The Sample Editor

The Elements menu

If you right-click in the Sample Editor to bring up the Quick menu, you will find a submenu called “Elements”. By activating or deactivating options on this submenu, you specify what is shown in the editor window. Some of these options are also available as icons on the toolbar.

The toolbar

The toolbar contains the tools…

The Sample Editor tools Audition, Loop & Autoscroll Volume controls

… and information about the edited audio clip:

Initially, length and position values are displayed in the format specified in the Project Setup dialog. If you click in the middle field, a pop-up menu opens, where you can select another display format. This selection affects the Sample Editor ruler as well.

•You can customize the toolbar by right-clicking it and using the pop-up menu to hide or show items.

•Selecting Setup from the pop-up menu allows you to reorder sections on the toolbar, store presets, etc. See “The Setup dialogs” on page 506.

The Sample Editor Inspector

To the left of the Sample Editor, you will find the Sample Editor Inspector. It contains all the tools and functions for working in the Sample Editor.

You open a tab by clicking on it. If you want to open another tab without closing the first, [Ctrl]/[Command]-click on it. To open all tabs in the Inspector [Alt]/[Option]-click on any tab.

Ö You can show/hide Inspector sections by right-click- ing on an Inspector tab and activating/deactivating the desired option(s).

Make sure you right-click on an inspector tab and not on the empty area below the Inspector, as this will open the Quick context menu instead.

The topmost tab of the Sample Editor Inspector is used to define the musical context of your audio. Here, you can define the grid, i.e. measure the audio tempo and the groove. Open this tab, if you want to use your audio in a musical context, so that you can later activate the Straighten Up mode, create a groove quantize map or slices.

The upper section of the Definition tab will help you to adjust the audio grid. You can select a grid resolution from the pop-up menu and adjust the grid manually by activating the Manual Adjust tool, or automatically by clicking the Auto Adjust button. When you click on the Auto Adjust button, the Manual Adjust tool will be activated, so that you can afterwards verify and change the grid manually, if necessary. The Preview mode should be activated (default setting) to use the grid for playback. Preview is linked to the Straighten Up mode and Quantize menu on the Playback tab. If you only want to create slices or quantize grooves, you can deactivate the Preview mode.

The lower section displays the length of your audio file in bars and beats (PPQ) together with the estimated tempo and the time signature. You should always verify if the length in bars corresponds to the audio file you imported. If necessary, listen to your audio and enter the correct bar length.

If you work with audio with triplet feeling, set the basic grid resolution to 1/8 or 1/16 and the signature to 12/8. Note that you should afterwards also set the time signature for the project to 12/8 (in the Transport panel).

In this tab, the audio grid and the tempo of the audio can be adjusted to the project grid by activating the Straighten Up mode.

From the algorithm pop-up, you can select an algorithm for the realtime time-stretching.

If you activate Straighten Up mode, the audio file will snap to the project grid. The Quantize pop-up lets you select a resolution for the audio, allowing you to specify how exact the quantization will be. When you select the “Bars” option, the audio will be synced to tempo without quantizing. The Swing fader lets you offset every second position in the grid creating a swing or shuffle feel.

In Free Warp mode you can manually change the rhythm of the audio. When this button is activated, you can drag beats to time positions in the grid. This is described in the section “Free Warp” on page 285.

When the Transpose track has been added to the project, or when the event root key is defined and the project root key is set, you can follow global transpose by activating the Follow Global mode (see “Realtime pitch-shifting of audio events” on page 288). Note that the Transpose function on the Playback tab is not available if you opened the Sample Editor by double-clicking on an event in the Pool.

If you click the Flatten button, the realtime warp processing will be applied to the clip, making the settings permanent (see “Flattening the realtime processing” on page 288).

Warp tabs will only be displayed in the waveform, if this tab is open.

In this tab, the transients, i.e. hitpoints of the audio can be marked.

Adjust the sensitivity slider to determine how many hitpoints should be shown, and edit them with the Edit Hitpoints tool, if necessary. If you want to clear all hitpoints, e.g. to re-detect hitpoints, click the Remove All button.

Click the Slice & Close button, if you want to slice your audio to quantize the rhythm of the different slices separately (see “Creating slices” on page 283).

Click the Make Groove button, if you want to create an audio groove for quantizing other material to the groove of your audio (see “Creating groove quantize maps” on page 283).

Click the Create Markers button, if you want to create markers for the hitpoints (see “Create Markers” on page 284).

Use the Create Regions button, if you want to create regions, e.g. for further use in a sampler (see “Create Regions” on page 284).

Use the Create Events button, if you wish to create separate events according to the hitpoints for a file (see “Create Events” on page 284).

Before you can use the Make Groove and the Slice & Close buttons, the tempo and the time signature of the audio must be defined (the Definition tab will light up in blue to indicate this).

Hitpoints will only be displayed in the waveform, if this tab is open.

This tab regroups the most important audio editing commands from the Audio and the Edit menus. For further information on the Select Process and Select Plug-in popup menus, see the chapter “Audio processing and functions” on page 238.

The thumbnail display

The thumbnail display provides an overview of the whole clip. The section currently shown in the main waveform display of the Sample Editor is indicated by a blue rectangle in the thumbnail, while the current selection range is shown in blue.

•You can move the blue rectangle in the thumbnail to view other sections of the clip.

Click in the lower half of the rectangle and drag to the left or right to move it.

•You can resize the blue rectangle (by dragging its left or right edge) to zoom in or out, horizontally.

•You can define a new viewing area by clicking in the upper half of the overview and dragging a rectangle with the mouse.

The ruler

The Sample Editor ruler is located between the thumbnail and the waveform display. It shows the timeline in the display format specified in the Project Setup dialog (see “The Project Setup dialog” on page 33). If you like, you can select an independent display format for the ruler by clicking on the arrow button to the right of it and selecting an option from the pop-up menu that appears (this affects the values in the info line too). For a list of the display format options, see “The ruler” on page 31.

The waveform display and the level scale

The waveform display shows the waveform image of the edited audio clip – in the style selected in the Preferences (Event Display–Audio page), see “Adjusting how parts and events are shown” on page 37. To the left of the waveform display, a level scale can be shown, indicating the amplitude of the audio.

• When the level scale is shown, you can select whether the level should be shown as a percentage or in dB.

This is done by right-clicking the level scale and selecting an option from the pop-up menu that appears. This also allows you to hide the level scale.

•To display the level scale after hiding it, right-click to bring up the Quick menu and activate “Level Scale” on the Elements submenu.

•This submenu also allows you to select whether you want the zero axis and/or the half level axis indicated in the waveform display.