest grid line. - - 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 - - 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 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:
++ 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. +
- 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. - - - -+ 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. +
- - The selector next to the grid mode selector defines the size of the grid - - elements. You can set your grid to several different units: - + The grid density can be either based on musical time:
-- - To use Region starts/ends/syncs/bounds as snap choices, you must have - -either - + Or absolute time:
- -+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. +
- 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. ++ Snapping can be temporarily disabled by using a keyboard modifier while + editing, by default. +
++ 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. +
++ The keyboard modifiers are defined in the Preferences.