SONOMA AUDIO WORKSTATION USER GUIDE

Transcription

1 Sony Corporation of America 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, California, , U.S.A. SONOMA AUDIO WORKSTATION USER GUIDE Category: Public Document Authors: Kobie Crawford and Andrew Demery Date: Version: Status: Working Document 2003 Sony Corporation of America

2 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Published by: Sony Corporation of America Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright and all rights are reserved. No part of it may be reproduced or transmitted by any means or in any form, without prior written consent from Sony Corporation of America. The information in this document has been carefully checked and is believed to be accurate. However, Sony Corporation of America assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies that may appear in this manual. In no event will Sony Corporation of America be liable for direct, indirect, special, exemplary, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect or omission in this manual, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. The material contained herein is for informational purposes only. DISCLAIMER: This document is a user guide for a system under development. Although Sony Corporation of America will endeavor to keep customers apprised of changes, all aspects of this specification are subject to change without notice. Revision History Version Date Description /14/01 First Compilation /20/01 Incorporate revisions from Oxford /26/01 Incorporate Edit chapter, new block diagram of mixer /27/01 Minor revisions, updates /27/01 Minor revisions, updates. Sonoma release /11/01 Mixer Dynamics, Sonoma release /31/01 Sonoma release /25/01 Sonoma release /3/01 Sonoma release /9/01 Sonoma release /29/02 Sonoma release /29/02 Sonoma release /17/02 Sonoma release /19/02 Sonoma release /20/03 Sonoma release (DSDIFF v1.4) /25/03 Sonoma release /25/03 Sonoma release /19/03 Sonoma release Sonoma Ver release to field Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

3 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Document Change Record Section Ver Ver Remarks Title Page -- Authors Responsibility for documentation passed to K. Crawford and A. Demery When an EDL window is opened, it is maximized by default. You can change this behavior by setting or clearing the open EDL window maximized checkbox in the window tab of the preferences window. This window is reached via the preferences item in the window menu Although you can zoom and scroll the EDL window to show any amount of time, the usable area within which you can work is the range from zero to 13.5 hours. When an EDL window is opened, it is maximized by default, but this is controlled via a user preference. The range of the viewable EDL window is 23:30:00 to 12:30:00, however, the usable range in which you can work is from 00:00:00 to 12:00: The PageDown and PageUp keys work irrespective of the state of the transport; however, you cannot enter the Splice Editor with the transport running. For this reason, the Splice Editor tab is skipped as you cycle down/up the panels with the PageDown/PageUp keys when the transport runs A waveform for the audio is drawn within the rectangle when the PCM amplitude envelope file exists Marks are used for navigation, annotating events, and defining CD authoring locations The window size changes so that the ingredients are centered and occupy 80% of the window. 2.5 Unselected ingredients appear dark-green in color The coloring of the rectangle indicates whether none (white), all (bright green), or some (dull green) of the ingredients on that channel are selected If you are not sure about the state of the transport, use the stop command (control+q) Play Edit Region (Minus) Play Around Edit Region (Shift+Minus) If you are switching a single channel at a time, using the buttons is not a problem, but when you d like to punch-in or out across many channels simultaneously you re in trouble The longer recording also allows you the ability to change the fade length and move the edit points beyond the original punch positions. A waveform for the audio is drawn within the ingredient when an accompanying envelope file exists. Marks are used for navigation, annotating events, and defining SACD authoring locations. The window size changes so that the ingredients are centered and occupy 90% of the window. Unselected ingredients appear blue-grey in color. The coloring of the rectangle indicates whether none (white), all (bright green), or some (blue-grey) of the ingredients on that channel are selected. If you are not sure about the state of the transport, use the stop command (Ctrl+Spacebar). Play Edit Region (-) Play Around Edit Region (Shift+-) If you want to punch-in on a single channel, using that channel s individual ready/safe buttons is fine; however, this is inconvenient when you want to punch-in across many channels simultaneously. This additional recording time also allows you the ability to change the fade length and move the edit points beyond the original punch positions. Editorial change. Correction. Footnote addition. Correction. Correction. Correction. Correction. Correction. Correction. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

4 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks Since a takelist is a read-only file, when you open a takelist a new editable EDL will be created. You must decide how to handle the foreground and background layers. When you open a takelist, you must decide how to handle the foreground and background layers. Correction Punch the foreground into the background and load - this is the same as the result of the original recording This command performs an auto capture of all the EDL channels that are in a record-ready state The window menu contains commands to bring the source and destination EDLs to the front, and to tile the Sonoma window to show only the source and destination If you hold the alt key down while selecting an EDL in the windows menu, the selected EDL will become the source window and the tile source/destination command will be performed Alignment alters the active window (source or destination) so it displays the same number of samples as its linear edit partner, and then scrolls it so that one of its edit cursors, or the Nowline are aligned. If you align the boundaries, the active window will view the same region as its partner. The align commands will first force a source/ destination tiling if these EDLs are not already tiled. Punch the foreground into the background and load - the EDL will contain the new material recorded during the recording pass punched into the original background. This command performs an auto recording on all the EDL channels that are in a record-ready state. The window menu contains commands to bring the source (F7) and destination (F8) EDLs to the front, and to tile (F12) the Sonoma window to show only the source and destination. If you hold the Alt-key down while selecting an EDL in the Windows Menu, the selected EDL will become the source window and the tile source/destination command will be performed, unless the chosen file is the destination or already has focus. Alignment alters the inactive window (source or destination) so it displays the same number of samples as its linear edit partner, and then scrolls it so that one of its edit cursors (Ctrl+F12 [left cursor]/ Shift+Ctrl+F12 [right cursor]), or the Nowline (Shift+F12) are aligned. If you align the boundaries (Alt+Ctrl+F12), the active window will view the same region as its partner. The align commands will first force a source/destination tiling (F12) if these EDLs are not already tiled Shift+F7 = Make active EDL the Source Shift+F8 = Make active EDL the Destination F7 = Bring Source to front F8 = Bring Destination to front F12 = Tile Source/Destination Ctrl+F12 = Align at Left Edit Shift+Ctrl+F12 = Align at Right Edit Shift+F12 = Align at Nowline Alt+Ctrl+F12 = Align at boundaries If more than one ingredient is selected in the EDL, the four CD-like transport buttons change the current ingredient, displaying the first ingredient, the next ingredient (in time-sorted order), the previous ingredient, and the last ingredient When the zoom to ingredient checkbox is enabled, the EDL is zoomed each time the current ingredient is changed so that the current ingredient is visible in the EDL Relative changes are performed by pressing one of the plus or minus buttons next to a number box: If more than one ingredient is selected in the EDL, the four CD-like transport buttons change the current ingredient, displaying the first ingredient, the previous ingredient (in time-sorted order), the next ingredient, and the last ingredient. Editorial change. Correction. Clarification. Correction. Correction and clarification. Addition. Correction. -- Deletion Relative changes are performed by pressing one of the + or - buttons next to a number box: Editorial change. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

5 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks A - Edit-in Minus S - Edit-in to Nowline D - Edit-in Plus F - Edit-out Minus G - Edit-out to Nowline H - Edit-out Plus Gains are displayed as positive db but are interpreted with a minus sign before them The in/out gains can be set absolutely by typing and pressing enter. The plus/minus buttons add/subtract the db nudge amount to each gain in the selection Shift+Z - Fade-in Gain Minus Shift+X - Fade-in Gain Plus Shift+C - Both Gains Minus Shift+V - Both Gains Plus Shift+B - Fade-out Gain Minus Shift+N - Fade-out Gain Plus The fade-in or fade-out length can be set absolutely by typing in and pressing enter Z - Fade-in Minus X - Fade-in Plus B - Fade-out Minus N - Fade-out Plus Changing the channel number by typing and pressing enter moves all the selected ingredients to the same channel In order to select a sequence separately you may unsplice the entire sync. group or selectively remove a sequence s aligned splices using the splice editor. A = Edit-in Point - by nudge amount S = Edit-in Point to Nowline D = Edit-in Point + by nudge amount F = Edit-out Point - by nudge amount G = Edit-out Point to Nowline H = Edit-out Point + by nudge amount Editorial change. -- Deletion. The in/out gains can be set directly by entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the db nudge amount to each gain in the selection. Shift+Z = Fade-in Gain - by nudge amount Shift+X = Fade-in Gain + by nudge amount Shift+C = Both Gains - by nudge amount Shift+V = Both Gains + by nudge amount Shift+B = Fade-out Gain - by nudge amount Shift+N = Fade-out Gain + by nudge amount The fade-in (or fade-out) length can be set to an absolute value by typing numbers in the respective fade length box and then pressing ENTER. Z = Fade-in Length - by nudge amount X = Fade-in Length to Nowline C = Fade-in Length + by nudge amount V = Fade-out Length - by nudge amount B = Fade-out Length to Nowline N = Fade-out Length + by nudge amount Changing the channel number and pressing ENTER moves all the selected ingredients to the same channel. In order to select a sequence separately either unsplice the entire sync. group or selectively remove a sequence s aligned splices using the splice editor Note: all these commands only work when the transport is idle Next comes nudge registers for the relative edit commands. Finally there are buttons for changing the current channel and current edit and for selectively unsplicing channels The outgoing or incoming edit points can be set absolutely by clicking on an item, typing in, and pressing enter The plus/minus buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming edit points. These are followed by buttons for changing the current channel and current edit, and, finally, there are nudge registers for the relative edit commands and a button for selectively unsplicing channels. The outgoing or incoming edit points can be set absolutely by clicking on an item, entering a numerical value and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming edit points. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Correction and Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Footnote addition. Correction. Editorial change. Editorial change. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

6 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks A - Outgoing Minus D - Outgoing Plus F - Incoming Minus H - Incoming Plus A = Outgoing - by nudge amount D = Outgoing + by nudge amount F = Incoming - by nudge amount H = Incoming + by nudge amount Shift+A = Outgoing - by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+S = Outgoing to Nowline [ingredient pinned] Shift+D = Outgoing + by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+F = Incoming - by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+G = Incoming to Nowline [ingredient pinned] Shift+H = Incoming + by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] The plus/minus buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the mid-point or gap J - Mid-point Minus L - Mid-point Plus Gains are displayed as positive db but are interpreted with a minus sign before them The outgoing or incoming gains can be set absolutely by typing in and pressing enter The plus/minus buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming gain Shift+Z - Outgoing Gain Minus Shift+X - Outgoing Gain Plus Shift+C - Both Gains Minus Shift+V - Both Gains Plus Shift+B - Incoming Gain Minus Shift+N - Incoming Gain Plus The plus and minus buttons are always active, even if the numeric data can not be displayed The outgoing or incoming fade lengths can be set absolutely by clicking on an item, typing in, and pressing enter The plus/minus buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming fade length Z - Outgoing Fade Minus X - Outgoing Fade Plus C - Both Fades Minus V - Both Fades Plus B - Incoming Fade Minus N - Incoming Fade Plus The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the mid-point or gap. J = Mid-point - by nudge amount L = Mid-point + by nudge amount Editorial change. Addition. -- Deletion The outgoing or incoming gains can be set directly by entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming gain Shift+Z = Outgoing Gain - by nudge amount Shift+X = Outgoing Gain + by nudge amount Shift+C = Both Gains - by nudge amount Shift+V = Both Gains + by nudge amount Shift+B = Incoming Gain - by nudge amount Shift+N = Incoming Gain + by nudge amount The + and - buttons are always active, even if the numeric data can not be displayed. The outgoing, incoming or both fade lengths can be set directly by selecting the appropriate radio button, entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming fade length. Z = Outgoing Fade - by nudge amount X = Outgoing Fade + by nudge amount C = Both Fades - by nudge amount V = Both Fades + by nudge amount B = Incoming Fade - by nudge amount N = Incoming Fade + by nudge amount Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Editorial change. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

7 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks Index marks and End marks are optional. Index marks and End marks are optional but a final End mark must be present to indicate the end of the disc The word track here refers to an individual piece of music on an SACD disc defined by Start and End marks, or two consecutive Start marks The Scarlet Book actually defines Index Point 1 to equal the Track Start, therefore, the first Index following a Track Start should be Index N.2, where N is the number of the Track. Correction. Footnote addition. Footnote addition The minimum time permitted between two consecutive authoring marks is 1/75 sec. When an authoring mark is created or moved its position is rounded to the closest 1/75 sec The minimum time between two consecutive start marks is 1 second. Authoring marks must correspond to a 1/75 sec grid, and the marks are automatically rounded to the closest 1/75 sec boundary when they are created or moved. The Scarlet Book defines certain minimum times between authoring marks, those times are defined as follows: 1. Minimum time between two consecutive Start marks = 1 second 2. Minimum time between a Start mark and an End mark = 1 second 3. Minimum time between two consecutive Index marks = 1/75 second 4. Minimum time between a Start mark and an Index mark = 1/75 second 5. Minimum time between an Index mark and an End mark = 1/75 second Correction. Correction and clarification. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

8 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks The interface allows start marks to be placed closer than this minimum but such marks are flagged as illegal (see below) An asterisk is added to the type field of illegal authoring marks so they appear as type CD* rather than CD in the mark list Start marks for tracks less than one second in length (distance to next start mark < 1 second) Press ENTER first to close the info box or use the Ctrl-Q shortcut, the stop button, or the stop command on the transport menu The selected marks in the mark list are deleted This version of the Sonoma application contains an EDL-based DSD to IFF audio export utility. Several safeguards are in place to prevent the setting of illegal marks; however, these safeguards are not complete at this time. The following responses can be expected in the cases identified: Start mark too close to another Start mark If you attempt to place two Start marks closer than 1 second apart, you will see the following dialogue appear: Track Start mark not entered. Each track must be greater than or equal to one second in duration. [OK] Index mark too close to a Start mark If you attempt to place an Index mark closer than 1/75 second from a Start mark, you will see the following dialogue appear: An authoring mark of type Start already exists at this location. Change it to type Index? [Yes/No] Index mark too close to another Index mark If you attempt to place two Index marks closer than 1/75 second apart, the application will ignore the request and do nothing. End mark too close to a Start or Index mark The application will place the mark in the EDL as a legal mark This is a bug! An asterisk is added to the type field of illegal authoring marks so they appear as type CD* rather than CD in the mark list and the mark changes color in the EDL. - Authoring marks closer than the minimum times identified in Press ENTER first to close the info box or use the Esc-key, or the stop button on the transport toolbar. This button deletes the selected mark(s). Multiple successive marks can be selected by holding down the Shift-key and dragging the cursor over the required list of marks. Multiple independent marks can be selected by holding down the Ctrl-key while using the mouse to select each mark. When a mark is deleted, the mark list does not reset to the top of the list, it maintains position, but with the deleted mark removed from the list. This version of the Sonoma application contains an EDL-based DSD to DSD-IFF (Direct Stream Digital-Interchange File Format) audio export utility. Correction and clarification. Addition. Correction. Correction. Correction and clarification. Clarification. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

9 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks 2.17 (While the export EDL will contain sufficient leading silence, no disc marks appear in it.) -- Deletion If you do not want to keep this material you can use the delete last recording command to remove it from the system (see section ). If you do not want to keep this material you can use the undo recovery command from the Undo pull-down menu. Correction. 3.1 The Sonoma Mixer has eight full and eight short channels for input, a center section, and various meters including a set of meters to check compliance with the Scarlet Book Annex E recommendations. The Sonoma Mixer has eight full and eight short channels for input, a center section, and various meters including a set of meters to check compliance with the signal requirements laid down in Annex D of the Scarlet Book V1.2, Part 2 (Audio Specification), and the recommendations laid down in Annex E of the same document. The final DSD stream, i.e., the one that will be put onto an SACD, must meet the signal requirements laid down in Annex D. It is preferable that the signal also meet Annex E requirements, though this is not mandatory. If the signal requirements laid down in Annex D are not met, a disc replicator will not press the disc Note: when using the combined Mixer and EDL views, care should be taken with re-sizing of the EDL window(s) as this can cause the Nowline to disappear behind the Mixer Center Section for part of the time. This problem can only be remedied at this time by returning to the EDL-only display and maximizing the EDL window view When the editor and mixer are viewed together (the second mode in the illustrated sequence), the mixer s channel section is truncated and placed beneath the editor; the center section appears on the right When changed, the internal clock usually takes a second or two to establish lock once the source is changed There are two types of meters: audio level meters, and Annex E meters. There are two combined Mixer and EDL views, one combines a small EDL window with the channel faders and the center section, the other combines a larger EDL window on the left with just the center section on the right side of the screen. When the source is changed, the internal clock usually takes a second or two to re-establish lock. There are two types of meters: Audio Level meters, used for normal level monitoring, and Annex Meters, which relate to the specifications and recommendations laid down in Annexes D and E of the Scarlet Book Part 2 (Audio Signal Specification). Correction. Footnote addition. New feature addition. Editorial change. Correction. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

10 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks The Annex E meters are subdivided further into four types, labeled from left-to-right as DC, LF, Max Peak, and HF. These meters are calibrated to display an overload if the signal has exceeded the Annex E levels. See Section 3.8, Sonoma Mixer Specifications The snapshot SAVE, LOAD and DEFAULT buttons are used to save or load a snapshot of the mixer s settings to or from a file Annex E Filter The Annex E filter is a variable slope and frequency low-pass filter provided to control compliance with Scarlet Book Annex E recommendations. By observing the Annex E meter levels and using these controls, it is possible to adjust how much energy above 20 khz to remove, if required. The Annex meters are subdivided into 4 types labeled from left-to-right as DC, LF, MaxPeak, and HF. These meters are calibrated to display an overload (red) if the signal has exceeded the Annex D/E levels. A brief description of each mode: DC: Measures the DC offset of the DSD signal. For SACD, the recommended maximum DC offset level is -50dB SACD, although this is not mandatory. LF: This displays a zoomed-in version of the main level meters around the 0dB SACD point. In a previous version of the Scarlet Book Part 2, Annex E, there was a recommended maximum value for the LF band, but this has been superseded by the MaxPeak specification and, consequently, the LF band can be ignored. MaxPeak: This displays the maximum peak level of the DSD signal. It is a requirement for an SACD that the maximum specified level of 3.10 db SACD is not exceeded. Failure to comply with this specification will result in the master being rejected by the disc replicator. HF: This displays the maximum RMS level of the DSD signal in the 40 khz khz band. It is a requirement for an SACD that the maximum specified level of -20 db SACD is not exceeded. Failure to comply with this specification will result in the master being rejected by the disc replicator. See Section 3.9, Sonoma Mixer Specifications for further details. The snapshot SAVE and LOAD buttons are used to save or load a snapshot of the mixer s settings to or from a file. HF Control (Annex D.4 Filter) The Annex D.4 filter is a variable slope and frequency low pass filter provided to assist with compliance with Annex D.4 of the Scarlet Book Part 2 (Audio Specification), which specifies the maximum High Frequency Signal + Noise Level. Practically, this filter can be used in conjunction with the Annex D meter labeled HF to correct signals which do not comply with Annex D.4. If a DSD signal intended to be put on SACD exceeds the HF specification (meters will show an over condition) then this filter may be used to attenuate some of the level in the frequency ranges measured by the HF meters. For best results, the minimum amount of filtering should be used to achieve Annex D.4 compliance. For cases where the HF level is within specification, this filter need not be used. Correction. Correction. Correction. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

11 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Section Ver Ver Remarks Sonoma Mixer Automation manual. New feature addition. Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

12 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Copyright 2003, Sony Corporation of America. All rights reserved.

