Couple of Features in the Region Editor pls

MarkGuitar

A 'zoom to fit' button which sets zoom level so waveform is shown in full. Saves many manic mouse click to get it back from a close zoom in when editing region edges.
Show the time in the song at the current playback cursor position In the region editor). Super helpful when putting times in to MIDI commands for timing patch changes etc.

Thank you 🙂

Kevtyler

Anything that makes syncing midi commands to specific moments in time easier would be welcome.

I wish you could drag midi events left or right to move them in time rather than have to enter the numbers in future versions.

peter

Already possible: https://stagetraxx.com/docs/v4/song-details/regions/#zooming-and-scrolling
Good idea.

MarkGuitar

peter Already possible: https://stagetraxx.com/docs/v4/song-details/regions/#zooming-and-scrolling

Ctl + Mouse wheel doesn't work. Nor does any other modifier + Mouse wheel except Shift + Mouse wheel which does horizontal scrolling.

MarkGuitar

peter
Also found an issue with Regions. If a region fills the available space to the end of the track, the right end grab handle is missing so it is not possible to resize it by dragging to the left. See screenshot.

MarkGuitar

peter

Also, Zoom in centred in play head doesn't work completely. If I have the full wave form in view, put the play head in a region on the far right side, say a region called 'outro', then press the zoom in button, the zoomed in area is not centred on the section with the playhead.
It seems to work if the playhead is on the left side of the waveform.

jovennoe

How about play on space button?

AnthonyB

jovennoe https://stagetraxx.com/docs/v4/song-details/lyrics/?h=keybo#keyboard-shortcuts

...and I suspect there is a reason that all keyboard commands are CMD+<something> but Peter would have to speak to that.

peter

MarkGuitar Ctl + Mouse wheel doesn't work.

Check your Mouse settings. You might need to enable it.

MarkGuitar Also found an issue with Regions. If a region fills the available space to the end of the track, the right end grab handle is missing

Can't reproduce. Maybe you have shortened your song after creating the audio region. Did you?

jovennoe How about play on space button?

Use Assign Actions to assign space bar to Play. It will work in the region editor.

Damir Place cursor in any place of any audio segment and use scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
Very quick and logical

There is no cursor like in a text editor. And scroll wheel is already in use to scroll up / down when region details are displayed.

MarkGuitar

AnthonyB

Another really useful one would be CMD & + for zoom in and CMD & - Zoom out. Most DAWs use this and I am so used to doing it I keep pressing the keys in ST.

Damir

Suggestion
Place cursor in any place of any audio segment and use scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
Very quick and logical

MarkGuitar

peter Can't reproduce. Maybe you have shortened your song after creating the audio region. Did you?

I double clicked to zoom out to fit. That is when it happened

MarkGuitar

peter Check your Mouse settings. You might need to enable it.

Are these Mac settings? If so which one pls, I dint see anything to enable Ctl + Wheel.

Damir

peter MarkGuitar Ctl + Mouse wheel doesn't work.

Check your Mouse settings. You might need to enable it.

The setting you need to turn on is not in mouse settings it is in ACESSABILITY, ZOOM , KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS.
It’s a silly place to have it , this is a perfect example of a bloated system settings.

peter

MarkGuitar I double clicked to zoom out to fit. That is when it happened

Still, I can't reproduce it. No matter whether zoomed in or out.

MarkGuitar Are these Mac settings? If so which one pls, I dint see anything to enable Ctl + Wheel.

Yes, Mac settings for your mouse. Can't tell which at the moment as I am on the road for a few days and don't have a mouse with me.

MarkGuitar

peter Still, I can't reproduce it. No matter whether zoomed in or out.

Definitely able to reproduce it now, but bit of an edge case. I did a 'replace' of the audio tracks and the new tracks were smaller than the previous ones. So the right side of the last couple of regions are not showing so only way I can resolve it is to delete the region and redo it. Not really a big issue as dont do this very often.

Here is the resulting screenshot after replacing the audio with shorter files

MarkGuitar

Damir Thanks that but that's not whatI was hoping for. This feature zooms the Entire Screen, not even just the ST app, but the entire screen.

What I am looking for is a mouse wheel type zoom in/out that does what the + and - magnifier buttons do on the regions edit screen. Every audio app I have ever used allows some way of quickly zooming in and out. It is something I do a many, many times whilst setting up every song. And clicking on those tiny little magnifying glass buttons is a real pain and slows down the workflow.

Double clicking on a region is a bit better but it means you have to add a region to the waveform before you can then zoom in. Which is a pain if what you actually want to do is adjust the right hand end boundary of a previous region. Also, double clicking on a region to zoom in on it then de-selects the region so I have to then click on it again to do any edits to the setting of that region. Surely if I double click on a region to zoom in on it, it is clear I want to work on it.

One more thing, when I click on a region it toggles the setting panel on and off. Why? Surely just clicking on a region shouldn't hide its settings? If I click on a region, I want to work on it.

