Track Scopes

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Track Scopes & Spectrum

The Track Scopes and Spectrum panel provides two different visual representations of your song, allowing you to see what's currently happening in each individual track or examine the frequency and amplitude of the final audio signal. When the Scopes/Spectrum panel is open, you can expand its vertical size by click-dragging the horizontal bar just beneath it. You may find it useful to watch our video on this subject.

The icons for toggling the panel can be found near the top right of the interface:

Note that when the Mixer has been detached as a separate window the Spectrum panel and its button are moved with it.


Track Scopes

The Track Scopes show the audio output from all tracks simultaneously. The waveform represents not just the volume of the sound, but also its basic frequency characteristics (bass sounds will appear broad and flat, while high pitches look sharp and jagged). MIDI instruments, which only send MIDI events and thus have no audio visualisation, are represented by a small red dot in the lower-right corner of the Scopes.

3.2 scopes-full.png

The currently selected track is highlighted with a different text colour. At the left side of each Scope is the track name (top) and number (bottom). If the track is part of a Group or is routed to a Send track then this will be shown next to the track number.

The background of the Scopes can be colored to match the track colors, if they're active. Go to Preferences > GUI > Scopes and activate "Show track color blends".

Mouse Operations

  • The Pattern Editor’s current track can be changed by clicking on its name or by scrolling through the tracks with the mouse wheel.
  • Left clicking a Scope will mute the audio coming from that track and left clicking again will un-mute it.
  • Right clicking will solo a track, which mutes all of the others so that only the audio from that track is heard. Right clicking again will un-mute the other tracks.
  • The middle mouse button will mute this track for the current pattern of the pattern sequence (see Pattern Matrix).

Note that if the track-function is set to Mute in the Preferences menu, the Scope will display Mute instead of OFF and affect the playback accordingly.

Spectrum

The Spectrum analyses the spectral composition of the audio produced by the selected tracks and displays the results within the dynamic range of human hearing (roughly 20 to 20,000 Hz). This can be useful in analysing the character of your music and noting whether any frequencies are dominating or lacking in the mix.

For an exact value of both the frequency and volume at a specific point, move the mouse pointer into the grid and it will display a cross. The frequency and volume values present at the centre of the cross will be shown at the top and left sides of the grid, respectively.

At the right-hand side is a Phase Meter, displaying the stereo balance and phase of the master audio output. Directly underneath this is the Phase Correlation Meter, which shows you how in/out of phase the left and right signals are.

3.0 scopes-masterspectrum.gif


Right clicking on the Spectrum will open a menu with the following options:

  • Show Phase View: Toggles the Phase Meter on/off.
  • Show Scopes/Spectrum: Choosing Scopes will display the audio produced by the Master Track in stereo. It can be a useful visual tool for examining the amplitude of the left and right channels of your final mix.
  • Track Display A/B: With these options you can select two sound sources to compare against each other in the Spectrum. You can choose from any available track, group or send.
  • Drawing Mode: Choose how the audio is represented from four different styles.
  • Spectrogram Colors/Speed: Only available with the Spectrogram drawing mode selected, this changes its color and speed.
  • Frequency Scaling: Switches between Logarithmic and Linear frequency scaling.
  • Block Size: Alters the drawing resolution of the visuals.
  • Channel Mix: Choose whether the Spectrum is calculated from a combined stereo signal or from each channel separately (requires more cpu power).
  • Peak Fall: The speed at which the visuals will fall from a higher volume to a lower one.
  • Slope Factor: Displays an artificial amount of added volume per octave.