13 Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction The Sonoma Hardware Edit Card Mixer Card Converters Contents 1.3 The Sonoma Software The Sonoma Editor The Sonoma Mixer Installing Software Upgrades Launching Sonoma Introduction The Sonoma Window Menus Keyboard Shortcuts and Toolbar Buttons Status Bar Debug Toolbar Clock Display and Timecode Format Editing Timecode Preferences Window The EDL Window Opening an EDL Control Panels Channel Controls Timeline Nowline and Edit Cursors Lower Strip Upper Strips Ingredients Marks Navigating the EDL Using the Navigation Menu Navigating with the Keypad Navigating with the Transport Menu Navigating with the EDL Bounds xi

14 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide 2.5 Selecting Ingredients Channel-based Selection Selecting Ingredients with the Mouse Deselect/Select All Ingredients Selecting Ingredients with respect to the Nowline Select Previous/Next ingredient Select Last Recording Manipulating Cursors Working with the Nowline Working with the Edit Cursors Playback Controlling the Transport Auditioning Cursors and the Edit Region Bottlenecks Recording Overview Before Recording: The System Configuration Before Recording: Channel Lock Controls and Disk Allocation Before Recording: Status Bar Before Recording: Record to Destination EDL Before Recording: Fade Times Before Recording: Error Preferences Making a Recording After Recording The Takelist Record Edit Region Selection-Based Editing Clear/Cut/Copy/Paste Copy After Nowline Paste With Punch-in Move Selection Before/After Nowline Nudge Selection Backward/Forward Trim Selection Left/Right to Nowline Slice Selection at Nowline Unslice Selection Region-Based Editing and Linear Editing Cut/Copy Edit Region and Insert Time Source and Destination EDLs Linear Edit Commands xii

15 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide 2.11 The Ingredient Edit Control Panel Changing the Current Ingredient Ingredient Polarity Absolute Changes and Nudging Ingredient Edit Points Section Ingredient Gain Section Ingredient Fades Section Channel Number Clip Info. and Ingredient Polarity Splices The Splice Command and Sequences Multi-channel Edits and Sync. Groups The Splice Editor Control Panel Current Edit and Current Splice EDL Splice Edit Mode Resetting, Exiting, and Re-entering the Splice Editor Splice Control Panel Overview Auditioning Splices Editing a Splice Edit Points Gains Fades Displaying Data: Next Channel, Next Edit Unsplicing Undo Marks EDL Marks Authoring Marks Ingredient Marks Error Marks The Mark Control Panel Auditioning an Authoring Mark Saving the Mark List Waveforms Ingredient Waveforms Metering Waveforms Exporting an SACD Mastering File The Export to Master Command DSD-IFF Meta Data Loudspeaker Configuration xiii

16 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide xiv Export Output Source Audio Mapper User Preferences Time Format Preferences Editing Preferences Playback Preferences Waveform Preferences Hardware Preferences DSD-IFF Preferences Error Preferences Window Preferences The Monitor Control Panel The Console Window The Disk Monitor The Trimedia Monitor Error Reporting and Recovery Error Detection and Handling Recovering from a System Crash Recording Invalid DSD Data Example: Making a Recording Example: Making a Simple Edit Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Overview Screen Controls Push buttons Dials Faders Control Normalization Text Display and Type In The Control Window Screen Mode Router Button Setup Button Monitor Controls

17 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide Quit Button Play/Stop Buttons The Setup Window Gain Trim Mixer clock source Mixer Center Section Meters Snapshot Controls Monitor Controls Oscillator LFE Filter Program Insert Program EQ Program Dynamics HF Control (Annex D.4 Filter) Master Fader Aux Master Max Peak Limit Controlling the Channel Faders and Signal Processing Mixer Channel Section Channel Input Channel EQ Channel Dynamics Channel Filter Channel Delay Channel Insert Channel Strip Ordering Scribble Strip Channel Faders Linking and Copying Channel Faders and Controls The Router Window Sonoma Mixer Automation Overview Automation Controls and Indicators A Short Example Session Sonoma Mixer Specifications xv

18 Sonoma Audio Workstation User Guide xvi

19 1.1 Introduction The Sonoma Audio Workstation is a hardware/software system that provides powerful and flexible facilities for recording, editing, and mixing Direct Stream Digital (DSD) audio. 1.2 The Sonoma Hardware In order to run the Sonoma application you must have a Sonoma Edit card installed in your PC. If you wish to use the mixer, you must also install the Sonoma Mixer card. These cards are pre-installed in the PC when the Sonoma Workstation is shipped. Please see the Sonoma Audio Workstation Hardware Installation Guide for more details Edit Card The Sonoma Edit card controls the transmission of DSD data to and from the PC s hard disks. It is the record/playback engine. Although the workstation presents an 8-channel interface to the outside world, each channel executes a 2-to-1 mix during playback while performing cross-fades at edit points. The edit card supports this cross-fade activity. Chapter 1: Introduction Mixer Card The Sonoma Mixer card can simultaneously perform 8-to-6 channel and 8-to-2 channel mixes. It is connected directly to the Edit card by a flexibus cable. To route audio to and from the mixer and external equipment, a special BNC breakout cable can be plugged into the Mixer card, providing an additional eight inputs and outputs. All 16 inputs and outputs are fully assignable Converters The analog audio interface to the edit card is an outboard pair of 8-channel A-to-D and D-to-A converters. They are attached via fiber optic cables. The illustration below shows the connections between the various hardware components of the Sonoma Audio Workstation. Chapter 1: Introduction 1

20 Figure 1-1 Overall system cabling and configuration 8 Analog Inputs... ADC-8 Modem 2 Fiber-optic Cables Monitor Keyboard + Mouse Sonoma Edit Ethernet 2 Fiber-optic Cables DAC-8 8 Analog Outputs... PC Chapter 1: Introduction 8 BNC Cables In Sonoma Mix DSD Processor 8 BNC Cables Out 1.3 The Sonoma Software The Sonoma Audio Workstation contains two main components, an editor and a mixer. They run concurrently and they are both accessed through the same program, Sonoma.exe. Each component has its own set of windows The Sonoma Editor The Sonoma Editor runs in a single window. It contains menus and toolbars that you will use to create, save, record, and edit multi-channel audio documents called edit decision lists or EDLs. Each EDL is a separate document and the editor can display multiple EDLs inside its window. Chapter 2 describes the Sonoma Editor The Sonoma Mixer The Sonoma Mixer controls the signal routing in the system and the audio processing applied to the signal path. The mixer contains three main windows: a patch bay (router), a set of channel strips, and a metering/global control section. Chapter 3 describes the Sonoma Mixer Installing Software Upgrades From time to time you may receive a CD-ROM with a Sonoma software upgrade. This CD will contain an automatic installer. Insert the CD in your drive. Locate the CD on your desktop and click on the installer file. The installer will be named SonomaXXX.exe, where XXX defines the version number. The icon for the Sonoma installer is a picture of a PC with a box of floppy disks standing 2 Chapter 1: Introduction

21 next to it. The default behavior of the installer is to do a complete install. We recommend that you perform the default install, unless you are instructed otherwise by our technical support staff. 1.4 Launching Sonoma The Sonoma application can be run with or without the mixer. When you install Sonoma two shortcut icons are placed on the desktop, and two items will appear in the start menu under Start>Programs>Sonoma. Each pair are named Sonoma and Sonoma No Mixer. They all refer to the same program. Launch the desired configuration by double clicking one of the shortcuts or selecting the corresponding menu item. A splash screen will appear that monitors the initialization of the editor. If you are using a mixer card, the mixer control window will also appear while the mixer card acquires clock, and initializes. Chapter 1: Introduction When the initialization is complete, the Sonoma splash screen will disappear and you can begin to work, using the editor and mixer windows which are explained in the next two chapters. Chapter 1: Introduction 3

22 Chapter 1: Introduction 4 Chapter 1: Introduction

23 2.1 Introduction The Sonoma editor window has a title bar labeled Sonoma. It contains menus and toolbars that you will use to create, save, record, and edit multi-channel audio documents called edit decision lists or EDLs. Each EDL is a separate document and is displayed in its own window within the Sonoma editor window. You can open many EDLs at the same time, but all commands apply only to the topmost, active EDL. The title bar of the Sonoma window also displays the name of the currently active EDL document window. The main area of an EDL window contains a graphical representation of edited excerpts of sound files arranged along a time axis. Strips above and below the EDL contain cursor information and editing controls. An EDL can hold up to 12 hours of sound. Each snippet of sound is called an ingredient. The Nowline is a vertical black cursor with a green handle; it represents the current position of the playback head and serves as a locator for editing functions. A pair of red edit cursors, called edit left and edit right, are used for specifying an edit region. Marks in an EDL and its ingredients serve as event locators and can include user annotations. EDL windows also contain a control panel area with tabs that can be clicked to select different panels for performing various tasks. (The control panels are not shown in the picture above.) The Sonoma editor offers two different ways to perform audio edits. Selection, or object-based editing, operates on selected ingredients. You begin by selecting one or more ingredients, and then use edit commands to trim or slip them to the Nowline, or cut, copy and paste them. Region-based editing ignores ingredient selection and uses the contiguous audio within the edit region - the interval between the edit left and edit right cursors. Linear editing is an elaborate kind of region-based editing where a single command moves material from the edit region in a source EDL to a different region in a destination EDL. This chapter describes the Sonoma and EDL windows, and explains how to use the cursors, menu commands, and control panels to record, audition, edit, and prepare a Super Audio CD (SACD) edit master file. 5

24 2.2 The Sonoma Window Menus Most functions in the Sonoma application are accessible via the menus in the menu bar: File Menu Creates, opens, and saves EDLs. The file menu also provides a command for exporting EDLs in SACD mastering file format. Edit Menu Contains commands for editing the selected ingredients in an EDL. Navigation Menu Controls the zooming and scrolling of an EDL. Selection Menu Selects and deselects ingredients in an EDL. Cursors Menu Controls the movement of the Nowline. Marks Menu Controls the placement of marks in an EDL. Transport Menu Controls transport operation and monitor sourcing. Record Menu Configures the recording context and controls disk file handling/cleanup when a recording has just been completed. Waveforms Menu Controls the display of ingredient and metering waveforms in an EDL. Window Menu Manages standard PC window arrangement of the open EDL windows inside the Sonoma window and the display of other system windows (such as preferences and clock display) Keyboard Shortcuts and Toolbar Buttons Menu commands usually have keyboard shortcuts, and most menus have corresponding toolbars that contain buttons for their commands. Some menus are linked to control panels rather than toolbars. Control panels are windows with more elaborate interfaces for complex operations. When a menu has an associated toolbar or control panel there is an item at the top of the menu for opening and closing it. The window menu also includes a toolbars item that shows and hides each toolbar. In this menu you will also find items that let you save and restore a default toolbar configuration. The default configuration is stored in your computer s registry so you can retrieve it again when you install new versions of Sonoma. 6

25 Toolbars can be floating windows or they may be docked to the sides of the Sonoma window Status Bar The status bar is the text area located along the bottom of the main Sonoma window. It shows the name of the active EDL and also displays information that is useful when recording. Error messages are also displayed in the left side of the status bar Debug Toolbar Alt-Ctrl-D opens and closes a debugging toolbar. This toolbar should only be used under the direction of a Sony field support engineer. If you open the debug toolbar by accident, be sure that all of its buttons are in the released state before closing it Clock Display and Timecode Format The clock display is a special window that can be opened and closed by selecting its item in the window menu. This window shows the current position of the Nowline in the active EDL. The display can be a floating window or it can be docked to the Sonoma window by dragging it to the top or bottom edge. There are five timecode formats: Milliseconds (hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds) 75 frames/second (hours:minutes:seconds:frames) 30 frames/second (hours:minutes:seconds:frames) Samples (44.1 khz sample count) Samples (hex) (sample count in hexadecimal representation) To change the timecode format, use the timecode tab in the Preferences Window. To bring up a menu of timecode formats place the mouse inside the clock display or the EDL timeline and press the right mouse button. When the transport is running, you can toggle through the timecode formats by right-clicking in the clock display. The current timecode format is used everywhere timecode is displayed. Wherever you enter a value expressed in time units (e.g., in a Control Panel, Preference Window, or the clock display) you must specify it in the current timecode format. Select a timecode field by double clicking or clicking and dragging. You can select, copy, and paste timecodes between any timecode fields. The rules for typing timecode are very simple: Timecode must begin with a number and must end with a number or a decimal point. Leading zeros and leading zero fields can be omitted. Trailing zeros can be omitted in the msec. field (in msec. format 1.2 is OK; so is 1. which is the same as 1.0). Also, when in millisecond format, you can type a raw number of milliseconds into a timecode field and they will be translated to the appropriate number of hours, minutes, and seconds. The clock display itself accepts type in and paste in. The Nowline will move to the position you enter. The color scheme of the timecode window and the function of the right mouse button depends on its state. Normally, the window shows green numbers on a black background and a right mouse click brings up the timecode format menu. To type into the window, click on it. The display changes to black-on-white and right mouse-clicking brings up the edit menu (Cut/Copy/Paste). 7

26 2.2.6 Editing Timecode A timecode editor is available when editing the following fields: Clock Display (Nowline) Left/Right Edit Cursors and Edit Region Width Left/Right EDL Window Bounds and Width Edit Point Fields in the Ingredient and Splice Editors (All other timecode fields use simple unformatted string editing.) The editor is invoked by clicking on a timecode field. The numeric keypad *-key selects the clock display. Ctrl+* and Shift+Ctrl+* select the left and right edit cursor fields. When a time display is selected its entire value is highlighted and becomes available for copy/paste or editing. Editing begins when a valid character is typed. It ends upon typing Esc or one of the numeric keypad keys ENTER, +, or -. Clicking elsewhere terminates editing as if the ENTER-key were pressed. If you select a time field and begin typing, your numbers will be entered on top of the original value, starting from the units seconds position and shifting to the left. To clear the original value before typing, press the *-key again. The Backspace-key removes the most recent new digit and shifts your entry to the right. To type into the sub-seconds (e.g., msec. or frames) field, press the numeric keypad decimal point (.) key. To select and edit a single field, use the and arrow keys or double click on the field. When a single field is selected, you can use the and arrow keys to increment and decrement the field. When incrementing (or decrementing) values are carried to (or borrowed from) the next field on the left. When you have completed your entry, press ENTER to submit the new value. Alternatively, press + or - to add or subtract your entry from the field's original value. The Esc-key will exit the editor and revert back to the original value Preferences Window The preferences item in the window menu opens the preferences window. This window is modal (you must close it before continuing to work). It contains tabs for configuring different features. The edit and recording menus contain commands that open their associated preferences. 2.3 The EDL Window Opening an EDL In order to do any playback, editing, or recording, you must open an EDL window. There are four ways to open an EDL from the file menu: Use the open command to open an existing EDL Use the new EDL command to create a new EDL Use the new/import sound files command and select one or more sound files. A new EDL is created and the sound files appear as ingredients in it. A special type of EDL called a takelist is created when you record. When you open a takelist EDL you are presented with a dialog. Section describes takelists. 8

27 When an EDL window is opened, it is maximized by default, but this is controlled via a user preference. You can change this behavior by setting or clearing the open EDL window maximized checkbox in the window tab of the preferences window. This window is reached via the preferences item in the window menu. The range of the viewable EDL window is 23:30:00 to 12:30:00, however, the usable range in which you can work is from 00:00:00 to 12:00:00. When an EDL has been modified but not yet saved, an asterisk is appended to its name in the title bar and the Sonoma window menu Control Panels The area on the left side of an EDL consists of a set of control panels. Panels are selected by clicking on a tab, or using the PageDown or PageUp keys to cycle through them. 1 The control panels are: Channel Controls The channel control panel is used for recording and to control the appearance of the ingredients in an EDL. You can bring up the channel control panel quickly by pressing Ctrl+PageUp. Ingredient Editor The ingredient editor control panel is used to edit single ingredients and groups of ingredients in an EDL. You can bring up the ingredient editor control panel quickly by pressing Ctrl+Alt+I. Section 2.11 describes the ingredient editor. Splice Editor The splice editor control panel is used to adjust cross-fades between ingredients that have been spliced together. You can bring up the splice editor control panel quickly by pressing Ctrl+Alt+L. Section 2.13 describes the splice editor. Mark Editor The mark editor control panel is used to create and display marks in an EDL. You can bring up the mark editor control panel quickly by pressing Ctrl+Alt+M. Section 2.15 describes marks and the mark editor. HW Monitor The hardware monitor control panel displays real time information about the status of the machine. You will normally not need to view this panel. It can be useful for problem diagnosis under the direction of a Sony field support engineer. The channel controls are used most of the time, so this panel is described fully in the next section. The other control panels are used for special functions and will be described later in this chapter. 1. The PageDown and PageUp keys work irrespective of the state of the transport; however, you cannot enter the Splice Editor with the transport running. For this reason, the Splice Editor tab is skipped as you cycle down/up the panels with the PageDown/PageUp keys when the transport runs. 9

