Creating and using markers

Markers are a way of associating a name with a time point in your project. You use markers to name sections of a project, to mark hit points in a film score, or simply to provide a shortcut for working with any time point in a project. Markers make it easy to:

Jump to a specific time point in a project.

Select a portion of a project.

Enter a time in any dialog box, by pressing G and choosing the marker you want.

You can see and work with markers in four ways:

They are displayed in the Time Ruler at the top of the Track, Staff, and Piano Roll view.

The Markers view displays all markers and lets you add, edit, and delete markers.

You can press M while playback is in progress to add a marker on the fly.

The time associated with a marker can be expressed in musical time or as a locked SMPTE time. If a marker has a musical time (measures, beats, and ticks), the marker stays at that musical time regardless of changes in tempo. If a marker has a locked SMPTE time (hours, minutes, seconds, and frames), the marker stays at the same time even when the tempo is changed. Locked markers are useful for projects that require you to sync the music or sound with film scores or multimedia presentations. See To add a marker.

Music Creator takes the current snap grid settings into account when you move or copy markers. For example, if the snap grid is set to even measure boundaries, any time you move or copy a marker, the marker will be snapped to the beginning of the nearest measure. You are allowed to have any number of markers at a single time point. To display the Markers view, choose Views > Markers. From the Markers view, you can use the File > Print and File > Print Preview commands to print a listing of markers.

Figure 110. The Markers view.

You can add markers while playback is stopped or while playback is in progress (on the fly). When you add a marker while playback is stopped, you can enter a name for the marker and either use the Now time or enter a different time. When you add a marker on the fly, the marker is named automatically and assigned the Now time. Using the Markers view, you can edit the names and times whenever you want.

To add a marker

1.	Open the Markers dialog box in one of the following ways:

Press M.

Choose Project > Insert Marker.

Click in the Markers view.

Hold down the CTRL key and click the marker section of the Time Ruler.

Right-click in the Time Ruler and select Insert Marker.

Music Creator displays the Marker dialog box.

Figure 111. The Marker dialog box.

2.	Enter a name for the marker in the Name box.

3.	The time is set to the Now time. If you want, use the spinners to change the time or type in a new marker time.

4.	Select the Locked to SMPTE check box if you want to lock the marker to the SMPTE time.

5.

Click OK.

Music Creator adds the marker and displays it in the Time Ruler and the Markers view.

To add a marker on the fly

Press M.

Music Creator adds a marker at the Now time and displays it in the Time Ruler and the Markers view.

To edit a marker

1.	Either right-click on the marker in the Time Ruler, or choose a marker in the Markers view and click . Music Creator displays the Marker dialog box.

2.	Change the marker name, time, or other settings as desired.

3.

Click OK.

Music Creator updates the marker in the Time Ruler and the Markers view.

To copy a marker

1.	Press and hold the CTRL key.

2.	Drag a marker in the Time Ruler of the Track view, Staff view, Tempo view, or Piano Roll view. Music Creator displays the Marker dialog box.

3.	Enter the desired marker settings and click OK.

Music Creator copies the marker and displays it in the Time Ruler and the Markers view. You can also cut and paste markers directly from the Markers view.

To lock or unlock several markers

1.	In the Markers view, select one or more markers. Use the CTRL and SHIFT keys if necessary to modify the selection.

2.	Select or deselect .

Music Creator updates the markers.

To move a marker

Drag the marker in the Time Ruler.

Music Creator updates the marker time and shows it at the new location.

To delete a marker

1.	Press and hold the left mouse button while pointing to a marker in the Time Ruler.

2.	Press DELETE, and release the mouse button.

Music Creator deletes the marker. You can use Edit > Undo if you make a mistake.

To delete markers from the Markers view

1.	In the Markers view, select one or more markers. Use the CTRL and SHIFT keys if necessary to modify the selection.

2.	Click or press DELETE.

Music Creator deletes the selected markers. You can use Undo if you make a mistake.

To jump to a marker

There are many different ways to jump to a specific marker:

Press G twice to display a list of markers, choose the marker you want, and click OK.

Click on a marker in the Markers view to set the Now time to that marker.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE DOWN to jump to the next marker, or press CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE UP to jump to the previous marker.

To select a time range using markers

You can select a range of times by clicking in the marker section of the Time Ruler:

Click to the left of the first marker to select the time between the start of the project and the first marker.

Click to the right of the last marker to select the time between the marker and the end of the project.

Click between two markers to select the time between the markers.

If looping is enabled, click to the right of the Loop Start marker to select the loop region

If punch recording is enabled, click to the right of the Punch In marker to select the punch region

Tip: If you press TAB or right-click while holding down the left mouse button over the markers, you can toggle through which of the overlaid markers you'd like to move. For example, if the Now Time marker, a regular Marker, a Loop point, and a Punch point are all at measure 5, pressing Tab (while holding down the left mouse button) toggles through T (Now Time), M (regular), L (Loop), and P (Punch). If you want to change the regular marker, simply drag the mouse when M is displayed; if you want to adjust the position of the Loop point, tab through to L, and so on.