Track view

The Track view is always visible. It is the main window that you use to create, display, and work with a project. When you open a project file, the Track view is displayed for the project. Closing the Track view closes the project.

The Track view is divided into several sections: toolbars (at the top), the Navigator pane, the Video Thumbnails pane, the Track pane, the Clips pane, and the Bus pane. You can change the size of the panes by dragging the vertical or horizontal splitter bars that separate them.

Figure 355. The Track view

A. Track view menu B. Time ruler C. Track strips D. Track pane E. Splitter bar F. Clips pane G. Clips

You can automate most of the controls in the Track view by recording fader movements, drawing envelopes, and creating snapshots.

In addition, all of the current track’s controls, plus a few that are only available in the Console view, are contained in the Track Inspector, which is an expanded version of the current track’s controls located on the far left side of the Track view. You can hide or show the Track Inspector by pressing I on your keyboard.

Track view menu

Figure 356. Track view menus

View menu

The View menu contains the following commands:

Navigator Show/Hide. Show or hide the Navigator pane.

Video Thumbnail Track Show/Hide. Show or hide the Video Thumbnails track. The Video Thumbnails track can be displayed even if there is no video in your project.

Auto Track Zoom. This command enables/disables Auto Zoom, which allows you to automatically enlarge the track that has focus. All other tracks are minimized. When a new track is focused, it swaps heights with the previously focused track.

Display.  Use the submenu to select the desired display option:

Display Ghosted Data.  Show or hide all data types, regardless of which data type is selected in a track’s Edit Filter control. All but the selected data type will be shaded, or “ghosted”. This allows you to see all data types in context while editing a specific data type.

Vertical Grid Lines. Show or hide vertical grid lines in the Clips pane that are one measure apart. Use the submenu to specify how the vertical lines should display.

None. Vertical grid lines are not displayed.

Behind Clips. Vertical grid lines are displayed, but clips will draw on top of them, so clip contents will not be obstructed.

In Front of Clips. Vertical grid lines are displayed and drawn on top of clips, always visible.

Fit Tracks and Buses to Window. Adjust the vertical track heights to fit all tracks in your project in the Track view.

Fit Project to Window. Fit the entire project, or as many tracks as possible, into the Track view.

View Undo. Returns the Track view to the previous zoom level (undo zoom).

View Redo. Negate the last View Undo command (redo zoom).

Options menu

The Options menu contains the following commands:

Auto crossfade.  Enable or disable automatic crossfades.

Crossfade Type.  Specify default fade in, fade out and crossfade curve types.

Select Track Envelopes With Selected Clips. Selecting a clip will also select any overlapping track envelopes.

On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker. The Now Time jumps back to the Now Time Marker whenever playback stops.

Stop at Project End. Playback will automatically stop after the last event in the project is reached. When this option is disabled, playback will continue beyond the end of the project and playback can also be started in an empty project.

Tracks menu

The Tracks menu contains the following commands:

Bounce to Track(s). Combine one or more audio tracks into a submix.

Clone Track(s). Copy the selected track(s). You can choose to include events, properties, sends, and/or effects in the copied track(s), and specify a destination.

Delete Track(s). Delete the selected track(s), including all its track properties and all its clips and events. Music Creator does not put deleted information on the Clipboard for later copying.

Wipe Track(s). Delete track contents but leave track properties intact. Music Creator does not put wiped information on the Clipboard for later copying.

Copy Track Name(s) to Clip Name(s). Copy track names to clips in corresponding tracks.

Clips menu

The Clips menu contains the following commands:

Bounce to Clip(s). Combine selected audio clips into a single clip.

Convert to Stereo. Convert any selected mono audio clip(s) to stereo.

Convert to Mono. Convert any selected stereo audio clip(s) to mono.

Create Clip Selection Group. Place all selected clips in a new selection group.

Remove from Clip Selection Group. Remove all selected clips from any selection groups they may belong to.

Unlink Step Sequencer Clips. Unlink the selected step sequencer clips, allowing each clip to be edited separately from each other.

Convert MIDI Clip(s) to Step Sequencer. Convert any selected MIDI clip to a step sequencer clip.

Convert MIDI Controllers to Envelopes. Open the Convert MIDI To Shapes dialog, which lets you convert MIDI controllers into automation envelopes.

Note: It is not possible to slip-stretch Region FX clips that have the

Track pane

The Track pane lets you see and change the settings for each track. Selected tracks always appear in a different color. The controls for an individual track are grouped together to form that track’s track strip.