28 2.3.3 Channel Controls Each row of the EDL represents one audio channel. The channel rows are numbered from the top down, starting with channel one. There are a number of indicators and controls for each channel. From left-to-right across each row, these are: Processor status lights These lights indicate the presence of digital audio clock for input (red) and output (green). If all is well, there is one red and one green light to the left of every channel. If there is a hardware problem the status lights may be black or may not appear at all. Monitor source Each channel's monitor source is either input or output (i.e., repro). The corresponding columns of buttons are labeled I and O. Clicking on a monitor button sets a channel's monitor to the corresponding source. Clicking on the column heading sets all channels to that source with the following constraints: If one or more channel numbers are selected only the selected channels will switch when you click on the column header. If you Ctrl-click on the heading when one or more channel numbers are selected only those channels that are not selected will switch. You can also switch the monitor source by using the commands and buttons in the transport menu and toolbar (see ). The monitor source may switch automatically during recording. You can control this behavior by selecting one of the monitoring switching modes see for details. Also, be aware that the monitor source is locked to output and cannot be switched when you are exporting a master file (see 2.17) or recording channel outputs (see ). Mute Each channel can be muted and unmuted individually by clicking on its mute button. The M column header toggles the mute state of all the channels whose channel numbers are selected, or all the channels if no channel numbers are selected. Ctrl-clicking the header toggles the mute on the channel numbers that are not selected. You can also toggle muting by using the commands and buttons in the transport menu and toolbar (see ). Channel number The color of each channel number box indicates if it is selected or unselected. The I/O monitor switching commands and some edit commands are affected by the channel selection state. To select a channel, click on its channel number box. Clicking on the box toggles that channel s selection on and off. Other channels are unaffected.to toggle all the channels in the system on and off click on the ch channel heading. It is possible to define a subset of channels, a channel group, that can be selected independently. Channels in the channel group appear with red channel numbers, other channels are displayed in black. To add or remove a channel from the channel group, 10

29 Ctrl-click the channel number box. Adding or removing a channel from the channel group does not change the selection state of the channel. To select the channels in the channel group, Ctrl-click on the ch channel heading. (All other channels will be deselected.) Repeated Ctrl-clicks on the heading will toggle the members of the channel group on and off. To set the channel selection to the compliment of the channel group (i.e., the channels that are not in the group) Alt-click on the ch channel heading. Repeated Alt-clicks on the heading will toggle this complementary set of channels on and off. Channel recording state The buttons labeled R and S stand for record ready and record safe. These buttons will appear only when a channel is unlocked (see the next control). Clicking on the column heading sets all the unlocked channels to that recording state. One of R and S is always steadily illuminated, but not both. One button may be illuminated while the other one blinks, indicating that the channel has been armed for a transition. The transition may occur when the transport starts moving (in untriggered recording mode) or when the record trigger is pressed (in triggered recording mode). Section 2.8 describes the entire recording process. Channel lock When a channel is locked it is impossible to record on it; its recording mode is forced to safe and its Ready/Safe buttons are hidden. The lock can only be changed when the transport is idle. Clicking on the lock icon toggles the lock state of a channel. Clicking on the column heading L first forces all the channels into locked state (if necessary), subsequent toggles switch the lock state on all channels. Locking channels permits the system to assign the available disk recording space to only those channels that need to record. Peak Level Meter The peak signal at each channel's monitor source is displayed in a horizontal meter. The metering parameters (decay constant and headroom) can be adjusted in the metering tab of the preferences window. Headroom is measured in db between threshold and maximum signal value. When the signal is above the threshold the meter turns red. The metering data can also be displayed in the channel rows during playback (see ). Track display mode A group of ingredients assigned to the same channel is called a track. Sometimes ingredients overlap. (The Sonoma editor can mix two overlapping ingredients in real time on every channel.) The ingredients in a track can be displayed two ways. In overlapped mode all ingredients appear in the same row so overlapping ingredients actually overlap. In alternating mode the ingredients in a track occupy two rows; ingredients are placed in the top and bottom rows alternately so that the overlapping material is lined up on adjacent rows. The default mode is overlapped. To switch modes, click on the overlapping ingredient icon. Clicking on the T column heading toggles the ingredient track display mode on all channels. Channel height Regardless of the track display mode, the height of ingredients (and the rows in which they appear) can be large or small. Small is the default. To change the channel height click on the single ingredient icon. Large channel height is useful for viewing ingredient waveforms at a higher resolution. Clicking on the H column heading toggles the channel height on all channels. 11

30 2.3.4 Timeline The timeline is the row above channel one. A set of blue, pink, blue, and black lines at the top of the timeline shows a time grid. The alternating lines mark durations of one hour, one minute, one second, and a fraction of a second. The fractional scale depends on the timecode format you have selected. The smallest black dashes are 10 msec. in length when displaying millisecond timecode format, 16 samples for sample format (hex or decimal), and one frame length at the appropriate rate for 75 and 30 frame/second formats. Depending on the amount of time displayed in the EDL window, you may see all, or only some, of the dashed lines as the smaller scales only appear as you zoom in Nowline and Edit Cursors The Nowline is a vertical cursor that shows the current position of the playback head; it moves when the transport is running. You can reposition the Nowline by clicking and dragging its handle: the green knob at the top of the Nowline in the timeline. The position of the Nowline is displayed in the clock display window (if it is open) and also in the lower strip. Every EDL contains two edit cursors named edit left, and edit right. The left/right edit cursors are drawn as solid red lines and are topped with triangular handles for dragging. An edit cursor can be visible (on) or hidden (off) independent of the state of the other cursor. The edit cursors can be toggled on and off using the show/hide items in the cursors menu, or by Alt-clicking on the edit cursor icons that appear in the upper strip, above the timeline. The edit cursors are explained in more detail in Lower Strip The lower strip appears below the last channel row of the EDL, it shows three timecode numbers. These numbers appear in the current timecode format. The leftmost and rightmost numbers are the visible bounds of the EDL window. You can select any of these timecode fields and change their values by typing into them. You can also copy and paste any of these timecodes to other timecode fields. The number in the center is the width of the EDL window currently visible. You can change the zoom factor of the EDL by clicking and editing this number. The Nowline may be located outside the visible range of the EDL. If the Nowline is not visible, an arrow on the left or right of the range field shows in which direction the Nowline can be found. Clicking on these arrows will scroll the EDL so that the window is centered around the Nowline Upper Strips The upper strip appears above the EDL s timeline, it shows three timecode numbers. These numbers appear in the current timecode format. The leftmost and rightmost numbers are the position of the edit cursors. The center number is the width of the edit region they define. You can select either edit cursor s timecode field (but not the region field) and change its value by typing into it. You can also copy and paste these timecodes to other timecode fields. The edit cursors may be located outside the visible range of the EDL. If a cursor is not visible, an arrow on the left or right of its timecode number shows in which direction the Nowline can be found. Clicking on these arrows will scroll the EDL so that the window is centered around the cursor. The upper strip also contains controls for showing and hiding the edit cursors. Alt-clicking on the edit cursor s icon will toggle its display state. The strip also contains controls for linear editing: a pair 12

31 of Source and Destination buttons and, when the window is active, a trio of buttons for the linear edit commands Insert, Layer, and Replace. Linear editing is described in Ingredients Ingredients represent audio recordings stored in disk files. They appear in the channel rows as rectangles with outlines around them that are ramped at either end to show their fade-in and fade-out times. Selected ingredients have a different color. A waveform for the audio is drawn within the ingredient when an accompanying envelope file exists. (These files are usually created when the audio is recorded see for details.) Ingredients are created by recording or by importing sound files into an EDL. They can be cut, copied, and pasted within and between EDLs. They are edited using menu commands and the ingredient edit control panel Edit Points and Fade Pivot Points An ingredient specifies a segment of its associated audio file, determined by two edit points, called edit-in and edit-out. Fades are centered around the edit points, so the length of an ingredient depends on both its edit points and fade lengths. When the EDL is zoomed in to a sufficiently small scale, edit points will appear as small dots in the center of the fade-in and fade-out of each ingredient. Three ingredients are shown below. All of them have the same edit points, but their fades are progressively larger from top to bottom. Notice how the length of an ingredient changes as the fade length increases, while the edit points remain fixed at the same time location. While the fade length is always applied symmetrically around the edit point, it is often useful to move the edit point at the same time you change the fade length. For instance, you might want to lengthen the fade-in while keeping the material at the beginning of the fade-in the same. In order to do this the edit point must move to the right by half the change in fade length. Sonoma can perform this operation by pinning one end of a fade and pivoting about that fixed end. You can select the pivot point for the fades in ingredients using the fade pivots item in the edit menu. The three types of pivots for ingredients are also available as buttons in the edit toolbar. The choices are to pivot at the edit point or at the bottom or top of the fade: The pivot point will be drawn as a red dot on all selected ingredients when you are zoomed in to a sufficiently small scale. Note that when the pivot point is the fade bottom (i.e., the start of the fade-in or the end of the fade-out), changing the fade length will not change the effective (sounding) length of an ingredient, though the edit point will move. The choice of pivot point is not an attribute of the fade itself. Whenever you perform a command that changes the fade length in the ingredient editor (see ), or move a fade with the trim to Nowline command (see 2.9.6), the currently specified pivot point will be used to compute the change in the ingredient. When two ingredients are spliced together, the transition between the incoming and outgoing ingredients involves a pair of complimentary fades (see 2.12). When editing fades in the splice 13

32 editor (see ), it is useful to select the pivot points in a different manner. Therefore, there is a second group for specifying splice fade pivots in the edit menu s fade pivots item and in the edit toolbar. The choices are to pivot at the start, center or end of a fade: Note that the start/end fade specification imparts a complimentary behavior when the lengths of both fades in a splice are changed in one step: the bottom of one fade and the top of the other will be pinned Ingredient Gains Every ingredient has a pair of gains defined for its edit points. By default these are unity, but they can be set between -100 db and +6 db. These gains impose a gain envelope that is composed with the fades when the ingredient is played. The gains are set using the ingredient editor (see for details). The appearance of ingredients in the EDL indicates the presence of non-unity gains in two ways. Ingredient waveforms are usually drawn in black. When an ingredient has a non-unity gain at either end its waveform will be drawn in pale blue instead. Additionally, you can toggle the waveform menu command display non-unity gain curves (or use the toolbar button). When this option is selected linear db gain envelopes will be drawn across ingredients with non-unity gains. The envelopes show the linear db gain from -18 db to +6 db. Smaller values are clipped to the bottom of the graphic scale. A white horizontal 0 db reference line is also drawn wherever a gain envelope appears. The ingredient below has an in gain of -25 db and out gain of +6 db. Notice how values below -18 db are clipped Offline Ingredients When Sonoma opens an EDL, it assumes that the ingredients it contains refer to their original DSD sound files. In some cases, those files may not be in their original locations. Sonoma recognizes one of the most common cases - when removable drives have been shuffled so that drive letters have changed. If this the appropriate substitution. In other cases, files may have been backed up and then restored to a different level of the disk hierarchy, or they may even have been renamed. When this happens, an ingredient can be displayed on the screen, it can be selected, moved, and edited; but it cannot be played back. An ingredient is called offline when it cannot be associated with a sound file. Offline ingredients are colored gray when they appear in an EDL. The source audio mapper provides the ability to map offline ingredients to a sound file at a different location (see 2.18). 14

33 2.3.9 Marks User-specified marks can be placed in the timeline or inside ingredients. The system may also create error marks while playing or recording. Marks are used for navigation, annotating events, and defining SACD authoring locations. They are described fully in Navigating the EDL Using the Navigation Menu The navigation menu contains zoom commands for changing the horizontal scale of the EDL and scroll commands for moving the portion of the EDL that is visible in the window. The navigation toolbar contains buttons for these commands. The valid range of an EDL for audio is 12 hours, counted from 00:00:00 to 12:00:00. However, the visible and navigable range of an EDL is one half hour more in each direction, that is, from 23:30:00 to 12:30:00. When you zoom and scroll, you cannot expand the EDL window past this range Zooming Zooming changes the horizontal time scale of the EDL window. There are three kinds of zooming commands: anchored zooms, ingredient-based zooms, and fixed zooms. Zoom around Left/Center/Right Anchored zoom commands zoom around a fixed point in the EDL window. The anchor points are the left edge of the window, the center of the window, and the right edge of the window. Zooming in to or out from an anchor preserves the EDL position at that point and rescales the window around it. Zoom around Selection/All Ingredients The ingredient-based zoom commands zoom around the selected ingredients or all the ingredients in the EDL. The window size changes so that the ingredients are centered and occupy 90% of the window. 15

34 Zoom to Presets and Fixed Size These commands zoom the window around its center to a number of predetermined sizes. The four presets are set in the editing preferences. The three fixed sizes are one minute, one hour, and the maximum viewable range of 13 hours. Zoom to Edit Region When one or both edit cursors are on, this command will zoom to the edit region they describe. (See ) Zoom to include Selection This command will extend the bounds of the EDL window to include the current ingredient selection. It is useful after paste and punch operations to make all the new material visible Scrolling Previous Page, Next Page These commands scroll the EDL forward and backward a page at a time. Nowline at Left, Center, Right of Window These commands scroll the EDL so that the material at the Nowline appears at the left or right side of the window, or in the center of the window. When the Nowline is not in the visible range of the EDL, pressing the arrow that appears to the left or right of the EDL s range field (in the lower strip) will scroll the EDL so that the area containing the Nowline is centered in the window. Edit Cursors Centered in Window Pressing Ctrl+NumPad 5 will scroll to bring the edit left cursor to the center of the window. Shift+Ctrl+NumPad 5 brings the edit right cursor to the center. 16

35 2.4.2 Navigating with the Keypad The numeric keypad can be used to access the anchored zoom commands and the paging commands. You must be sure that the NumLock-key is on to use the keypad for these commands. Alt+NumPad 1, Alt+NumPad 2, Alt+NumPad 3, and Alt+NumPad 4 zooms the EDL to the four zoom presets set in the edit preferences Navigating with the Transport Menu Two commands in the transport menu also scroll the EDL and move the Nowline at the same time. Return To Zero, Rewind The Return To Zero command (RTZ) places the Nowline at the start of the EDL. The rewind command places the Nowline at the position it occupied when the last play command was issued. Both these commands scroll the EDL so the visible range includes the Nowline. You can use the Home-key for RTZ and Shift+Home for rewind. (The Home-key is usually found in a cluster of six keys that also include Page Up, Page Down, Insert, Delete, and End. The numeric keypad Home-key will not work for this shortcut.) Navigating with the EDL Bounds The left and right EDL bounds are displayed in the lower strip of the EDL. You can select either bound and type or paste a new timecode into them. The EDL will rezoom to the new boundaries. 17

36 2.5 Selecting Ingredients Many commands operate on one or more selected ingredients in the active EDL. Ingredients can be selected using the mouse or with menu commands found in the selection menu. The selection toolbar contains buttons for these commands. Unselected ingredients appear blue-grey in color. When an ingredient is selected, its color changes to bright green with a yellow outline Channel-based Selection Just to the left of the EDL s channel rows, there is a column labeled C containing small rectangles. The coloring of the rectangle indicates whether none (white), all (bright green), or some (blue-grey) of the ingredients on that channel are selected. Clicking on any rectangle will alternately select or deselect all ingredients on that channel. Clicking on the C column heading will alternately select or deselect all ingredients in the EDL. The channel-based selection controls are not visible all the time. When the splice editor panel is selected, these controls are replaced with special controls for controlling the splice editor Selecting Ingredients with the Mouse A single ingredient can be selected by clicking on it. Clicking on an ingredient that is already selected has no effect. To extend the selection an ingredient at a time, or toggle the selection state of an ingredient, Ctrl-click on it. To clear the selection, click in a portion of a channel row where there is no ingredient Deselect/Select All Ingredients You can clear the selection, so that no ingredients are selected, or select all the ingredients in the EDL with the corresponding commands and their toolbar buttons. 18

37 2.5.4 Selecting Ingredients with respect to the Nowline Select Under/Before/After Nowline These commands clear the current selection (if any) and reselect ingredients according to their position and the position of the Nowline. If one or more channels are selected (by clicking on the channel number(s) in the channel control panel), these commands will only choose ingredients on the selected channels, otherwise all the ingredients in the EDL will be considered. Selecting ingredients under the Nowline selects only ingredients that intersect the Nowline - they begin before and end after it. The command select ingredients starting before Nowline selects all the ingredients whose edit-in points occur before the Nowline, these ingredients do not have to intersect the Nowline at all. Selecting ingredients after Nowline chooses all the ingredients whose edit-out points fall after the Nowline. Toggle Selection Under Nowline This command first adds all the unselected ingredients under the Nowline to the current set of selected ingredients (if necessary). Repeated use of this command toggles the selection state of only those ingredients that intersect the Nowline. Any other ingredients in the selection remain unchanged. The state of the channel selection has no effect Select Previous/Next ingredient You can walk the EDL, selecting successive ingredients in time-sorted order, by using the commands select previous ingredient, or select next ingredient Select Last Recording This command can be used to show the most recently recorded material in an EDL see for more details. 19

38 2.6 Manipulating Cursors The Nowline is always visible in an EDL. It is used primarily to control playback, to specify the insert point for paste operations and to trim and slip ingredients. The edit cursors can be hidden; they define the edit region, which is used when performing linear edits (see 2.10). Recall that the valid range for audio in an EDL is 12 hours, from 00:00:00 to 12:00:00, while the visible range is 23:30:00 to 12:30:00. The position of all the cursors is constrained to the audio range, they cannot be placed before 00:00:00 or after 12:00: Working with the Nowline You can directly specify the position of the Nowline of the active EDL window by clicking on the clock display and typing or pasting a timecode into it. The cursors menu contains commands for moving the Nowline. The cursors toolbar contains buttons for these commands Move Nowline Before/After Selection These commands move the Nowline to the bounds of the selected ingredients. Move Nowline before selection places the Nowline at the edit-in point of the selected ingredient that begins first. Move Nowline after selection places the Nowline at the edit-out point of the selected ingredient that ends last. Sometimes it is more useful to move the Nowline to the beginning or end of the fade around the associated edit point. The Ctrl and Alt-keys can be used to modify these commands. (If you think of the Spacebar as an ingredient, then the placement of the Ctrl and Alt-keys corresponds to the start and end of fades on an ingredient.): Move Nowline before selection/to fade-in start Move Nowline before selection/to fade-in end Move Nowline after selection/to fade-out start Move Nowline after selection/to fade-out end Ctrl+Shift+9 Alt+Shift+9 Alt+Shift+0 Ctrl+Shift Nudge Nowline Backward/Forward The Nudge Nowline commands change the position of the Nowline by the nudge amount that is specified in the editing tab of the user preferences window; this window is reached via the edit and undo preferences item in the edit menu. The and arrow keys nudge the Nowline. 20

