Acoustica Premium 7.1.1 - Play at mouse click position

Official support for: acondigital.com
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Mr. Stian,

I refer to Acoustica Premium 7.1.1, running on Windows 10 Professional 64-bit.

First, many thanks to Acon Digital for this new version 7.1 of Acoustica, with many improvements.

Often, when I start working on an audio file, I like to have a quick overview of its contents. One way of getting that would be to start playing the file, and then, while the file is playing, without stopping the playing, to mouse-click on the waveform window at some point of the file different from the one that is playing, so that the cursor would instantly go to that new point and the playing would proceed from that new point. In that way, a succession of mouse clicks at different points of the waveform (or the spectrogram) window would allow us to explore the file contents without having (many times) to stop the playing and then changing the cursor position.

Transcribe!, from Seventh String Software (www.seventhstring.com) is a music software that allow us to explore an audio file in that way, just by clicking on different points of the file, without stopping the playing at each time.

I would like to ask whether this feature could be implemented in Acoustica in the near future (if it already exists, I can't find it). In my view, this should be the default way of working for the playing mode. As an alternative, the menu that opens when we click on the small down arrow right beside the Play button on the toolbar could include an additional option "Play in explore mode", by which the position of the cursor would be controlled by mouse clicks on the waveform (or the spectrogram) window.

Regards,

Paulo

Post

Hi again! :)
Paulo-Brazil wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 2:17 pm Often, when I start working on an audio file, I like to have a quick overview of its contents. One way of getting that would be to start playing the file, and then, while the file is playing, without stopping the playing, to mouse-click on the waveform window at some point of the file different from the one that is playing, so that the cursor would instantly go to that new point and the playing would proceed from that new point. In that way, a succession of mouse clicks at different points of the waveform (or the spectrogram) window would allow us to explore the file contents without having (many times) to stop the playing and then changing the cursor position.

Transcribe!, from Seventh String Software (www.seventhstring.com) is a music software that allow us to explore an audio file in that way, just by clicking on different points of the file, without stopping the playing at each time.

I would like to ask whether this feature could be implemented in Acoustica in the near future (if it already exists, I can't find it). In my view, this should be the default way of working for the playing mode. As an alternative, the menu that opens when we click on the small down arrow right beside the Play button on the toolbar could include an additional option "Play in explore mode", by which the position of the cursor would be controlled by mouse clicks on the waveform (or the spectrogram) window.
Thanks for this suggestion! You can actually already do this in Acoustica if you click the play head (the upper part where it is broader and covers the time line) and keep the mouse button down while moving the playhead around. You can also change the playback position during playback with a single click on the time line.

Best,
Stian

Post

Mr. Stian,

Thank you. I hadn't noticed that by clicking on the play head (the waveform overview) we can instantly change the point of playing of the audio file.

So, a question: is there any definite reason why this behaviour, changing the playing point with one mouse click, cannot be implemented also on the main waveform window (maybe also on the spectrogram window)? Why do the mouse clicks have to be inoperative on the main waveform window?

Regards,

Paulo

Post

Hi Paulo,
Paulo-Brazil wrote: Fri Nov 09, 2018 4:20 pm Mr. Stian,

Thank you. I hadn't noticed that by clicking on the play head (the waveform overview) we can instantly change the point of playing of the audio file.

So, a question: is there any definite reason why this behaviour, changing the playing point with one mouse click, cannot be implemented also on the main waveform window (maybe also on the spectrogram window)? Why do the mouse clicks have to be inoperative on the main waveform window?
The reason is that many users want to modify the selection during playback, e.g. to test loop cue points.

Best,
Stian

Post

Thank you, Mr. Stian.

Paulo

Post

Mr. Stian,

Some further thoughts about this matter. In Acoustica, to go to a particular point in the audio file by clicking on the small waveform overview window is not so easy. First, to have a clear view of the waveform is not easy, since the height of that window is very small.

But this is the main difficulty: the width of the overview window does not match the width of the main waveform window. The small overview window is wider than the main window. Consequently, the cursors in these windows are generally not on the same vertical line. I took a look at the editors Transcribe! and iZotope RX6: in both of them the two windows have the same width, so that the cursors are always vertically aligned. I don't have Steinberg's WaveLab installed on my computer, but, on their website, a screenshot of WaveLab seems to indicate that both windows have the same width in that editor.

So, a question: is there any special reason why, in Acoustica, the small overview window and the main waveform window (and also the spectrogram) have different widths, so that their cursors are not vertically aligned?

Couldn't the small overview window be made to agree in width with the main window (and also with the spectrogram window)? Right above the overview window we have the row of tabs indicating each opened audio file. The row of tabs, I think, should be as wide as possible, so that more information on the opened files can be displayed. But, below each tab, maybe the small overview window should match the main windows (both the waveform and the spectrogram) in width, so that their cursors are always aligned.