To change the current track, move the highlight using the mouse or the keyboard as follows:

Table 218.  

Key	What it does
UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW	Moves the selection to the adjacent track. If a control is selected, the selection moves to the same control in the adjacent track, or the next track of the same type if the control only applies to a specific track type (for example, the Patch control only applies to MIDI tracks)
LEFT ARROW and RIGHT ARROW	Moves to the previous or next control in the Track pane. The RIGHT ARROW key moves the selected control right until reaching the end of a line, and at the end of the line the selection moves to the left-most control of the line below. The LEFT ARROW key moves the selected control to the left until it reaches the beginning of a line, and then moves to the end of the line above.
PAGE DOWN	Displays the next page of tracks
PAGE UP	Displays the previous page of tracks
HOME	Moves the highlight to the first track in the project
END	Moves the highlight to the last track in the project

The Track pane contains meters for recording, playback, and bus levels. You can hide or show any or all of these meters, and choose many different options for the units and format of the data the meters display. See Metering.

Clips pane

The Clips pane shows the clips in your project on a timeline that helps you visualize how your project is organized. Clips contain markings that indicate their contents. The Clips pane lets you select, move, and copy clips from place to place to change the arrangement of music and sound in your project.

The Track view makes it easy to select tracks, clips, and ranges of time in a project. These are the most common selection methods:

To	Do this
Select tracks	Click on the track number (the right side of the track number; the upper left corner of the track number is for grouping tracks), or drag over several track numbers
Select clips	Click on the clip, or drag a rectangle around several clips
Select time ranges	Drag in the time ruler, or click between two markers

As with most other Windows programs, you can also use the SHIFT-click and CTRL-click combinations when selecting tracks and clips. Holding the SHIFT key while you click adds tracks or clips to the current selection. Holding the CTRL key while you click lets you toggle the selection status of tracks or clips.

 

See:

Automation

Bus pane

The Bus pane contains all of your project’s buses. You display the Bus pane by clicking the Show/Hide Bus Pane button , which is located at the bottom of the Track view.

You use the buses in the Bus pane to patch in effects, control output volume and pan, and group tracks into subgroups.

 

See:

Main outs

To patch a track through a bus

Track/Bus Inspector

The Track/Bus Inspector makes it easy to adjust the current track’s (or bus’s) controls, because it’s a greatly expanded version of the current track’s controls that is located on the left side of the Track pane.

For more information about the Inspector, see Inspectors.

The Navigator pane

The Navigator pane, located just above the Track pane, displays the whole length of your project so you can always see an overview of your song, and where the Now time is. The Navigator pane displays all of your project’s tracks. To show or hide the Navigator pane, click the Track view View menu and choose Navigator Show/Hide or press ALT+N. You can drag the splitter bar between the Navigator pane and the Track pane to change its height.

The Navigator pane has a green rectangle in it that is an outline of what the Clips pane is currently displaying. If you drag the center of the rectangle around in the pane, it scrolls the Clips pane to the same view. You can drag any of the nodes on the rectangle to zoom the Clips pane in or out. If you click in the Navigator pane, the left border of the rectangle jumps to the spot you clicked, and scrolls the Clips pane to that spot also. If you hold down the CTRL key while you click, the Now time jumps to that spot.

Figure 357. The Navigator pane.

A. Now Time B. Drag node to zoom C. Clips

You can do the following with the Navigator pane:

Scroll the display of the Clips pane (drag the green rectangle, or click in the Navigator pane)

Zoom in and out in the Clips pane (drag a node on the green rectangle)

Change the Now time using the Navigator pane (CTRL-click in the Navigator pane)

Music Creator and screen readers for vision impaired users

Music Creator has a special Accessibility Mode which can be helpful for vision impaired users when working with screen readers (Window-Eyes, JAWS, etc.). The Accessibility Mode is enabled by adding a key to the Windows Registry (WARNING: only do this if you are comfortable with editing the Windows registry; you may want to back up the registry first), and allows screen readers to receive various information from Music Creator that may otherwise not be displayed on the screen (names, values, etc.).

The key is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\Music Creator

The Value is:

AccessibilityMode

It is a DWORD. Value can be 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4:

0 - no accessibility (default)

1 - enable Microsoft UI Automation; put the access string in the Track view's caption

2 - enable Microsoft UI Automation; put the access string in the CWACCESS window

3 - enable Microsoft UI Automation; put the access string in the CWACCESS window and make this window visible

4 - enable Microsoft UI Automation without enabling the CWACCESS window