HD24/96 Technical Reference

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have a region with no name - i.e. left blank or erased on purpose. There’s nothing functionally wrong with that as long as you have some way of identifying the region when you need to do so (listening to it works fine). Naming is up to the recording engineer's discretion. It's good housekeeping practice to name Regions uniquely for ease of editing, manipulation and reference purposes, but unless your project involves a lot of editing, don’t go overboard.

Start time

This field shows the current time (SMPTE or BBT) of the left border of the region. It’s dynamic. As you drag the region around or move its left boundary, the displayed Start Time changes.

The time may be modified by editing the numbers in the field by any of the standard methods - click and drag on the digits, or click to highlight and type in a new number. When the entry is completed (Enter or click outside the time field), the time field and the region start point are updated.

Any region's starting edge may be modified (or trimmed) by dragging the edge in or out with the Hand tool. This changes the starting time of the playback without changing the audio file on disk. If the entire region is dragged to another time, the start time follows along.

End Time

This time field works exactly like Start Time, but on the right-hand end of the Region. It is edited in exactly the same manner as Start Time.

Region Length

This time field displays the difference between the Start and End Times, saving you the trouble of doing the arithmetic (we know you don’t have six fingers). It's a handy reference for checking length before performing region looping operations, pasting into tight crevices, or for finding out if that 30 second jingle is short enough. Since this is an absolute time display, it remains in SMPTE format regardless of the time format selected for other time displays. It can be edited in exactly the same manner as Start Time. Editing the Region Length is functionally equivalent to editing the End Time.

Fade In and Fade Out

Fades, both Fade In and Fade Out, are tools that ramp the region volume from zero amplitude up to unity gain amplitude (Fade In) or from unity gain down to zero (Fade Out). Any time the fade length is greater than zero, the associated end portion of the region (start, end, or both) will be displayed in the track area with a different background color. This is the area over which the fade takes place. A red line through that fade region represents the relative change in amplitude within the fade region. The amplitude of the waveform follows the fade curve.

When the Hand tool is placed on the inside boundary of a fade region and above the centerline of the waveform display, the “hand” changes to a “fade” tool. This fade tool, which looks like a quarter-circle, is used to drag the edge of the fade region to extend or reduce the fade length. Fade length can also be adjusted “by the numbers” by opening the Region Editor window and editing the Fade time fields.

Obviously a fade time cannot be longer than the total region length, although a fade can extend over the full length of the region. Fade In and Fade Out interact, however, and one will push the other over to make room if they begin to overlap.