I would like to have, if possible, some clarification about your statement: "The reason is that many users want to modify the selection during playback, e.g. to test loop cue points."

Concerning that statement: in Transcribe!, after defining a selected region and then starting the playing of the file, while the audio is playing we can easily modify the selection: at any of the borders of the selected region, the mouse changes to a double arrow, which is used to drag that border sideways, so changing the region's width. And when the mouse is on some internal point of the selected region, it changes to a "drag" form, by means of which the entire selection can be moved to one side or another but maintaining the same width. A mouse click inside the selection does nothing, while a mouse click on a point outside the selection instantly changes the cursor position to that point, disabling the selection, and the audio playing then goes on from that new point, without any interruption. Possibly, some or all of these properties could be considered for implementation in Acoustica.

Regards,

Paulo

Post

Mr. Stian,

One more comment about this matter. Even if the small overview window had the same width as the main window (either the waveform one or the spectrogram), in a zoomed-in state there would still exist a disalignment between the two cursors, since only the main window would be in the zoomed-in state, while the small overview window will always show the whole file. This is one more reason why, in my view, consideration should be given to changing the main cursor position by clicking on the main window - in a zoomed-in state, the lack of alignment between the two cursors would make it difficult to go to a particular point of the main window, if the clicking is only allowed on the small overview window.

A further point of difficulty when trying to click on a specific point of the small overview window: this is the shape of the mouse-hand used in that window. The second, third and fourth fingers of that hand have nearly the same length, so it is difficult to know to what point of the file the hand is actually pointing. In the editor Audacity, the mouse-hand has only the second finger extended; the third, fourth and fifth fingers are folded, and so much shorter than the second finger; in that way, it is always clear which point of the file the hand (in fact, the second finger) is pointing to. The current shape of the Acoustica mouse-hand presents no difficulty when one wishes to drag sideways a zoomed region indicated on the overview window. But when it comes to clicking on that window, that shape is not adequate, I think.

Regards,

Paulo

Post

Thanks for your input, Paulo! To summarize, I think there are two areas that could be improved (please correct me if I misunderstood you):
  • There should be a way to use the audio scrubbing tool (click and drag with audio output) in the navigation pane. This is currently only possible in the editor waveform. I guess we could place a little handle at the top of the current position indicated that could be used to scrub similar to the time line.
  • The hand cursor is used to indicate that you can move the viewport with click and drag and which is common. This only happens if you click within the viewed area. Changing the cursor to a pointing hand isn't an adequate solution since an open hand the standard way to indicate that the view area can be moved. I'm not really sure how to solve this. Maybe click in the upper part (where the scrub handle is situated) could be for setting the cursor position and the mouse cursor could change accordingly. It might be a bit confusing, though.
Best,
Stian

Post

Mr. Stian,

Now that you have mentioned the audio scrubbing tool, I realize that there are in fact three different areas of the Acoustica workspace related to the cursor movement: (1) the small waveform overview window, (2) the clip editor (the main window), (3) and between them the area where runs the position marker, the area used for audio scrubbing. The third area is NOT presented together with the first two areas in the section "The Acoustica Workspace" of the Help files.

The point is, the third area, I see now, can be used not only for audio scrubbing (by dragging the position marker) but also, just by clicking on any point of that area, for instantly changing the position of the cursor, with the audio playing from that point on without any interruption. This clicking property solves my initial request in this thread. But it seems that this property is not documented in the Help files, neither in the section "The Acoustica Workspace" nor in the section "Audio Scrubbing".

So, my first suggestion at this moment: to include in the section "The Acoustica Workspace" of the Help files information on the existence of the third area - there should exist another number between the numbers 2 and 3 in circular dark-red backgrounds in the image. It should be said that this area can be used both for audio scrubbing and for instantly changing the cursor position by clicking on some point of the area.

Another suggestion: in the scrubbing/clicking area, the mouse is currently always in common arrow format. But, since this area plays in fact a double role (scrubbing / clicking), maybe we could have two different formats for the mouse over this area: (1) when the mouse is right over the position marker (the scrubbing situation), it could maybe change either to a horizontal double arrow (preferably, I think) or to a small open hand, indicating that the position marker (that is, the cursor) can be dragged sideways; (2) when the mouse is on any other point of the area, the mouse could have either the common arrow format or maybe be a small pointing hand, indicating that the point can be clicked so as to instantly change the cursor position (without interrupting the playing).

Again, now that I see that there is a clickable third area between the small waveform overview window and the the clip editor, my initial request is solved - I can change at will the cursor position with one click.

Thank you. Regards,

Paulo

Post Reply

Return to “Acon Digital”