39 Move Nowline To Previous/Next Mark These commands move the Nowline forward or backward to the next visible mark in the EDL and select that mark in the mark editor control panel. (Section 2.15 explains how to create and use marks.) Working with the Edit Cursors The edit cursors can be toggled on and off using the show/hide items in the cursors menu, or by Alt-clicking on the edit cursor icons that appear in the upper strip, above the timeline. The cursors are red when on and gray when off. You can select the timecode field associated with an edit cursor by clicking it and entering or pasting a new timecode value into the field. The cursor will toggle on, if necessary, and move to the new position Moving the Edit Cursors To drag the left cursor, Ctrl-click in the EDL's timeline. To drag the right cursor Shift+Ctrl-click. These clicks will also turn the cursor on if it was in the off state. To position both cursors at the same time Alt-click and drag the mouse left or right. Each edit cursor can also be moved to the Nowline with the set left/right to Nowline cursor menu command or by clicking on the edit cursor icon in the upper strip. As with the Nowline, you can nudge the edit left cursor using the Ctrl-key and the and arrow keys. Shift+Ctrl and the and arrow keys nudges the edit right cursor. There are commands and toolbar buttons for moving each edit cursor to the Nowline. The F5 and F6 accelerators can also be used Crossed Cursors Be careful when moving the cursors, if the left cursor is placed to the right of the right cursor the cursors are crossed. If you are dragging a single cursor, or move a cursor to the Nowline such that 21

40 the cursors become crossed, the stationary cursor will be turned off. However, if you hold the Alt-key while dragging a single cursor and crossing the other, the cursors will swap Moving the Nowline to an Edit Cursor The cursor menu contains commands for moving the Nowline to the left or right edit cursor. This can also be accomplished by Shift-clicking the left or right edit cursor icon or F5/F6 keys The Edit Region The region between the edit cursors is called the edit region. The size of the edit region is displayed in the middle of the upper strip of the EDL. If one or more channels are selected, the region includes only the audio on the selected channels. If there are no selected channels, then the region includes all channels. If only edit left is on, the edit region begins at edit left and ends at the end of the last ingredient on the selected channels (or all channels if none are selected). If only edit right is on, the region begins at the EDL origin and ends at edit right. If both cursors are off, the edit region consists of all the tracks on the selected channels, beginning at the EDL origin and ending at the end of the last ingredient on the selected tracks (or all channels if none are selected). There is a navigation menu command to zoom the EDL so as to display the edit region. There are also edit menu commands to copy, delete, or delete/ripple the edit region. These edit commands follow the channel selection rule and will remove and/or trim ingredients as necessary. 2.7 Playback Controlling the Transport Playback always happens in the active EDL window. You can use the transport controls, the transport menu commands, or the command keyboard accelerators to control playback. Play and Stop The play button starts a simple playback. Playback starts at the current position of the Nowline and continues until a stop command is given. You can issue the play and stop commands directly or you can use the Spacebar to toggle between play and stop. If you are not sure about the state of the transport, use the stop command (Ctrl+Spacebar). When playback stops the Nowline remains at the last position played. Play Selection When you hold the Shift-key and press the Spacebar the play selection command is performed. Only the audio in the selected ingredients will be heard. 22

41 Return To Zero, Rewind, Auto Rewind The RTZ command scrolls the EDL to position zero and sets the Nowline there. The rewind command sets the Nowline to the position it occupied when the last play command was given. If you check the auto rewind item in the transport menu a rewind will be performed automatically at the end of playback Auditioning Cursors and the Edit Region Audition commands perform a bounded playback, using a pre-roll, a post-roll, or both. The Nowline always returns to its original position after an audition command. The pre- and post-roll interval is determined by the pre-roll buttons: The time interval corresponding to each button is specified in the edit tab of the preferences window. (The selected pre-roll amount also affects the splice editor s audition commands. See ) The transport menu contains a group of commands for auditioning the Nowline, the edit cursors, and the edit region. The commands are also available from the transport toolbar and with keyboard accelerators (shown below in parentheses): Audition up to Edit Left (5) Audition after Edit Right (6) Audition up to Nowline (7) Audition after Edit Left (Ctrl+5) Audition up to Edit Right (Ctrl+6) Audition after Nowline (Ctrl+7) Audition around Edit Left (Alt+5) Audition around Edit Right (Alt+6) Audition around Nowline (Alt+7) Play Edit Region (-) Play around Edit Region (Shift+-) All these commands use the currently selected pre-roll to determine the length of playback. The default playback ramp specified in the playback preference tab is applied. When auditioning the edit cursors, or edit region, only the selected channels are played, or all channels if none are selected. Play around edit region is a cut audition. It plays up to edit left and after edit right, cross fading the two segments with a fade having the default fade length Bottlenecks Real time playback is not possible when more than two ingredients overlap on the same channel. This is called a bottleneck. The system will halt with an error dialog when it attempts to play across 23

42 a bottleneck. In order to avoid this situation, the interface indicates when a bottleneck is present so that the user can correct the situation before attempting to play. The transport toolbar contains a bottleneck button. The button is a shortcut for the menu command show next bottleneck. This button and the menu command are disabled when no bottlenecks are present at or to the right of the Nowline. The command and button are enabled if there is a bottleneck at or after the Nowline. When there are bottlenecks at or after the Nowline, invoking the show bottlenecks command will select the first offending ingredients giving the user an approximate indication of where the overlap problem begins. There may be other bottlenecks before the Nowline or later in the EDL, but only the first bottleneck that would be encountered while playing is shown. 2.8 Recording Overview Recording is controlled from an active EDL window using the channel lock/unlock and ready/safe buttons and the transport controls. Before you record, you must set the system s audio routing, monitor switching, and file naming behavior. The result of recording is a set of new ingredients in an EDL along with new DSD files: one DSD file for each recorded channel. If there are multiple punch-in/punch-outs on a channel during recording, many ingredients will appear on the channel in the EDL, but the audio for these ingredients is recorded into a single DSD file per channel. New ingredients usually appear in the active EDL that was used to control recording, but you can also direct the system to place the new ingredients into some other EDL when recording completes (see 2.8.5). It is important to recognize the distinction between DSD files, which contain audio, and the ingredients that represent them in an EDL. Once a recording is made you can remove some or all of the new ingredients from the EDL, the corresponding DSD files will remain in the system and they can be used later by importing them into an EDL Before Recording: The System Configuration The system configuration includes the recording directory, signal routing, and recording and monitor switching modes Set Recording Directory You must specify a recording directory for an EDL before recording into it. The set recording directory command in the record menu (or the button on the recording toolbar) brings up the 24

43 recording directory dialog. Recording Directory The recording directory indicates which disk to use for recording. The recording directory will be created if it does not exist. Each EDL has its own recording directory. You only need to specify an EDL s recording directory once, the EDL will remember it. You can change the recording directory between recordings if you are pressed for space and need to record to another disk or if you want to store material from different recording passes into different folders on the same disk. File Naming The recording directory dialog also contains fields that are used to construct the names of newly recorded DSD files. The file names are created by concatenating the file prefix, the file number, the channel number, and the dsd extension (e.g., Take.11.chan1.dsd). The file number is automatically incremented after each recording pass (when the transport returns to idle). Sonoma tries to begin numbering with the specified file number but if the recording directory already contains DSD files with the same prefix and bigger file numbers Sonoma will select the next largest unused number. Recording to Subfolders When a new recording is made, the DSD files are usually placed directly in the recording directory. You can automatically create subfolders in the recording directory for each recording pass. When the record into new folders checkbox is checked, the new files will be placed in a subfolder that has the same name as the prefix+file number of the files Record Signal Routing Usually, you will want to record the channel input coming from the A/D converters. It is also possible to record the channel output of the EDL itself (this would include the rendering 2 of overlapped ingredients on the same channel). To specify the recording source, use the record channel input and record channel output commands in the record menu or the corresponding buttons on the transport toolbar. Note that when you record channel output, the I/O monitoring will be switched to output and locked. You cannot change the monitoring while record channel output is selected. If you are recording channel output you might want to specify a new recording directory so that the rendered material is recorded in a separate, easily-identified location. 2. Rendering in this context means the combining of two overlapped ingredients to form a single contiguous ingredient. 25

44 (Note: the input signal source can be either analog or digital. The source path is controlled by the hardware configuration. This is described in chapter one of the Sonoma Audio Workstation Hardware Installation Guide. Refer to the instructions for configuring the ADC-8.) Recording Mode Recording can only occur while the transport is moving. A punch-in happens when a channel starts recording, a punch-out when a channel stops recording. These transitions are controlled by changing the channel recording state using the ready/safe buttons. If you want to punch-in on a single channel, using that channel s individual ready/safe buttons is fine; however, this is inconvenient when you want to punch-in across many channels simultaneously. To solve this problem, there are two recording modes: triggered and untriggered. The recording mode is selected by toggling the record trigger item in the record menu, or clicking on the trigger button in the toolbar. When the transport is running in untriggered mode the effect of a click on a ready or safe button is immediate. In triggered mode the effect of such clicks is deferred. When you click on a button to change the recording state, the button will blink and the state will not change until the red record trigger button itself is pressed (or the Ctrl+R record trigger command shortcut is given). This allows you to punch in and out on several channels simultaneously Monitor Switching While making a recording, the monitor source (input or output) for a channel can change when the transport starts and stops, and when punch-ins and punch-outs occur. The behavior of input/output monitoring depends on the record signal routing. Monitor Switching While Recording Channel Input, Monitor Switching Mode When recording from the inputs, monitor switching is controlled by the monitor switching mode selected by the user. There are three modes. A mode is specified by choosing the item in the recording menu. The monitor mode can only be changed when the transport is idle. 1. Normal Monitor Switching When this mode is selected the monitors are unaffected. When the transport is running all record-ready channels switch to input on punch-in, and return to their previous state on punch-out. You can also change the monitoring manually while the transport is running by pressing the I/O buttons in the channel panel. 2. Auto Input Monitor Switching When this mode is selected all record-ready channels are forced to input monitor. When the transport is running all record-ready channels switch to input upon punch-in and stop, and switch to output upon punch-out. You can also change the monitoring manually while the transport is running by pressing the I/O buttons in the channel panel. 3. No Monitor Switching (Manual) When this mode is selected the input monitor state will not change during any of the recording transitions. You can change the monitoring manually by pressing the I/O buttons in the channel panel. 26

45 No Monitor Switching must be used when you re-record the EDL with additional processing through the mixer. When you do this the EDL output is fed to the mixer input, and the mixer output goes to the EDL input. This routing can create a feedback loop when the monitor source is the input. To avoid this situation, set output monitor on the channels with the mixer loop and select no monitor switching before you begin recording. Monitor Switching While Recording Channel Output When recording the channel outputs the monitor switching mode is ignored. When this routing is selected, all channels are forced to output monitor and the input monitor buttons are disabled. It is not possible to manually switch monitoring while Recording Channel Output routing is selected Before Recording: Channel Lock Controls and Disk Allocation A channel can be armed for record (i.e., switched from safe to record ready) only if the channel is not locked. Clicking the lock icon on a channel toggles its lock state. The Sonoma system preallocates the free space on the recording directory s disk equally among the unlocked channels before recording actually begins. The allocation changes each time you lock or unlock channels, and when you switch between EDLs that have different sets of unlocked channels. When a recording pass ends, and the transport is idle, the recorded files are truncated to the actual length of the recording, and new files are preallocated to the unlocked channels so the system is ready to record again Before Recording: Status Bar The right side of the status bar at the bottom of the Sonoma window displays the EDL s recording directory and the prefix and number of the next recording. When at least one channel is unlocked, the status bar shows the amount of recording time available on the unlocked channel with the smallest amount of time left. You can make longer recordings if you assign the recording directory to a disk with more free space or if you lock channels that you don t intend to record. The time left field will count down while the transport is running and recording Before Recording: Record to Destination EDL When recording ends the new material usually appears as ingredients in the active EDL. You can check the recording menu item record to destination EDL to send the new ingredients to another EDL (the DSD files will still be recorded into the active EDL s recording directory). If some other EDL was designated as a destination EDL (see ) the ingredients appear there. If there is no destination EDL then Sonoma will open a new EDL and place the ingredients in it Before Recording: Fade Times Recording creates new ingredients in the EDL. These ingredients will have edit points corresponding to the times they were punched in and out along with default fades. The default fade types and lengths are specified in the editing preferences tab of the preference window. You can change fade parameters after the fact, but the default values will affect the manner in which new recordings are punched over any existing audio in the EDL. See for details. 27

46 2.8.7 Before Recording: Error Preferences If errors occur while recording, you might want to halt the machine for some, or all, of them, or go on recording. Use the error preferences tab of the preference window to choose the appropriate behavior see Making a Recording Transport Controls The Record Trigger Playback and record are controlled by the stop, play, and record trigger commands in the transport menu and also the corresponding buttons in the transport toolbar. The record trigger command/button enables recording and it will also start the transport running if you press it when the system is idle. In untriggered record mode, you control punch-in and punch-out by clicking on each unlocked channel s ready/safe buttons. In triggered recording mode, pressing the record button will trigger all pending punch-in and punch-out transitions. Once transitions have been triggered, you can re-arm the ready/safe buttons for another triggered transition. The play button will always punch-out on all recording channels. Monitor Source You can change the monitor source with the set monitor input and set monitor output commands in the transport menu. These commands switch only the selected channels in the EDL (or all channels if none are selected). The corresponding buttons on the transport toolbar show the current monitor state. If some channels are monitoring output and others are monitoring input then both buttons will be up. The additional keyboard shortcut Ctrl+I toggles the monitor source between input and output. (Remember that you cannot change the monitor source while you are recording channel output.) Channel Mute You can toggle channel muting with the mute command in the transport menu. This command mutes or unmutes all the channels in the system (unlike the M column header in the channel control panel which affects only the selected channels). The mute button on the transport toolbar will be depressed when all the channels are muted Punch-in and Punch-out Handles While the transport is running, the input audio buffers are being filled whether or not recording is actually taking place. This means the system can start recording before you actually punch-in, and 28

47 can continue after you punch-out, as long as you keep the transport running. If you punch-in while the transport is playing, the system includes the preceding 200 msec. of input in your recording. Similarly, if you punch-out and keep playing, the system will record for another 200 msecs. The extra audio in these handles is used to complete the ingredient s fade-in and fade-out (remember that the fades are centered around the edit points). This additional recording time also allows you the ability to change the fade length and move the edit points beyond the original punch positions. If you begin recording from idle (by pressing the record trigger to start), the system cannot record a starting handle. Recording begins immediately and the fade-in for the recorded ingredient will be precisely at punch-in time, while the edit-in point will occur in the center of the fade-in. If you stop recording by pressing the stop button, the system will schedule the end of recording to align with a disk block boundary. This means the recording could end up to 3/4 second after you punched out. The end of the fade-out is placed at the point where recording actually stopped, and the edit-out precedes it by one half the fade-out length Stopping or Canceling a Recording The Spacebar cannot be used to stop the transport while a recording is in progress. (This is to prevent accidently stopping by mistake, in the case where you might be typing information into a mark whose information field has not been activated.) To stop recording, use the stop button or the Ctrl+Spacebar accelerator for the stop command. The accelerator Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R cancels a recording immediately: the transport stops and the newly recorded DSD files are deleted After Recording When recording ends, the new ingredients are punched into either the original active EDL, or, if record to destination EDL was selected, the destination EDL becomes active and the new ingredients will appear there. Overlapping ingredients in the original (or destination) EDL are trimmed and the default crossfade time (specified in the edit preferences window) is applied Punch Record Auto Cleanup When you record over existing material in an EDL there is the possibility that a punch in or punch out might occur on top of an existing cross fade. In this case, a small ingredient (a stub ) might remain where a piece of the original incoming ingredient preceded the punch in (or a piece of the original outgoing ingredient followed the punch out). Punch record auto cleanup is controlled from the edit preferences where you specify a minimum stub length. When this feature is enabled and recording leaves stubs, any stub smaller than the minimum length will be removed from the EDL. Cleanup is enabled by default Last Recording When a recording is completed, the new ingredients are selected and they become the last recording in that EDL. When a recording has been made in an EDL, you can use the selection menu command select last recording to re-select the set of ingredients that was most recently recorded into the EDL. EDLs will remember their last recording only as long they are open. Once an EDL has been saved, closed, and re-opened it no longer knows about its last recording Undo Recordings Each recording pass appears as an item in the EDL s Undo list. Undoing a recording will revert the EDL to its state immediately preceding the start of the transport that initiated the recording. The recorded ingredients will be removed but the underlying DSD files remain in the system. This is a soft or non-destructive undo. 29

