[Ardour-Users] Offsetting a ruler

[Paul Davis]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 2:03 AM, John Emmas<johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> Forgive me if this is in the cheat sheet. I couldn't see it but I think this
> operation must be possible because I can see some code for it.
>
> Suppose I have two rulers visible - for argument's sake SMPTE and Beats &
> Bars.  Normally, bar 1 will start at zero SMPTE time.  But suppose I want
> bar 1 to start at a different time (e.g. 00:01:00:00).  Is there a way to
> offset the rulers with respect to each other?

in the preferences dialog, you can set a SMPTE offset that changes the
effective origin
of the SMPTE ruler.

there is no general design that allows "ruler offsets"

bar1 has to be at frame zero for the foreseeable future because there
is absolutely no concept of "negative" BBT time. if bar1 was moved
later on the timeline, any attempt to determine the BBT time earlier
than bar1 would result in a negative value.

> Also, suppose I have four different songs placed sequentially in the same
> session.  It isn't likely that they'll all have the same tempo,  So is it
> possible to 'break' the B&B ruler at a convenient point and start a new one
> with a different tempo?

that doesn't need multiple songs. it just needs one prog-rock piece :)
you can add tempo/meter marks at any point in time along the
tempo/meter ruler. there are some bugs reported about how these
interact with each other, but the basic functionality is there.