Sorry to be nit picky about these details but we are at that point now with the app. It is working great but there are some workflow and UI details that can make life so much easier when editing large quantities of songs, which I imagine most people coming into ST for the first time will be doing.

peter

MarkGuitar Interesting approach in Ableton. Maybe something to look at sometime in the future, but not right now. I still think the ctrl+wheel approach to work great.

Damir The setting you need to turn on is not in mouse settings it is in ACESSABILITY, ZOOM , KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS.

That's not the setting I use. For me ctrl + wheel works as zoom in/out in every app that can zoom in/out and I don't remember having to change accessibility settings.

Damir

MarkGuitar Sorry to be nit picky about these details but we are at that point now with the app. It is working great but there are some workflow and UI details that can make life so much easier when editing large quantities of songs, which I imagine most people coming into ST for the first time will be doing.

I totally agree with you 200%, I have mentioned all the things you have much earlier in ST4 development, time will tell how things will end up,
I have spent ages with Apple support trying to get my mouse scroll button to do a simple place the cursor on a point of interest , press it down to activate the zoom command and scroll to zoom in and out.
Now this is very simple to understand why I want this , but do you think it’s easy to setup or even possible , a number of years ago this was so simple easy and possible to do, now we have crazy options that we don’t need .
I am waiting for Apple experts to call me back to see if they can work out how to achieve my simple needs on a high quality mouse that’s MAC approved that has much better button options and more buttons then the original Apple mouse.
Good luck with that , if I come across a good solution I will post it to help others in the same boat.
I hate keyboard shortcuts, that’s not my solution to a very simple problem.
I believe every window in software should have its own way the scroll wheel is setup depending on that window’s requirement .
Lyrics window scrolls the lyrics window up and down,
Audio segment window scrolls the waveform in and out to a focus point where the cursor is or in general if the cursor is not present.
Simple logic great fast and easy workflow, I don’t think I’m asking for much , it’s been around for a very long time.

MarkGuitar

Damir

Thanks for your msg. Yeah it is kinda frustrating. But as an ex-programmer, I can sympathise with @Peter dilemma.
He is grappling with the shortcomings of the OS. It would seem that Apple are trying to convince us all that touch tablets and pinch gestures are the future. Which is kinda ironic given that Apple pretty much brought Mouse use to the masses.
However, trying to remain positive, having used Ableton for many years, they clearly have faced the same issues and have come up with a really neat way of dealing with it.
They have a 'NavigationBar' (I think that's what they call it) across the top of the area being worked on in their 'Arrangement View'; (Essentially a TimeLine). The nav bar is an 'overview' or birds-eye view of the entire timeline.
You can mouse over that overview at any point and click & drag down to zoom in to the spot where your mouse is in the overview. And super useful, the current playhead position is marked on the overview bar with a simple black line. So simply drag down on the overview where the black line is and your current playhead position zooms in.
Also, click/drag up and the view zooms out. Very neat, super easy and very very useful.

Here are a couple of screenshots of said overview.

The playhead position is the thinner black line, the two thicker lines mark where the main view is within the overall timeline.

All of this could work for the waveform in the region editor (I would think) and would place zoom control within the control of Peters programming and not be reliant on awkward and difficult (and subject to change by (Gr)Apple) system settings.

One last thing, most DAWs use this approach in some way or another. Presumably to get around the OS limitations? Anyway, other notable DAWs use other options such as click and drag on the time bar above the editor (IE there is no 'birds-eye view) which works fine too. And as ST has just such a time bar, maybe that would be an easier/quicker solution?
Just a thought

@peter
If you are interested in looking into this (I hope so) I would be happy to provide further info on the Ableton interface; Images, Videos etc

Chers all
Mark

MarkGuitar

peter
Definitely does not work on a Mac according to loads of unhappy users across the net. Just did a google search on how to enable Ctl + Scroll to do zoom, Mac doesn't do it.

BUT...

There is a free helper app called 'Linear Mouse' that does the job! Just tried it, works a treat. Here is the link incase someone else wants to give it a go ( ?? @Damir maybe??)

[https://linearmouse.app/en/)

Cheers
Mark

Damir

peter That's not the setting I use. For me ctrl + wheel works as zoom in/out in every app that can zoom in/out and I don't remember having to change accessibility settings.

Yes I also found this not to be the area to tweak, I am totally confused by this stupid operating system ,
My aim to solve my issue is to set ctrl + command on to my mouse scroll wheel push down switch, this then means all I do is place my pointer on the waveform press down on scroll wheel and scroll in and out to zoom as needed,
This then would immensely speed up the editing process, as I fully and precisely segment all my songs it would be a much more efficient way to work.
My problem is the silly Apple operating system that does not make this setup easy or even possible.
Yet it gives me all other ridiculous zoom options I will never want or use.😤