48 Discard Last Recording When an EDL has a last recording, as explained above, the recording menu command delete last recording is available. This command performs a hard destructive delete: the ingredients comprising the last recording are removed from the EDL and their underlying DSD files are deleted from the system. This command will be disabled as soon as another undoable event is performed after recording. You can discard material later using the discard selection command Discard Selection This command deletes the selected ingredients and discards the sound and waveform files behind them. It can be used at any time. Use it with caution, since it is an undoable command that will permanently remove files from the system and may result in offline ingredients in other EDLs The Takelist Each time a recording is made a special read-only EDL, called a takelist, is created. It will have a name that matches the prefix and file number of the new DSD files (e.g., Take.11.edl). The takelist is saved in the recording directory (or a subfolder in that directory) along with the DSD files that were recorded during that pass. The takelist is a two-layered EDL. The background layer is a copy of the destination EDL as it appeared just before the new ingredients were pasted into it, the foreground layer contains the new ingredients only. When you open a takelist, you must decide how to handle the foreground and background layers. A dialog box offers these options: Load the foreground layer only - the EDL will contain only the new material recorded during the recording pass. Load the background only - the EDL will contain the original background only. This is like undoing the recording. Punch the foreground into the background and load - the EDL will contain the new material recorded during the recording pass punched into the original background Record Edit Region This command performs an auto recording on all the EDL channels that are in a record-ready state. It begins with a playback pre-roll equal to the current pre-roll preceding edit-left (no pre-roll if region starts at 00:00:00.000), engages the record trigger at the start of the edit region and disengages the trigger at the end of the region. Finally, the transport continues to play a post-roll equal to the current pre-roll and then stops. While recording, the time left field starts with the region length and counts down to zero. Note that the channel selection state of the EDL has no effect, and that the record trigger mode is ignored. You should not try to change a channel's ready/safe status while recording a region. All other controls that affect recording (audio routing, monitoring, record source, record to destination, recording directory) are used just as they are configured. 30

49 2.9 Selection-Based Editing The commands described in this section operate on the selected ingredients only. Some of these commands also use the position of the Nowline, so it is important to understand how to control ingredient selection and move the Nowline. These operations are described above in 2.5 and 2.6. These commands act upon an ingredient s edit points. The edit-in and edit-out points serve two functions. Firstly, they specify the range of the clip (recorded DSD audio file) that is played. Trimming an edit point changes the length of an ingredient. Secondly, the position of an edit point with respect to the EDL s timeline will determine the synchronization of that ingredient with the other ingredients in the EDL. Commands that move ingredients change the position of edit points but maintain the length of the ingredient and its audio program. Many editing commands require that the Nowline intersects one or more selected ingredients. This means that the Nowline must be between the ingredients edit points, including the portion between the edit-in and end of fade-in, and the edit-out and start of fade-out. Note, however, that the Nowline cannot intersect an ingredient if it is to the left of the edit-in point, or to the right of the edit-out point, even if it does cut across a portion of a fade. The edit commands are found in the edit menu and toolbar. You can pop-up the edit menu by clicking the right mouse button anywhere in the EDL graphics area Clear/Cut/Copy/Paste The clear, cut, copy, and paste commands are literal operations upon the selected ingredients and they work like most PC programs. Paste will place ingredients on the same channel and at the same position where they were cut or copied. Literal pasting will not affect any existing material in the EDL, so be careful; by just copying and pasting immediately, it is possible to paste two copies of the selected ingredients on top of each other, without noticing it. Three types of paste commands are available in the edit menu, via keyboard accelerators, or by using the paste buttons in the edit toolbar: The ordinary paste command (and its accelerator Ctrl+V) does not change the position of the newly pasted material. There are two other paste commands that align the contents of the clipboard such that the start of the leftmost ingredient or the end of the rightmost ingredient is at the Nowline. These commands are available in the edit menu, or via their keyboard accelerators: Paste before Nowline (Ctrl+]) Paste after Nowline (Ctrl+[) 31

50 2.9.2 Copy After Nowline This command copies the ingredients in the selection, but excludes ingredients wholly to the left of the Nowline. Also, copies of selected ingredients that span the Nowline will be trimmed on the left to exclude the portion before the Nowline Paste With Punch-in These commands will trim and/or remove (on a channel-by-channel basis) existing material that overlaps the new ingredients that are pasted in, thus producing a punch-in across the old audio. The fade-in and fade-out length at the punch-in/out transitions are taken from the default cross-fade length specified in the edit tab of the user preferences window. This window is reached via the preferences item in the edit menu. Simple punch paste places the contents of the clipboard at the same position from where it was copied. Paste after Nowline will align the start of the leftmost ingredient in the paste selection with the Nowline. Paste before Nowline will align the end of the rightmost ingredient in the paste selection with the Nowline. These commands are available in the edit menu, via their keyboard accelerators, or by using the paste buttons in the edit toolbar while holding down the Alt-key: Punch Paste (Alt+V) Punch before Nowline (Alt+]) Punch after Nowline (Alt+[) When you perform a paste with punch-in, the new material will be automatically spliced to any old material it overlaps see If a punch results in new material going beyond the bounds of the EDL, the ingredients will be trimmed to the EDL bounds Move Selection Before/After Nowline These commands move the selected ingredients to the left or the right, maintaining their positions relative to each other. Move selection before Nowline aligns the end of the selection with the Nowline. Move selection after Nowline aligns the beginning of the selection with the Nowline Nudge Selection Backward/Forward These commands move the selected ingredients to the left or the right by the nudge increment. The nudge increment is set in the edit tab of the preferences window. The Alt-key in conjunction with the and arrow keys will also nudge the selection. 32

51 2.9.6 Trim Selection Left/Right to Nowline These commands move the edit-in point (Trim Left) or edit-out point (Trim Right) of all the selected ingredients to the Nowline. It is very unusual to request this operation if the edit-in (or edit-out) points of all the selected ingredients are not aligned in the first place. If this is the case the program will ask if you really want to perform the trimming operation. Note that the selection of the ingredient fade pivot point affects the result of this command. The ingredient will be trimmed so that the selected fade pivot point aligns with the Nowline. (See for more on fade pivot points.) Slice Selection at Nowline This command slices a single ingredient into two ingredients. It slices all the selected ingredients that intersect the Nowline. If you try to slice with the Nowline inside a splice (see 2.12), Sonoma will remove the splice first. When an ingredient is sliced, any gain change across the original ingredient will be maintained across the two newly created ingredients. Gain interpolation is explained below in Unslice Selection The unslice command is enabled when two or more adjacent ingredients on the same channel are selected. It searches the selection for adjacent pairs of ingredients that use the same clip and whose edit in and edit out points align. It replaces each such pair with a single ingredient comprising both of the originals. Unslice is applied progressively from left-to-right so if there is a sequence of slices from the same clip they will all be combined in a single new ingredient Region-Based Editing and Linear Editing The commands in this section work with the edit region which is defined by an EDL s edit cursors and channel selection (see 2.6.2). Simple region copy and delete are available. Linear editing is sometimes called four-point editing, or assembly editing. It involves working left-to-right, taking material from a source EDL and assembling it in a destination EDL. When you perform linear editing in Sonoma, you will need to designate a source and destination EDL, and define an edit region in both. The linear edit commands (insert, layer and replace) move material from the source EDL s region to the destination EDL s region. 33

52 Cut/Copy Edit Region and Insert Time The edit region can be cut or copied via commands in the edit menu or toolbar buttons. Only the selected channels will be affected (or all channels if none are selected). The cut edit region and ripple command slips any remaining material that remains to the right of the region to the left. When any cut or copy command is performed with the Shift-key held down, the EDL and authoring marks in the region are also cut or copied into the clipboard and will appear on the next paste command. The insert time command slices the selected channels (or all channels if none are selected) at edit-left (or edit-right if edit-left is off) and ripples the material on the right of the slice to the right by the length of the edit region. Holding the Shift-key while inserting time will also ripple EDL and authoring marks that are on the right of the insert point Source and Destination EDLs Any EDL can become a source or destination. The checkable window menu items Source EDL and Destination EDL set the active EDL to be the source or destination (or toggles source/destination off). A pair of oval-shaped SRC and DST buttons in each EDL's upper strip follow the source or destination designation and can be clicked to set or reset them. There can only be one source and destination EDL at a time, and an EDL cannot be both a source and a destination. When an EDL is saved, its source/destination designation is not remembered. Displaying, Tiling, and Aligning the Source and Destination Shift-clicking the SRC or DST buttons in any EDL will bring the source or destination window to the front, if one is defined. The window menu contains commands to bring the source (F7) and destination (F8) EDLs to the front, and to tile (F12) the Sonoma window to show only the source and destination. If you hold the Alt-key down while selecting an EDL in the windows menu, the selected EDL will become the source window and the tile source/destination command will be performed, unless the chosen file is the destination or already has focus. The configuration of source and destination (which window is placed above the other) is controlled via an item in the windows preference. There are also commands to align the displayed region of the source and destination windows. Alignment alters the inactive window (source or destination) so it displays the same number of samples as its linear edit partner, and then scrolls it so that one of its edit cursors (Ctrl+F12 [left cursor]/shift+ctrl+f12 [right cursor]), or the Nowline (Shift+F12) are aligned. If you align the 34

53 boundaries (Alt+Ctrl+F12), the active window will view the same region as its partner. The align commands will first force a source/destination tiling (F12) if these EDLs are not already tiled. Shift+F7 = Make active EDL the Source Shift+F8 = Make active EDL the Destination F7 = Bring Source to front F8 = Bring Destination to front F12 = Tile Source/Destination Ctrl+F12 = Align at Left Edit Shift+Ctrl+F12 = Align at Right Edit Shift+F12 = Align at Nowline Alt+Ctrl+F12 = Align at boundaries Linear Edit Commands These commands copy material from the source EDL's edit region and bring it to the destination EDL. The source is left unchanged and the selection state of the source channels determines which channels in the destination will be affected. In most cases, the source and edit regions are the same size, sometimes one region is trimmed to match the length of the other. The commands are available in the edit menu, on the function keys F1 thru F4, and via buttons that will dynamically appear in the upper strip of the source and destination EDL. Each button will be disabled when that type of edit is not available. Replace The replace command (F1) removes the destination region and replaces it with the source material. If the source range is larger than the destination, it is usually trimmed to match it, if the source range is smaller than the destination, it is punched into the destination leaving the extra destination audio in place. The source material that replaces the destination is automatically spliced to the original audio in the destination tracks, using the default cross-fade. You can override the auto-splicing behavior by holding down the Alt-key when you perform this command. Replace does not ripple any material. An important exception is the 4-point case which is explained below in Layer The layer command (F2) simply pastes the source region on top of the destination material. If the source range is larger than the destination, it is usually trimmed to match it. No splices are applied to the newly layered material. Insert The insert command (F3) slices the destination, inserts the source material at the slice point, and ripples either the preceding destination material to the left, or the following destination material to the right. The inserted source material is automatically spliced to the original audio in the destination tracks, using the default cross-fade. You can override the auto-splicing behavior by holding down the Alt-key when you perform this command. The insert command is available only when there is at least one destination edit cursor on. The editing preferences tab contains a set of radio buttons that controls the behavior of insert when it would ripple material past midnight. The options are to insert time in the EDL, trim the material before inserting, or cancel the command with an error message. 35

54 Append The append command (F4) appends the contents of the source region (including any leading silence) to the end of the corresponding group of channels in the destination EDL. The source material is offset from the end of the destination channels by an append edit gap that is specified in the edit preferences tab. This command is disabled when the source region does not contain any ingredients. Depending on the number of edit cursors, you can perform 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 point edits. Recall the edit region rules for the different numbers of cursors: Cursors None Edit left Edit Right Both Edit Region EDL origin to end of track (end of last ingredient on last selected channel) Edit Left to end of track EDL origin to edit right Edit left to edit right The append command is always available when there is sound in the source region, no matter how many edit cursors define it. The availability and behavior of the other three types of linear edit commands will vary depending on the number of edit cursors in the destination region, as described in the following sections No Destination Edit Cursors When there are no destination cursors, the insert command is disabled. The replace and layer commands place the material in the source region into the same range of the corresponding destination channels. Note that when there are no source cursors, and you perform a 0 point replace, the source channels will completely replace the destination channels Destination Edit Left Only All three linear edit commands are available in this case. The destination region will begin at edit left and match the length of the source region. The replace and layer commands place the material in the source region into the same range of the corresponding destination channels. The insert command places the source at edit left and ripples any remaining destination material to the right Destination Edit Right Only All three linear edit commands are available in this case. For the replace and layer commands, the source material will be placed to the left of the edit right cursor. No ripple is performed. If the destination region (EDL origin to edit right) is smaller than the source region then the source region is back-timed, taking only a portion as long as the destination region, and starting from the right-hand side of the source. If the source region is smaller than the destination, then the entire source is used. The insert command slices the destination at edit right, places the source there, and ripples any preceding destination material to the left. If the ripple causes destination material to move beyond midnight, the insert editing preference is used (insert time, trim, or cancel the command). This preference is set in the edit tab of the preference window Destination Edit Left and Edit Right (Both Edit Cursors) All three linear edit commands are available in this case. The behavior varies depending on the number of source cursors: No Source Cursors or Source Edit Left When the source EDL contains no edit cursors or only the edit left, the source region is forced to be the same length as the destination region. Replace and layer will place the source at the destination 36

55 edit left. Insert will slice the destination at edit left, place the source there, and ripple any remaining destination material to the right. Source Edit Right When the source contains only edit right and the destination region is smaller, the source is forced back-timed to be the same length as the destination. Replace and layer will place the source before the destination edit right. Insert slices the destination at edit right, places the source there, and ripples any preceding destination material to the left, following the same ripple past midnight preferences described above Four Point Edits When all four edit cursors are visible each of the linear edit commands behaves differently. Four Point Replace A four point replace removes the destination material, inserts the source material at the position of the destination left edit cursor, and ripples the destination material following the destination right cursor to the left or the right, depending on the size of the source range. (Ripple left if the source is smaller than the destination, ripple right otherwise.) Four Point Layer A four point layer first trims the source range if necessary (starting at source left), so that it is the same or shorter than the destination range. Four Point Insert A four point insert slices the destination at the destination left cursor, inserts the source material there, and ripples the material following the destination left cursor to the right The Ingredient Edit Control Panel The ingredient edit control panel can be opened by clicking on its tab or pressing Ctrl+Alt+I. This panel allows you to edit the currently selected ingredient(s). When more than one ingredient is selected you are changing the entire group of selected ingredients. The ingredient edit panel is divided into sections. There is a navigation section at the top. The other sections control the edit points, gains, and fades of all the ingredients in the current selection Changing the Current Ingredient The ingredient edit control panel displays, one at a time, the ingredients in the current selection. If there is no selection, the fields in the window are blank. The ingredient shown in the panel is called the current ingredient. If more than one ingredient is selected in the EDL, the four CD-like transport buttons change the current ingredient, displaying the first ingredient, the previous ingredient (in time-sorted order), the next ingredient, and the last ingredient. The previous/next buttons wrap around the ingredients in the selection. The text between these buttons indicates how many ingredients are in the selection and which one is being viewed. 37

56 Ingredient Polarity Polarity is an attribute of each ingredient, not its clip. The invert polarity checkbox applies only to the current ingredient. When this box is checked, the polarity of the current ingredient is inverted, otherwise the polarity is the same as its clip. Changing the checkbox affects only the current ingredient. The other ingredients in the selection are not affected Absolute Changes and Nudging Wherever number boxes appear you can type in absolute values. The + and - buttons are used to change values by adding or subtracting an offset, called a nudge. The size of the offset can be changed in the nudge section which contains two number boxes for specifying a time increment and a db increment. Note that the time increment might have been specified in a timecode format that is finer than the current timecode format. For instance, you might have entered a nudge amount of 10 msec. (while in millisecond timecode format) and then switched to 75 fps format. 10 msec. is smaller than a 75 fps frame, so the nudge field will display as zero. Internally, Sonoma keeps track of the nudge value in samples, the smallest unit of measurement possible, so pressing the + or - buttons actually does have an effect on the ingredient you are editing, even though this may not be visible because of the zoom level and timecode display format. 38

57 Ingredient Edit Points Section Edit Operations There are two operations that can be performed on either edit point: Trim Change the ingredient's size by moving one edit point while the other edit point remains fixed. If the edit-in is trimmed the ingredient's starting position changes. Slip Change the ingredient's position by aligning either edit point to a new location on the EDL. The ingredient's size remains the same. Radio buttons select which edit operation is active. Regardless of the edit operation, when a trim command is actually performed the operation is first checked to ensure that the edit does not exceed the length of the clip or the usable range of the EDL Absolute changes The edit points can be set to an absolute value by selecting the desired operation, clicking on the edit-in or edit-out number box, typing in a location, and pressing ENTER. The result depends on the operation: Absolute Slip The current ingredient is slipped in the EDL so that its edit point lies at the new position. All the other ingredients in the selection are moved by the same relative amount. Absolute Trim The edit points of all ingredients are trimmed to the new value. This command aligns the beginnings, or ends, of all the ingredients in the selection. If the selection was not aligned to begin with, a warning dialog is displayed before the operation is performed. There is a shortcut button for absolute slip and trim to the Nowline. Pressing the NL button next to the number box performs an absolute change as if you had selected the number box, typed in the current position of the Nowline, and pressed ENTER Relative Changes Relative changes are performed by pressing one of the + or - buttons next to a number box: Relative Slip The nudge amount is added/subtracted to the edit point of each ingredient. The relative locations of all the ingredients in the selection are maintained. Relative Trim The nudge amount is added/subtracted to each ingredient's edit-point. The relative locations of all the ingredients in the selection are maintained Keyboard Accelerators The edit point nudge commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever there are one or more ingredients selected and the ingredient editor control panel is selected. These accelerators perform just like the buttons, the effect of the operation depends on the current trim/slip radio button selection: 39

58 A = Edit-in Point - by nudge amount S = Edit-in Point to Nowline D = Edit-in Point + by nudge amount F = Edit-out Point - by nudge amount G = Edit-out Point to Nowline H = Edit-out Point + by nudge amount Ingredient Gain Section Gains The in/out gains can be set directly by entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the db nudge amount to each gain in the selection. To change both gains at the same time, use the nudge buttons located between them. The gain commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever there are one or more ingredients selected and the ingredient editor control panel is selected: Shift+Z = Fade-in Gain - by nudge amount Shift+X = Fade-in Gain + by nudge amount Shift+C = Both Gains - by nudge amount Shift+V = Both Gains + by nudge amount Shift+B = Fade-out Gain - by nudge amount Shift+N = Fade-out Gain + by nudge amount Interpolating Gains When an ingredient s in gain and out gain are different, the gain will be interpolated across the length of the ingredient. The interpolation is linear in db, which corresponds to a fixed rate of change in terms of db per second, and translates to an exponential amplitude curve. A linear db fade between full gain (0 db) and a very small gain (say -60 db) will yield a gain of -30 db at mid-point Ingredient Fades Section There are two parameters for each fade: fade length and fade type Fade Length The fade length number box displays fade time. You can specify that the fade length is always shown in msec. format by setting the preference found in the time format preference tab. The fade-in (or fade-out) length can be set to an absolute value by typing numbers in the respective fade length box and then pressing ENTER. The fade time will be set to this value for all the ingredients in the selection. The fade to Nowline button (NL) is enabled when the Nowline is on the free (e.g., non-pivot) end of every fade in the selection. When the button is pressed, the free end of each fade is moved to the Nowline, or as close to the Nowline as its underlying clip permits. The fade s pivot point will remain fixed. Note that when the fade pivot is not the center, both the fade length and the position of the edit point will change. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to all the selected ingredients fade lengths. All fade length commands check the change to ensure that the fade does not exceed the length of the clip or the usable range of the EDL. 40

