Cursor Based and Track Wide Controls
Cursor Based Controls are controls that will change what your mouse clicks will do in relation to the project, here is the drop down showing the options:
As you can see, all of these options appear on the horizontal bar as well as in this drop down, but the drop down is helpful for knowing what the symbols mean. Some of these are fairly self explanatory, but in case they aren't, here is a comprehensive list.
1. Range Tool - Allows you to click and drag to select a range of your choosing.
2. Split Tool - When clicking on an audio or MIDI recording it will split the section in two parts, based on where you click.
3. Eraser Tool - Erases what you click on, simple as that.
4. Paint Tool - Used for anywhere you would add a point on a line, such as automation, or writing MIDI parts in the Piano Roll (more on both of these in their respective sections.). Can also be used to place blank audio in sections as placeholders.
5. Mute Tool - Used to mute individual audio sections, as opposed to a whole track.
6. Bend Tool - Can be used to affect the timing of an audio recording without adjusting the pitch, the most common use case for this is to fix an out of time performance, it will cause some distortion if used to move a section too far, but small nudges will yield good results.
7. Listen Tool - Allows you to listen to only the track you select and the section selected for a short time.
Quantization:
To understand quantization it is necessary to have a basic understanding of how western music theory handles rhythm and meter. Explaining these concepts are outside of the scope of this guide, however here is a video that we would recommend to get you up and running with the basic concepts.
So what is quantization anyway?
Quantization is, to put it simply, a way to have parts of performances snap to a musical grid. This grid will be made up of the subdivisions of the beat (whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, etc.) Here is an example diagram of quantization in practice:
As you can see this is a helpful tool for when you need segments to be more rhythmically accurate, however be aware that over using quantization can lead to music feeling robotic, or less human sounding.
Studio One also uses quantization with it's snap feature for when you are moving audio parts around
1. IQ - stands for input quantization, will automatically apply the current quantization as you input notes when recording.
2. Quantize Value - sets what subdivision snap and IQ will use.
3. Timebase - Allows you to set how time is measured in your project, the options include frames, seconds, and bars, with bars being the default.
4. Snap type- allows you to set the snap type, you options are bars, quantize, frames, and adaptive. Bars is simply musical bars, quantize is based off the quantize value, frame will snap to the nearest frame, and adaptive uses studio one's own formula for deciding the context of where it wants to snap to.
5. Snap Toggle - This toggles on and off the snap feature
Track Wide Controls 1
These settings are just to the left of the quantization and deal with causing different effects on large segments of the project.
1. Audio Bend Settings - Allows you to control the behavior of the audio bend tool
2. Strip Silence - Will remove sections below a certain volume from an audio track, can be helpful for rough cuts, however with vocals sometimes the end of consonants can be broken up and sound unnatural.
3. Quantize - Allows you to apply quantization to a section of audio or MIDI.
4. Macro Control - Allows you to edit and create macro shortcuts for a variety of tasks.
Track Wide Controls 2
These controls are to the right of the quantization and snap controls and affect various different functions in Studio One
5. Ripple Edit Toggle - This engages the ripple edit feature, which will automatically move surrounding audio parts to fill in gaps or allow you to more easily rearrange things on the timeline. While it might not be as useful for music making, this tool can be very helpful for people making podcasts, follow this link for a video by Presonus showing this tool in action.
6. Auto Scroll Toggle - Will cause the project to automatically scroll during playback.
7. Cursor Follows Edit Position Toggle - Causes the playback cursor to follow the editing cursor, useful for when you are making small edits that you need to hear back after each edit.
8. Toggle Auto Zoom - Will zoom out to show you the entire project.
9. Info View Toggle - Will add an extra bar at the top which will tell you what each button is called and has a tool tip on what it is used for when moused over.
