Scrubbing with the audio event locator

Dragging the mouse within the overview bar initiates playback of small audio loops adjacent to the cursor position. This is not technically a scrub function, but it serves a similar purpose. It allows you to audition brief audio segments and quickly locate specific events within a file. Playback stops when the mouse button is released.

Configuring the audio event locator

You can set the amount of pre-roll and loop duration for the audio event locator.

1.From the Options menu, choose Preferences. The Preferences dialog appears.

2.Click the Previews tab.

3.In the Audio event locator section, edit the Pre-rolland Loop time values as desired and click OK.

Zooming and magnifying

Because there are considerably more samples in a sound file than horizontal points (pixels) on the screen, many data samples must be represented by each horizontal point when audio data displays in the data window. Depending upon the editing operation, you may want to view the entire file at once or a small portion of data in greater detail. For this reason, you can utilize two varieties of zooming: time ruler zooming and level ruler zooming. You can also zoom to events when using the Event tool ().

Zooming the time ruler (horizontal)

The current time ruler magnification ratio appears in the lower-right corner of the data window above the status boxes.

Zoom in

Zoom out

Maximize width of window

Zoom ratio

Understanding the zoom ratio

The zoom ratio determines the number of samples represented by each horizontal point on the screen. The zoom ratio is a value of X:Y, where X is the number of horizontal points and Y is the number of samples. If the ratio is 1:1, each point on the screen represents one sample. At this zoom ratio, a brief but detailed selection of time is displayed.

Waveform at 1:1 zoom ratio

Conversely, if the zoom ratio is 1:1024, 1,024 samples are represented by each point on the screen and a greater length of time is displayed.

For very precise editing, you may want to zoom in more tightly than a 1:1 ratio. Sound Forge allows up to a 24:1 ratio, where 24 points on the screen represent one sample. This high level of zoom can be useful when editing with the Pencil tool (). For more information, see Repairing audio glitches manually with the Pencil tool on page 155.

NAVIGATING, ZOOMING, AND SELECTING 87