59 The fade length commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever there are one or more ingredients selected and the ingredient editor control panel is selected: Z = Fade-in Length - by nudge amount X = Fade-in Length to Nowline C = Fade-in Length + by nudge amount V = Fade-out - by nudge amount B = Fade-out Length to Nowline N = Fade-out Length + by nudge amount The effect of changing fade length depends on the currently selected ingredient fade pivot point. See for more on fade pivot points Fade Type The fade type is specified using a fade curve pop-up menu and a number box. The available fade curves are: Linear Power N Cosine Root Cosine The curves are named according to the way they shape the amplitude: Root Cosine Cosine The linear curve attenuates 6dB at its mid-point. The power N curves are exponentials that attenuate N db at their mid-points. The number box to the right of the curve menu specifies N. This field only has an effect when the Power N curve type is selected. The root cosine curve traces a quarter cycle of a cosine (which corresponds to a half-cycle of cosine in the power domain). The cosine fade curve impresses a half cycle cosinusoidal amplitude on the fade Channel Number The channel number shows the channel of the current ingredient. Changing the channel number and pressing ENTER moves all the selected ingredients to the same channel. Pressing the + or - buttons increments or decrements the channel assignment of every selected ingredient by one, preserving the channel offset between all the ingredients in the selection. Channel assign wraps around if necessary Clip Info. and Ingredient Polarity The clip info. section describes the DSD file associated with the current ingredient. Polarity is actually an attribute of each ingredient, not the clip itself, and it is controlled here. The invert polarity checkbox applies only to the current ingredient. When this box is checked, the polarity of the current ingredient is inverted, otherwise the polarity is the same as its clip. Changing the checkbox affects only the current ingredient. The other ingredients in the selection are not affected. 41

60 2.12 Splices Once you have created an edit involving two or more ingredients you will often want to lock or freeze that group of ingredients so that they are handled as a unit and the timing relationships between all of them are preserved. In the age of magnetic tape this was accomplished by using splicing tape to hold the pieces together. The Sonoma Workstation s splice command performs the same function. Splices join ingredients in two ways: horizontally across a single channel (creating a sequence), and vertically across multiple channels (a mutli-channel edit). A splice locks down the transition between ingredients, making it impossible to modify with the normal edit menu commands or the ingredient editor control panel. A special control panel, the splice editor, gives you the ability to edit splices The Splice Command and Sequences A splice is a link between a pair of consecutive ingredients on the same channel. The left ingredient is called the outgoing ingredient and the right ingredient is called the incoming ingredient. When two ingredients are spliced together the result is a sequence, a group of consecutive ingredients on the same channel that are spliced together. A sequence appears in an EDL as a single ingredient, its length is equal to the combined length of the two ingredients it contains. A small blue splice box appears inside the ingredient at the location of the splice. The splice box occupies the interval from the outgoing edit-out point to the incoming edit-in point. Clicking on the splice box opens the splice editor control panel, clicking elsewhere on the sequence selects it. To make a splice, select two or more consecutive ingredients on the same channel and perform the splice command in the Edit menu. You cannot splice an ingredient that is wholly contained inside another ingredient, and you cannot splice across a bottleneck (see 2.7.3). Also note that two consecutive ingredients with a gap between them can be spliced together. In the world of recording tape you would have to make two splices to insert a piece of leader tape. Here the gap is not represented as an ingredient so there is only one splice linking the outgoing and incoming ingredients. If you issue a splice command and more than two ingredients are selected (on the same channel or on many channels) a splice will be added between each legal pair of consecutive ingredients on a per-channel basis. Wherever two or more ingredients are spliced together, they will be replaced in the EDL by a single sequence with splice boxes showing where the connections occur. Note that any sequence can be extended by splicing it to its immediate predecessor or successor, which might be an ingredient or another sequence. The unsplice command removes all the splices in the EDL selection. All selected sequences in the EDL will be replaced by their member ingredients. Sequences behave just like ordinary ingredients when editing an EDL. When you select and move a sequence, all the ingredients it contains will move by the same amount; when you cut, copy, or delete a sequence, the corresponding action is performed on all of its ingredients. Trimming and cross fade operations on a sequence are constrained by the lengths of its first and last ingredients. Slicing a sequence usually breaks it into two sequences. If the slice is performed very close to the beginning or 42

61 end of the sequence, and would result in a very short ingredient, the slice may not be performed (as with slicing a normal ingredient). If the slice cuts an area of silence between two spliced ingredients, the result is the same as unsplicing them. It is impossible to select a single ingredient once it belongs to a sequence. In order to select an ingredient separately you must unsplice the entire sequence or selectively remove the splices to a particular ingredient using the splice editor Multi-channel Edits and Sync. Groups Splices and their resulting sequences are a form of horizontal organization, they join ingredients on the same channel and are easily recognized since they appear as single ingredients in an EDL. When splices on two or more different channels align vertically, it is assumed that the sequences containing them are also meant to stay synchronized in time. This is called a multi-channel edit and it is an implied vertical grouping. (Two splices are vertically aligned when their respective outgoing edit-out points and incoming edit-in points are in exactly the same position.) Multi-channel edits are created when two or more splices align vertically at the time a splice command is performed. Usually, you will create a multi-channel edit by selecting and splicing ingredients in both directions (horizontal and vertical) with one splice command. If you have two sequences on two channels, and their splices are unaligned, and you slip one sequence in time so that now there are aligned splices, this will not create a multi-channel edit. You must align the splices, select the two sequences, and perform another splice command. Multi-channel edits are not drawn in any special manner. When you see a set of sequences stacked such that their splice boxes align, you can infer that this is a multi-channel edit. When you click on one of the splice boxes in a multi-channel edit the splice editor control panel will open on the splices in that multi-channel edit. Like the ingredients in a single sequence, the sequences in a multi-channel edit behave as if splicing tape holds them together; they must stay in sync. with each other when you move, trim, copy, cut, and delete them. For this reason, the sequences that contain a multi-channel edit constitute a sync. group. The ingredients in a sync. group are always selected together - if you click on one sequence in a sync. group every member of the group is selected. Note that there must be at least one multi-channel edit (set of aligned splices), and hence at least two sequences on two different channels, in a sync. group. There may be more than one multi-channel edit in the same sync. group, and there may also be other unaligned splices in the sequences that make up the group. Sync. groups are not drawn in any special manner, but you can verify the existence of a sync. group by observing that when you click on one sequence to select it all the members of the group will select as well. Just as it is impossible to select a single ingredient once it belongs to a sequence, it is impossible to select a single sequence if it belongs to a sync. group. In order to select a sequence separately either unsplice the entire sync. group or selectively remove a sequence s aligned splices using the splice editor. Sync. groups are created and maintained automatically. Note that whenever you add a new splice, or move a sequence containing a splice, the splice might align with a splice on another channel, thereby creating a multi-channel edit and possibly a new sync. group. Sync. groups grow by association with each other. If a sequence in one sync. group is spliced to a sequence in another sync. group, or if a new multi-channel edit joins two sequences in two different sync. groups, the two groups are joined together into one larger sync. group. If you think of multi-channel edits and splices as bits of sticky tape, this behavior should make sense. 43

62 2.13 The Splice Editor Control Panel Current Edit and Current Splice The splice editor control panel is a special editor for working with splices. You can open the splice editor by clicking on its tab, pressing Ctrl+Alt+L, or by clicking on a splice box in the EDL. 3 The splice you click might be unaligned or it may be part of a collection of splices in a multi-channel edit. In either case, it determines the current edit, which refers to all the splices in one multi-channel edit or a single unaligned splice. The splice edit control panel displays the parameters of one splice. The channel on which this splice occurs is called the current channel. When you select an edit by clicking on a splice box, the current channel is set to the channel of the splice you clicked. The panel works like the ingredient editor. If you have selected a multi-channel edit, the splice on the current channel is displayed, but any changes will be applied to every splice in the current edit. You can change the current channel to view other splices in the current edit by clicking on another splice box in the same edit, or by using the next/previous channel buttons in the control panel. You can selectively apply changes to a subset of splices in the current edit using the edit enable buttons, which are explained below EDL Splice Edit Mode When you are using the splice editor, the EDL is drawn in a special way to show the current edit. Initially, the window is zoomed to show the entire edit, plus a pre- and post-roll equal in length to the currently selected pre-roll amount. Alternatively, you can use the splice edit zooming preference to specify a fixed zoom size for viewing edits (see ). The ingredient selection (if any) and track display (T) and channel height (H) settings are not shown; instead, the EDL is drawn so that the channels containing the current edit are large and the other channels are small. The EDL will zoom so that the current edit is centered in the window. The large channels will show the ingredients that make up each sequence in the current edit, so you can see the outgoing and incoming ingredients which are hidden in the normal EDL mode. The ingredients in the edit are all selected. The splice box for the current channel is orange, while the other splice boxes in the edit will be yellow. The edit point and pivot points for the fades in the splice appear as orange and red circles respectively. The color of ingredients themselves will be bright green if the channel is edit-enabled (see below) and dull green otherwise. (When you leave the splice editor, the former ingredient selection and T and H display settings are restored.) When you are working in the splice editor, you can only select splices by clicking on them, you cannot click on ingredients to select them. Although you can not change the ingredient selection, or copy new material into the clipboard while in the splice editor, you can use the paste and punch commands (assuming you already have audio in the clipboard) as well as the linear edit commands. 3. Note: all these commands only work when the transport is idle. 44

63 When you are playing audio in the splice editor, the EDL does not automatically scroll as the Nowline moves out of the window. It continues to display the area of the EDL in which you are working. In the splice edit mode, a special column of channel controls appears between the EDL and the control panel itself. The column is labeled A for audition and it contains controls for controlling the playback of all channels and for selectively editing splices in the current edit Audition Control A small numbered button appears to the left of each channel. This button can be clicked to set its state on or off. It controls whether audio on this channel is heard when one of the splice editor audition commands is performed. Whenever a new current edit is selected, the channels in the current edit are turned on, and all other channels are off Edit Enable The edit enable button (or simply edit button) is labeled E and only appears on channels that are part of the current edit. Every time the current edit changes, the EDL is redrawn, and all the channels in the current edit are given edit buttons that are initially on. When there is a multi-channel edit, the edit buttons control which channels participate in the splice commands. When an edit button is off, the ingredients comprising the splice on that channel will not be affected. Clicking an edit button toggles that channel s edit-enable state on and off. If you toggle the current channel s edit button off, the next enabled channel will become the current channel. If there is only one edit-enabled channel, its edit button cannot be toggled off. When you change the current channel by clicking on a splice box, the new channel is forced to edit-enable if necessary. When a splice edit command moves only some of the incoming or outgoing edit points in the splice (by virtue of some channels being edit disabled), the current edit is automatically split into two multi-channel edits: one containing the enabled channels, the other the disabled channels. The edit with the enabled channels is reselected and becomes the current edit. 45

64 Resetting the Audition and Edit Controls When you click the column header A, the splice is re-centered in the window and the audition and edit enable controls are reset as if the current edit had just been re-selected Resetting, Exiting, and Re-entering the Splice Editor Clicking the A column header as described above will re-center the current edit in the window. Clicking within the splice box will re-center the edit and restore the default zoom level. To leave the splice editor you can select a different control panel tab, or just click on a blank area in the EDL. (Note that selecting the mark editor panel leaves you in splice edit mode.) When you leave the splice editor, the current edit is remembered. You can return to the splice editor by clicking the splice editor control panel tab. When you re-enter the splice editor, it will display the most recent edit (as long as it has not been deleted by unsplicing or by the deletion of all of its associated ingredients) Splice Control Panel Overview The panel is divided into sections. The audition commands are at the top followed by sections for changing the edit points, gains, and fades. These are followed by buttons for changing the current channel and current edit, and, finally, there are nudge registers for the relative edit commands and a button for selectively unsplicing channels. The splice editor displays data only when there is a current edit selected in the EDL. The data in the window shows the parameters of the outgoing and incoming ingredients on the current channel (which must be edit enabled). The data in the panel is updated whenever the current channel or current edit changes. Splice edit commands are available only in the splice control panel. Commands are applied to the ingredients in the current edit on a per-channel basis. They may affect only the incoming or outgoing ingredients, or both. Only channels that are edit-enabled are changed. When necessary, the incoming ingredients may slip in time. Edit point trimming and fade length changes are constrained by the length of all the ingredients involved, i.e., the outgoing edit point can be trimmed only to the extent that all the outgoing ingredients can trim by the same amount. The shortest outgoing ingredient will limit the amount of trim that is possible Auditioning Splices The splice edit window has an array of buttons for the various audition modes. You can listen to the whole edit, or either side separately. You can also listen separately to the outtakes on either side. The channels that you will hear depend on the setting of the audition controls: the numbered channel buttons in the A column on the left of the EDL. When auditioning the channels containing the current edit, only the audio that is actually spliced together is heard. Other ingredients in those channels on either side of the sequence are muted Audition Command Buttons When auditioning a splice, the playback range is controlled by the pre-roll/post-roll interval, which is selected using the three buttons in the transport toolbar (P1, P2, P3). (The durations of the three intervals are specified in the edit tab of the preferences window.) The outgoing button plays the selected interval up to the outgoing edit position. The incoming button plays the interval starting from the incoming edit position. The audition edit both command plays the entire splice, with the same pre-roll and post-roll amounts on either side of the cross fade. 46

65 If you hold down the Shift-key while pressing any of the audition buttons, the fades in the splice will be ignored. Instead, a very short (about 2 msec.) linear amplitude fade will be substituted Audition Keyboard Accelerators When you are working in the splice editor, the keys W, E, R, T and Y can be used to access the five audition commands as follows: W - audition Outgoing Outtake E - audition Outgoing R - audition Edit T - audition Incoming Y - audition Incoming Outtake There are two additional audition commands that can only be accessed from the keyboard: Q - Play outgoing material only, around the outgoing edit point U - Play incoming material only, around the incoming edit point Holding the Shift-key while using these accelerators performs the same action as with the buttons, the actual splice fades are replaced by a 2 msec. fade. The splice audition commands (including the keyboard accelerators) are only available when the splice editor control panel is selected and it is displaying a splice. 47

66 Editing a Splice Editing a splice is very similar to working with an ingredient in the ingredient editor control panel. The main difference being the ingredient editor acts upon the edit points and fade-in and fade-out of a single ingredient, whereas the splice editor modifies the edit-out and fade-out of the outgoing ingredient and the edit-in and fade-in of the incoming ingredient. As with the ingredient editor, wherever number boxes appear you can type in absolute values. The + or - buttons are used to change values by a relative nudge amount that is specified in the nudge section which contains two number boxes for specifying a time increment and a db increment. (Please see the discussion of nudging and the timecode format in ) When more than one edit channel is selected, a change to a value of a splice parameter is applied to the aligned ingredients on each selected channel on a channel-by-channel basis Edit Points Moving the Nowline to an Edit Point When you Ctrl-click on the NL button next to the incoming, outgoing, or mid-point fields, the Nowline will move to the corresponding location Incoming and Outgoing Edit Points The outgoing or incoming edit points can be set absolutely by clicking on an item, entering a numerical value and pressing ENTER. The Nowline button is a shortcut for an absolute change. It has the same effect as selecting the adjacent number box, entering the position of the Nowline, and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming edit points. Changing the outgoing edit point trims its edit-out and slips the incoming edit-in by the same amount. Changing the incoming edit point trims the edit-in and also slips it by the same amount. It is possible to trim an edit point without slipping the spliced material. If you hold down the Shift-key, while pressing one of the incoming or outgoing edit point buttons, the trim is performed while the audio stays pinned in time, i.e., no rippling occurs. These commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever the splice editor control panel is being used. Unshifted, the accelerators perform just like the buttons, shifted they pin the audio: A = Outgoing - by nudge amount S = Outgoing to Nowline D = Outgoing + by nudge amount F = Incoming - by nudge amount G = Incoming to Nowline H = Incoming + by nudge amount Shift+A = Outgoing - by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+S = Outgoing to Nowline [ingredient pinned] Shift+D = Outgoing + by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+F = Incoming - by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] Shift+G = Incoming to Nowline [ingredient pinned] Shift+H = Incoming + by nudge amount [ingredient pinned] 48

67 Mid-point and Gap Both edit points can be moved in the same direction using the mid-point field, or in opposite directions using the gap field. In either case, no material slips. Typing a value for the mid-point (or using the NL button) moves both edit points by the same amount so that the mid-point is at the indicated position. The gap is the distance between the outgoing and incoming edit points. Typing a signed value for the gap sets the gap to that interval, both ingredients are trimmed and the mid-point does not change. A positive gap means space between the edit points, a negative gap means they overlap. With a gap of zero, the two edit points align. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the mid-point or gap. The mid-point commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever the splice editor control panel is being used: J = Mid-point - by nudge amount K = Mid-point to Nowline L = Mid-point + by nudge amount Sync. Constraints Ingredients joined by splices (both horizontally and vertically) form a group that must maintain sync., we call this a sync. group. However, when using the splice editor, the incoming and outgoing ingredients are temporarily separated into two sync. groups. The incoming group is generally allowed to slip relative to the outgoing group. Because ingredients in the incoming and outgoing groups can be spliced (and later linked) to other ingredients, the sync. groups may contain more than the ingredients in the splice. If there is a path (via other splices or links) between the outgoing and incoming groups then the time-slipping commands (edit outgoing or incoming edit points) will be disabled in the splice editor. Note that, in computing sync. groups, all channels are considered except channels in the current splice that are edit-disabled Gains The outgoing or incoming gains can be set directly by entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming gain. The buttons between the two gain fields nudge both gains by the same amount. These commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever the splice editor control panel is being used: Shift+Z = Outgoing Gain - by nudge amount Shift+X = Outgoing Gain + by nudge amount Shift+C = Both Gains - by nudge amount Shift+V = Both Gains + by nudge amount Shift+B = Incoming Gain - by nudge amount Shift+N = Incoming Gain + by nudge amount Fades Changes to the fade parameters (fade length and fade curve) are normally applied to both outgoing and incoming material, and more rarely to one side alone.the fade section contains a single set of 49

68 fields for the fade length and fade type. A group of radio buttons controls whether these fields display data for and act upon the outgoing fade, the incoming fade, or both fades. If you select both fades and the two fades are not the same (different lengths or different types) or the edit points are not in the same place, the data fields will gray out and the Nowline button will be disabled. The + and - buttons are always active, even if the numeric data can not be displayed Fade Length The fade length number box displays fade time. You can specify that the fade length is always shown in msec. format by setting the preference found in the time format preference tab. The outgoing, incoming or both fade lengths can be set directly by selecting the appropriate radio button, entering numerical values and pressing ENTER. The +/- buttons add/subtract the nudge amount to the outgoing or incoming fade length. The fade to Nowline button (NL) button is enabled when the Nowline is on the free (e.g., non-pivot) end of every fade in the current edit. When the button is pressed, the free end of each fade is moved to the Nowline, or as close to the Nowline as its underlying clip permits. The fade s pivot point will remain fixed. Note that when the fade pivot is not the center, both the fade length and the position of the edit point will change. All fade length commands will check the change to ensure that the fade does not exceed the length of the clip or the usable bounds of the EDL. These commands are also accessible from keyboard accelerators that are active whenever the splice editor control panel is being used: Z - Outgoing Fade - by nudge amount X - Outgoing Fade + by nudge amount C - Both Fades - by nudge amount V - Both Fades + by nudge amount B - Incoming Fade - by nudge amount N - Incoming Fade + by nudge amount Ctrl+X Outgoing Fade to Nowline Ctrl+C Both Fades to Nowline Ctrl+V Incoming Fade to Nowline The effect of changing fade length depends on the currently selected splice fade pivot point. See for more on fade pivot points Fade Type Each fade type is specified by two parameters: a fade curve pop-up menu and a number box for power N curves. Refer to the ingredient editor ( ) for details Displaying Data: Next Channel, Next Edit Previous/Next Channel These buttons change the current channel, cycling through all the edit-enabled splices in the current edit. The data in the splice edit panel updates to show the values of the new outgoing/incoming ingredient pair. 50

69 Previous/Next Edit These buttons select the next or previous edit by selecting the next or previous splice with a different position from the current edit. If there is no current edit, the edit before or after the Nowline will be selected Solo Checkbox The solo checkbox puts the splice editor in solo mode, where you are editing only one channel of the current splice. When you click the box to set the checkmark, the audition and edit enable controls for the current channel are turned on and all other channels' audition and edit enable bits are turned off. Once the solo box has been checked, every time you change the current channel (by clicking on another splice in the current edit or using the +/- channel buttons) the current channel s audition and edit-enable controls will be turned off, and the new current channel s controls will be turned on. Unchecking the solo box cancels solo mode and resets the audition and edit buttons as if the splice has just been selected. Pressing the A audition/edit column header or selecting a new edit also cancels solo mode Unsplicing This button unsplices the current splice only. Like all splice commands, it affects only the edit enabled channels. If all splice channels are enabled when this command is performed, there will be no current splice afterwards and the control panel shows nothing. If some splice channels were disabled, the ingredients in those channels remain in the current splice and the control panel and graphics show the smaller splice (which now contains fewer channels) Undo Each time you perform an edit command, the Sonoma application saves the state of the EDL before and after the command is performed (e.g., before cut, after cut) and stores these states in the Undo list. When you undo a command it is transferred to the Redo list. The Undo and Redo lists appear as pop-up menus in the Undo/Redo toolbar. The pair of states for the most recently performed edit command appear first. When you select a state on the Undo list, the EDL is restored to that state, and all the states above it are transferred to the Redo list where they are listed in reverse order, oldest state first. You can redo a command (and all those above it) by selecting from the Redo list. The undo command restores the EDL to the most recent before-command state in the Undo list. The redo command selects the most recent after-command state on the Redo list. Note that while only states resulting from edit commands are saved on the Undo list, the collective effect of any selection, cursor, and navigation commands is represented as the difference between two consecutive after command/before command entries on the Undo list. To undo your non-edit 51

70 actions since the last edit command, select the after-command state which is on the top of the Undo list. The Undo/Redo lists cannot branch. If you perform a new edit command its pair of before and after states are added to the top of the Undo list and the Redo list is cleared. The length of the Undo list is finite. You can specify the number of previous edit commands to save by setting the undo levels field in the editing preferences tab of the preferences window. When the list exceeds this length, the oldest commands are dropped off the end Marks Marks are positions indicating events along an EDL's timeline or within ingredients. They are used for navigation and annotation of the EDL and its ingredients. A mark appears as a small vertical line in the timeline or inside an ingredient. Besides appearing graphically in the EDL, marks are listed and manipulated in the mark control panel (described below). All marks have a position and a type and may contain optional text information in an info. field. An EDL can contain an unlimited number of marks. Each EDL maintains its own list of marks. Marks are classified according to who created them (the user or the application itself) and where they appear (on the timeline or within ingredients). User marks are created by the user while editing an EDL or while the EDL is playing or recording. There are three kinds of user marks: EDL marks and CD authoring marks that appear in the timeline, and ingredient marks that appear inside ingredients. Only one user mark of each type can appear at any given location. User marks can be added, deleted, and moved. They can also be changed from one type of user mark to another. The info. field of a user mark can be edited. Error marks are created automatically by the application when an error occurs during recording or playback. Error marks are read-only. Their positions cannot change and their info. fields cannot be edited. Error marks may be deleted. More than one error mark may appear at the same location EDL Marks EDL marks are user marks that appear on the EDL's timeline. To create an EDL mark, position the Nowline and select the add EDL mark command from the marks menu. You can also use the ENTER-keyboard accelerator or press the Add EDL Mark button in the mark panel Authoring Marks Authoring marks are user marks that appear on the EDL's timeline. They are used to provide track and index information for SACD authoring. These marks will appear in the mark control panel as type CD. There are three kinds of authoring marks: Start, Stop, and Index. The usual order of authoring marks is one Start mark, followed by one or more Index marks, followed by an End mark. Index marks and End marks are optional but a final End mark must be present to indicate the end of the disc. Authoring marks are created using one of the three add authoring mark commands (add start, add stop, add index). Only one authoring mark can occupy a given location on the EDL. 52

71 Auto-Naming Scheme Authoring marks are automatically given a name that is dynamically numbered to show the ordering and grouping of associated Start, Index, and End marks. The numbering convention for Start marks is to auto-number in increasing order starting with Start1, Start2, etc. End marks are numbered to match the preceding Start mark. Index marks are auto-named and numbered to match the track 4 number that contains them (e.g., Index1.1 5, Index1.2, Index1.3 are the first three Index marks on Track 1) and are automatically re-numbered when a new Index mark is inserted. Index mark names begin at 1 again following each Start mark. Every time an authoring mark is added, deleted, or moved the numbering of all the following authoring marks is updated as necessary Spacing Between Authoring Marks Authoring marks must correspond to a 1/75 sec. grid, and the marks are automatically rounded to the closest 1/75 sec. boundary when they are created or moved. The Scarlet Book defines certain minimum times between authoring marks, those times are defined as follows: 1. Minimum time between two consecutive Start marks = 1 second 2. Minimum time between a Start mark and an End mark = 1 second 3. Minimum time between two consecutive Index marks = 1/75 second 4. Minimum time between a Start mark and an Index mark = 1/75 second 5. Minimum time between an Index mark and an End mark = 1/75 second Several safeguards are in place to prevent the setting of illegal marks; however, these safeguards are not complete at this time. The following responses can be expected in the cases identified: Start mark too close to another Start mark If you attempt to place two Start marks closer than 1 second apart, you will see the following dialogue appear: Track Start mark not entered. Each track must be greater than or equal to one second in duration. [OK] Index mark too close to a Start mark If you attempt to place an Index mark closer than 1/75 second from a Start mark, you will see the following dialogue appear: An authoring mark of type Start already exists at this location. Change it to type Index? [Yes/No] Index mark too close to another Index mark If you attempt to place two Index marks closer than 1/75 second apart, the application will ignore the request and do nothing. End mark too close to a Start or Index mark The application will place the mark in the EDL as a legal mark This is a bug! Illegal Authoring Marks Since the user can add, move, and delete marks at will, it is possible that some authoring marks will appear in illegal positions. Marks are usually created to specify edit locations, so it is important to retain them even though they might violate the ordering rules. An asterisk is added to the type field 4. The word track here refers to an individual piece of music on an SACD disc defined by Start and End marks, or two consecutive Start marks. 5. The Scarlet Book actually defines Index Point 1 to equal the Track Start, therefore, the first Index following a Track Start should be Index N.2, where N is the number of the Track. 53

72 of illegal authoring marks so they appear as type CD* rather than CD in the mark list and the mark changes color in the EDL. Illegal Start marks are still auto-numbered. Illegal Index and End marks are not given serialized names (they are simply named End, Index). Here is a summary of illegal authoring marks: - Authoring marks closer than the minimum times identified in Any End or Index mark preceding the first Start mark - An End or Index mark immediately following a legal End mark - An End or Index mark immediately following an illegal mark A mastering file cannot be created if there are illegal Start marks. The application will ignore illegal Index and End marks when it creates a mastering file Mark Offsets Start and Index marks can have an offset of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 frames (at 75 fps). The offset of each mark can be changed in the mark editor (see below). When a Start or Index mark is created it is assigned the default offset which is specified in the editing preferences page. The recommended default offset is 4 frames. An authoring mark s position in the EDL will not reflect its offset. The offset value is used when auditioning the mark (see ) and when exporting the EDL to an SACD mastering file (see 2.17) Track Muting Flags The SACD mastering system gives the user the ability to set channel mute flags on a track-by-track basis. There are four track muting flags named TMF1, TMF2, TMF3, TMF4; they indicate muting of the front, rear, center, and LFE channels respectively. The flags are stored in each track s Start mark. When a new Start mark is created, all its mute flags are initially off. To toggle a track mute flag, Alt-click on the Start mark in the mark list (see ). The effect of setting track mute flags depends on the implementation in the SACD player Ingredient Marks Ingredient marks represent positions in an ingredient. Ingredient marks are created using the add ingredient mark command. The effect of this command depends on the state of the transport. When the transport is idle, ingredient marks are created inside all selected ingredients that intersect the Nowline. When the transport is running, ingredient marks are created only inside the new ingredients that are being created on channels that are recording. Only one ingredient mark of each type can appear at any given position in an ingredient. Adding an ingredient mark at a position where a mark of the same type already exists has no effect. When an ingredient moves, the ingredient mark moves along with it. When an ingredient is copied, all of its ingredient marks are also copied. When an ingredient is trimmed, some of its ingredient marks may be out of the playable range. In this case the marks are not drawn. If the ingredient bounds change so that ingredient marks are in the playable range, they will reappear Error Marks If Sonoma detects an error while playing or recording it will create an error mark. The text of the error mark describes the problem. (You cannot edit the info. field of an error mark.) Error marks are identified as type ERR in the mark control panel s mark list. Playback errors appear in the EDL timeline. Recording errors appear inside ingredients. Recording error marks behave like ingredient 54

73 marks with respect to moving, trimming and copying ingredients. Error marks cannot be moved, but they can be deleted. Multiple error marks can appear at the same location The Mark Control Panel The mark control panel can be opened by clicking on its tab or pressing Ctrl+Alt+M. This window allows you to view a list of all the marks in an EDL and its ingredients, and to edit them. It contains a scrolling list of marks, groups of checkboxes, command buttons, and an editable text area Mark List Filter The four check boxes labeled show determine which types of marks are visible in the EDL and in the editor Add Mark Commands Five buttons provide on-screen access to the add mark commands. These are the same commands that are in the marks menu. When you perform these commands, and the control panel is open, you can press the Insert-key and immediately enter information about the mark in its text info. field. To complete your entry, press the ENTER-key. When you use the ENTER-key or mark menu add mark command to add a new mark, and the mark editor control panel is not visible, you can still press the Insert-key after creating the mark. This will automatically open the mark editor and allow you to type in your comments. When you complete 55

74 typing and press ENTER, the mark editor will close and the previous control panel will be reselected Mark List The scrolling list displays all the marks of the types checked in the mark list filter. The list is time-ordered; it has three columns: time, type, and name/info. The type column indicates if the mark is an EDL, SACD authoring, ingredient or error mark. The contents of the name/info. field depend on the type of mark: EDL marks show the beginning of the info. field. Ingredient marks show the ingredient s channel and the beginning of the info. field. Authoring marks show their serialized names as described above, followed by the beginning of the info. field. Error marks show the beginning of the info. field, which is the error message. Selecting a single mark in the list will move the Nowline to that mark, scrolling the EDL if necessary. It is possible to select more than one mark, using Ctrl-clicks and Shift-clicks Changing Track Mute Flags Recall that each Start mark contains mute flags (see ). When a Start mark has one or more muting flags set on, a tilde (~) appears after the Start mark's name in the mark list. When a Start mark with mute flags is selected, the enabled flags are displayed in the track mute area below the mark list's info. box. The flag field looks like F/R/C/LFE where F, R, C, LFE stand for flags TMF1 through TMF4 respectively. To toggle the state of a track's muting flags, Alt-click on the track's Start mark in the mark list. This will bring up a modal dialog box containing check boxes for each flag: Authoring Mark Offsets Every Start and Index mark is assigned a default offset when it is created. The offset is displayed in the offset field when a single mark is selected. Note that the position of an authoring mark in the EDL is not affected by any offset assigned to it. The offset is used when auditioning the mark (see ) and when exporting the EDL to an SACD mastering file (see 2.17). The default offset value is specified in the editing preferences, where you can also make this field editable so as to have different offsets for different marks (see ) Select Previous/Next Mark These two buttons move the Nowline forward or backward to the next visible mark in the EDL and select that mark in the mark list. These commands are also accessible from the cursors menu, and by using the, and. keys (i.e., unshifted < and >). 56

75 Select in EDL When this checkbox is checked, selecting one or more ingredient marks in the mark list will change the EDL selection so that the ingredients containing the selected marks are themselves selected Info. Box When only one mark is selected, this area will display the full text of the mark's info. field. If the selected mark is not an error mark, the info. box can be edited. To type into the box, press the Insert-key or click in the field and type. When you are finished, press the ENTER-key or click elsewhere on the screen. You can edit the info. box while the transport is running, but you will not be able to use the Spacebar to stop. Press ENTER first to close the info. box, or use the Esc-key, or the stop button on the transport toolbar Move Mark to Nowline This button is enabled when only one user mark is selected in the mark list. Error marks cannot be moved. Pressing the button changes the position of the selected mark. You cannot move an ingredient mark beyond the ingredient in which it appears Sync. Ingredient Mark to Nowline This button is enabled when only one ingredient mark is selected and at least the ingredient that contains that mark is selected in the EDL. The command slips the selected ingredients in the EDL so that the designated ingredient mark appears at the Nowline Delete Mark This button deletes the selected mark(s). Multiple successive marks can be selected by holding down the Shift-key and dragging the cursor over the required list of marks. Multiple independent marks can be selected by holding down the Ctrl-key while using the mouse to select each mark. When a mark is deleted, the mark list does not reset to the top of the list, it maintains position, but with the deleted mark removed from the list. The keyboard accelerator for this button is the Delete-key. The Delete-key behaves differently when the mark editor control panel is not visible. In this case, pressing the Delete-key will delete a mark only if there is just one mark selected and the Nowline is located at the mark. This makes it easy to move the Nowline to a mark (by pressing the, and. keys) and then delete it, without bringing up the mark editor. Note that when there is more than one type of mark at the same location, you can not be sure which mark you are deleting. It is always safer to delete marks from the mark editor control panel, where you can verify the selected mark by looking at the mark list Changing the Type of a Mark The button labeled change type to is enabled when only one mark is selected in the mark list. Pressing the button brings up a dialog showing the type and info. for the selected mark: 57

76 The pull-down menu will only contain a list of the permissible conversion types. Pressing the change button will delete the selected mark and add a new mark of the specified type, copying the mark info. from the old to the new mark. (Note that if the type is changed to ingredient mark and more than one ingredient is selected, multiple ingredient marks may be added.) Pressing the copy button will add a new mark of the specified type, copying the mark info. from the old to the new mark. (Copy is useful for duplicating EDL/authoring marks and ingredient marks without losing either one.) Auditioning an Authoring Mark The audition mark command in the marks menu can be used to simulate the behavior of a target SACD player. The command is enabled when you have selected a single Start or Index mark in the mark list. The system will play a selection with a length equal to the currently selected pre-roll, starting at the Start or Index mark, or ending at the End mark. The calculation of the mark s position will include its offset if one was specified. This command uses a ramp time of 50 msec., or an alternate ramp time if one is specified in the playback preferences dialog Saving the Mark List The mark list can be saved to a printable text file in two different formats. Two save commands appear at the end of the marks menu Save Mark List to Text File This command will produce a text file that contains a copy of the mark list as it appears in the EDL s mark panel. The current timecode format will be used and only the currently visible mark types (as selected with the check boxes in the mark editor control panel) will be included Save PQ List to Text File This command produces a text file that is similar to a DAQ-1000 PQ list. Only valid authoring marks are used to produce this list: ingredient marks, EDL marks, and invalid authoring marks are ignored. Comments attached to Start marks will appear in the file, other comments on Index and End marks will not appear. For best results, this command should be used on the export EDL that is created after you perform the DSD-IFF export command Waveforms The Sonoma editor stores waveform data for each DSD file in a corresponding envelope file with an env extension. When an ingredient references a DSD file that has an accompanying env file, Sonoma will draw the waveform inside the ingredient. When a raw DSD file (without a matching env file) is imported directly into Sonoma, or when a DSD file is extracted from a DSD-IFF file, you can use the Make Waveforms command to create an env file. Sonoma can also show the input monitor audio stream as a waveform. The commands to control waveforms are found on the waveform menu. 58

77 Ingredient Waveforms Make Waveforms The make waveforms command will search the selected ingredients for ingredients with missing or empty envelope files and create them. The envelope files are generated by downsampling from the DSD files. Increase/Decrease/Normalize/Default Waveform Scale Ingredient waveforms are displayed algebraically with zero in the center. The signal is a downsampled envelope of the linear amplitude, drawn from minimum to maximum. To change the vertical resolution of ingredient waveforms, use the buttons in the navigation toolbar. You can increase, decrease, and normalize the vertical gain. Normalization is performed with respect to all the audio currently shown in the window. You can also reset the gain to its default scale, which is full signal scale. Auto Normalize Waveforms There is a checkbox in the waveform edit preference tab titled always normalize waveforms. When it is checked, the waveforms in an EDL will normalize every time it is redrawn. The waveform scaling commands are disabled when auto normalize is selected Metering Waveforms Metering On/Off, Increase/Decrease Metering Scale The input monitor level meter data can be superimposed on the channel rows of the EDL when the transport is running. To turn metering on, use the command in the waveform menu or the button on the waveform toolbar. The metering waveform is rectified and shown in db. Two signals are actually shown, the instantaneous level and the most recent peak. A yellow horizontal line represents the headroom level. When the meter data is below threshold, the instantaneous signal value is green and the decaying peak is yellow. When the meter data is above threshold the instantaneous signal changes to blue and the decaying peak is red. The scale of the metered data can be increased or decreased using the buttons on the toolbar. When metering is turned on, the scale is reset to its default which is full scale. If metering is on while you are recording, the metering data will draw on top of the new red ingredients, obscuring them. When recording stops, the red ingredients will redraw. 59

78 2.17 Exporting an SACD Mastering File This version of the Sonoma application contains an EDL-based DSD to DSD-IFF (Direct Stream Digital-Interchange File Format) audio export utility. In order to export an EDL you must perform three steps: 1. Declare the range of the EDL to be exported using track Start and track End marks. The audio to be exported will begin at the first track Start mark and end at the last track End mark. There must be a matching track End mark for the last track Start mark. Disc marks will be added to this range in the final exported file. The disc Start mark will be placed two seconds before the start of audio, and the disc End mark will be placed two seconds after the end of audio. ( 2.15 describes how to use the mark editor to place track marks.) 2. Enter the DSD-IFF meta-data, set the loudspeaker configuration, and specify which tracks of the EDL to export. 3. Specify the output file types and file names and perform the export. Steps two and three are accomplished with the export dialog box. The dialog is accessed from the file menu s export to master command. When the export command runs, it creates a new export EDL in the same directory as the output files. It will have the same name as the export files, but with a.export.edl extension. The export EDL contains a copy of the original EDL's mark list and all the ingredients within the export range. The ingredients on each track are trimmed to the range between the first track Start mark and the last track End mark. A two second silent pre-roll is inserted before the actual position of the first Start mark, which may include an offset (see ). Note that the position of the entire audio program, including authoring marks, may be slipped in the export EDL so that the pre-roll starts at 00:00:00:00 and the first Start mark (adjusted for any offset it may include) will actually occur at 00:00:02:00. If it has an offset, the Start mark will appear in the EDL at 2 seconds plus its offset. If necessary, the export EDL is then re-recorded into itself (i.e., record channel output, sometimes called auto-capture ) so that each channel contains exactly one ingredient, spanning the interval from disc start to disc end. After re-recording, the export EDL is saved as a read-only file, which serves as an archive of the source material. Depending on the complexity of the EDL you wish to export, you might want to consider removing ingredients on channels that you are not exporting. (Either cut them from the EDL or make a copy of the EDL that only contains the export material.) During the capture process, all channels will play whether they are part of the final export or not. Removing unnecessary material can increase disk bandwidth and improve system performance. Note that the export function is EDL driven. To export raw DSD files, import them into an empty EDL, add the appropriate marks and export that EDL The Export to Master Command To initiate the export process, select the export to master command in the file menu. The export dialog will appear. This is a modal dialog, while it appears no other Sonoma activity is possible. 60

79 The export dialog has three tabs. The first tab is a form for the meta data, the second tab assigns EDL tracks to the loudspeaker channels, the third tab handles the output file assignments. All the data you enter in the tabs of the export dialog are unique to the active EDL. Export meta-data and loudspeaker configuration are stored separately for each EDL. You can edit the values at any time. When the export command is performed on an EDL, its current meta-data will be written out to the IFF master file. The close button closes the export dialog without actually performing an export operation. The meta-data and loudspeaker configuration will be saved with the EDL and recalled when you re-open the dialog DSD-IFF Meta Data Comments There are three types of comments: general comments, file history/remarks, and channel-based comments. Comments are created by selecting a comment type in the pull-down menu and then pressing the add button. The new comment appears at the end of the list. There is no time/date assigned to new comments. The system time/date will be inserted when the export operation actually takes place. When a new comment is added the text field becomes active and you can immediately type in the comment text. Press ENTER or click elsewhere to terminate the type-in. 61

80 You can edit the text in a comment at a later time by clicking on the comment to select it, then clicking in its text and typing. As with the text fields, pressing ENTER ends type-in and saves the new text. Esc cancels type-in and reverts to the original comment text. To delete one or more comments, select the comments in the list by clicking on them. Then press the Delete button Text Fields The DSD-IFF specification provides for a sound source comment. There is a pull down menu to set the source type (analog, PCM, DSD, or unknown) and a text field for entering additional information. If the sound source is unknown, a sound source comment will not be written to the exported DSD-IFF file. The artist, title, Edit Master ID (EMID) and operator fields are free text fields. Click in them and type your text. ENTER ends type-in and saves the new text. Esc cancels type-in and reverts to the original text. Note that it is recommended practice that the EMID field contain a unique value. You can specify a default value for the operator field using the DSD-IFF tab in the preferences window Loudspeaker Configuration 62

81 Loudspeaker Configuration Select the loudspeaker configuration using the three radio buttons. You can specify a default configuration using the DSD-IFF tab in the preferences window Channel Assign Depending on the loudspeaker configuration, 2, 5, or 6 pull-down menus will appear at the bottom of the window. Use these menus to assign EDL channels to the channels in the export file. If you want to export a silent channel, you can assign the value mute rather than an EDL channel. In this case the specified DSDIFF channel will be filled with a DSD mute pattern Export Output Audio Source When the export EDL is re-recorded into itself (auto-capture) it can be recorded directly from the EDL channels or through the mixer. If you select mixer output, be sure that you have routed the mixer output to the editor input Output Master This field is used to specify the name and location of the DSD-IFF master file that will be created. The directory of the file you specify here will also contain the export EDL. You can type the file name directly into the field, or use the browse button to the right to open a save dialog to navigate the file system on your computer Capture DSD When an export requires an auto-capture, the captured DSD files can be saved and used along with the DSD verifier program. In order to make this feature more flexible, this field lets the you specify the directory where the captured files will be written. In addition, there is a check box that controls 63

82 whether the captured files will be saved or not. When it is unchecked, the captured files are removed from the disk after the DSD-IFF file has been written System Time The system time is the timestamp that will be written out for any new comments in the meta-data. This field is not editable Export Button: Auto-Capture and Export When you press the export button, the export operation starts. First, the system performs some data integrity checks. The export will not proceed if: There are missing track marks; There are too many track muting flags enabled; There is audio present on a channel of a track with a track mute flag; If the first track Start or last track End mark intersects an ingredient, the system will ask for permission to trim the ingredients in the export to the export range. If an auto capture is necessary, a dialog will appear to inform you before the export starts. When the export begins, a progress dialog appears. The progress dialog is modal; you cannot perform other Sonoma functions while export is happening. Behind the progress dialog you will see the export EDL created. Material from your original EDL is copied and pasted into the export EDL, and then possibly slipped and trimmed. Next, the auto-capture occurs. The export EDL is played back and re-recorded into itself. Finally, the captured files in the export EDL are written out in DSD-IFF format. When this last steps completes, the export EDL and the progress box are closed Source Audio Mapper When a project is moved between computers, or archived and restored, the path names for the sound files used by an EDL may change. Sonoma tries to search for them on other drives, but other changes in the file hierarchy or renaming of files can cause ingredients to appear offline. Offline ingredients can be edited but not auditioned. The source audio mapper gives you the ability to re-specify the path names when you know where the audio resides. The mapper is accessed via the Map Source Audio command in the file menu. It brings up the source audio mapper dialog window. The mapper can also be configured to open automatically whenever you open an EDL with offline ingredients. The window has two panes, each pane contains a file hierarchy. The left pane contains the audio list, it shows all the sound files that are used by the active EDL. The right-hand pane contains the source list, it shows all the available DSD sound files on the Sonoma system. By default, the audio list shows only those sound files that cannot be found, or are already mapped to a different file. If you check show online files then the files that exist in their original location are also displayed. Missing audio files are represented by an icon with a red question mark, files that are already mapped to alternative paths appear with a blue arrow. To match a missing file in the audio list to a real file in the source list, left click on the missing file name, then left click on the corresponding file in the source list. When a single file is selected in the audio list, the source list can be filtered to show only those files with matching length and/or name by checking the appropriate boxes above the pane. Using these filters will significantly narrow the possible choices and help you from making an erroneous assignment. 64

83 When you select a folder in the audio list and left-click another folder or drive in the source list, a recursive match is performed starting at the selected source. All the corresponding files and folders on the source path with matching names will be mapped. To remap a drive letter only, thus keeping the original disk hierarchy, right click on a drive in the source list. Every time a new mapping is made, the audio list is redrawn to show the location of the newly mapped file and the question mark in its icon will be replaced by a blue arrow. To undo a mapping, right click on a file name in the audio list; its alternate path will be removed. Mappings are not actually saved until the dialog is closed with the OK button. The EDL will remember the mapping when it is saved and reopened later. The cancel button will close the dialog without changing any file mappings User Preferences The user preferences window has tabs for setting various options. These settings are saved when you close the Sonoma application. The preferences window can be reached from the preferences command in the window menu Time Format Preferences Time Format The time format preferences window sets the global timecode format see

84 Fade Length Fade length fields appear in the splice and ingredient editors and also in other preference tabs. This preference lets you freeze the format of fade length fields so they will always appear in msecs. format, regardless of the global time format Editing Preferences The editing preferences sets global values for editing: Nudge Amount The nudge amount is the time increment used by the nudge commands that move the Nowline and the selected ingredients. (Please see the discussion of nudging and the timecode format in ) Crossfade Length and Type The crossfade length is the default fade length applied by the paste before/after Nowline and slice commands. It is also the crossfade length used after recording when new ingredients are punched into an EDL. Append Edit Gap This is the offset used by the linear edit append command, see for details. Undo Levels The number of undo levels controls the length of the Undo list. When the list reaches its maximum length and new edit commands occur, the oldest commands are removed from the end. Insert Command Ripple Options When the linear edit insert command (see ) causes a ripple before midnight, the system will perform the option you select here: insert time, trim, or cancel the command. Punch Record Auto Cleanup This checkbox and time field enables the auto cleanup feature (see ) that removes small stubs that can remain when recording resulted in a punch-in across a pre-existing cross fade. Zoom Presets These four fields specify the EDL ranges associated with the four zoom to preset navigation commands (see ). Splice Editor Zooming When the splice editor first views a new edit, it zooms to show the splice with a pre- and post-roll equal to the currently selected pre-roll value (see ). This preference overrides that behavior and zooms the window to a fixed size that you can specify. Default Authoring Mark Offset This field specifies the offset value assigned to a newly created Start or Index mark. The offset can only be 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 SACD frames. The recommended value is 4 frames. Enable Offset Editing When this box is checked the offset field in the mark editor is enabled so you can change the offset assigned to any Start or Index mark (see ). 66

85 Playback Preferences The editing preferences set global values for editing and auditioning: Playback Ramp The playback ramp is the muting ramp-up/-down time used by the system when playback starts and stops. The ramp fade type is linear amplitude. Pre-roll/Post-roll The three time intervals P1, P2, P3 are assigned to the corresponding buttons on the transport toolbar. They are used for the play up to Nowline command and in the splice editor s audition commands. Alternate CD Audition Ramp This field allows you to override the default playback ramp time used in the audition mark command (see ). The ramp fade type is linear amplitude Waveform Preferences This tab includes metering preferences that control the ballistics of the peak level meters in the channel control panel. It also specifies the height of the EDL channels when the H control is in expanded mode. This is useful when viewing waveforms in the EDL. The checkbox labeled always normalize waveforms controls whether waveforms in EDLs are normalized automatically when the display changes Hardware Preferences This window allows you to configure the Sonoma system to ignore the editor card when the program is next started DSD-IFF Preferences This window lets you specify a default operator and loudspeaker configuration for creating a DSD-IFF mastering file. You can override the defaults using the export dialog (see 2.17) Error Preferences Sonoma can detect and report real time errors when they occur. You can also configure the system to stop playing or recording when errors happen using the error preferences. Remember that when real time errors occur, they are reported as error marks in the EDL. See 2.21 for more information about error handling. 67

86 Window Preferences Open EDLs Maximized When you open an EDL it can be maximized to fill the Sonoma window, or sized smaller so that you can have multiple EDL windows open and visible at the same time. The window preference checkbox controls this behavior. Linear Edit Tiling When you perform the source/destination tiling command this selection determines which EDL will be placed above and which below The Monitor Control Panel The monitor control panel contains three separate displays that show the system status. A set of radio buttons lets you select the console window, the disk monitor, or the trimedia (TM) monitor The Console Window The console window contains a scrolling text pane that displays a trace of the commands you have performed and any error messages that Sonoma issues. The console window will display an error message when the program beeps. The message will also appear at the bottom of the EDL in the status bar. You can use the three buttons at the bottom of the console window to clear its contents, save the contents of the console window to a text file, or copy the selected text to the clipboard for pasting into another application. 68

87 The Disk Monitor While audio data must be streamed to/from the converters at a constant rate, this data is transferred to/from the disk drive in blocks that are scheduled ahead of time. For every such transfer, there is a deadline when its data must be available; the time between the completion of an I/O transfer and its deadline can vary. This interval is called the headroom and it represents the level of disk activity. Low disk activity corresponds to high headroom, and vice versa. Disk activity will increase and headroom will decrease as more channels play and record, and as the edit density increases. When headroom approaches zero there is a high risk of a real time error. The disk monitor control panel shows the headroom while the transport is running. It displays two histograms, one each for playback and record showing the distribution of headroom values (from low to high) as a percentage of running time, along with current statistics for headroom minimum, average, and variance. Pressing the reset button clears the histograms and accumulated statistics immediately. When the auto reset check box is checked, the histograms are automatically cleared each time the transport is restarted The Trimedia Monitor The trimedia monitor displays low-level data showing the activity of the Sonoma card Error Reporting and Recovery The Sonoma system has been designed and tested to be as reliable and dependable as possible, but hardware can break and users can create complex EDLs that the system may not be able to process in real time. Sonoma tries to prevent errors before they occur (for example, by constraining edit operations and detecting bottlenecks) but that is not always possible. This section describes some special mechanisms built into Sonoma that monitor its performance and handle problems when they occur Error Detection and Handling Sonoma detects different types of misbehavior in its real time performance and always reports them as error marks. The application can be configured to stop when it encounters real time errors. Use the check boxes in the recording preferences window to set the program to stop on real time errors when playing and/or recording. (The default behavior is to continue in both cases.) 69

88 Data errors are a special type of real time error that are handled separately. They can cause a sudden burst of loud audio. Accordingly, when Sonoma detects a data error on playback it will automatically mute the output and stop the transport. A checkbox is available to stop the transport when data errors are detected during recording, which is a less dangerous error. Note that during a capture operation (i.e., recording mixer output) the system is both playing and recording, and the state of both check boxes will control the behavior of the program Recovering from a System Crash In the very rare event that Sonoma, or the PC itself, crashes while playing or recording, the system can take steps to recover your work. When you re-launch Sonoma after a crash, the program will automatically attempt to recover all the open EDLs along with their undo stacks. In addition, if you were making a recording, Sonoma will retrieve the recorded audio up to the time of the crash and punch it into the recording EDL, making it the EDL s last recording. If you do not want to keep this material, you can use the undo recovery command from the Undo pull-down menu Recording Invalid DSD Data If Sonoma receives bad DSD data (all zeros or ones) while recording, it will display a full red bar in the affected channels level meters Example: Making a Recording Section 2.8 describes the recording process in detail. This section shows you how to make a simple recording, step-by-step. Use the file menu to create a new EDL. In the record menu: Set the recording directory. Specify the disk and directory where you want to place the recordings you are about to make. Don t worry about the file/folder prefix and number, accept the default values that appear in the dialog. Check the record into new folders checkbox. Select triggered mode. Select normal monitor switching Select record channel inputs. Bring up the channel control panel. (If it is not visible select the channel tab in the left side of the EDL.) For each channel you wish to record: Unlock the channel by pressing the lock icon (in column L); it should turn red. Press the record ready button (in column R); it should blink. Be sure the channel mute (column M) is off. If you want to check levels before recording, select input monitor (in column I) and set levels using the level meters. Select output monitor (in column O). 70

89 Bring up the transport toolbar. (If it is not visible, select it in the transport menu.) To make the recording, press these buttons: Press the RTZ (return to zero) button to set the EDL to its beginning. Press the red record trigger button. Recording begins, the channel ready lights should stop blinking and turn to steady red. The Nowline will move across the EDL and red ingredients will appear as recording progresses. While you are recording, you can toggle between input/output monitor using the I/O transport buttons or the buttons in the channel control panel. Press the stop button. Finally, make waveforms and listen to your recording: Select the make waveforms command in the waveforms menu. You will have to wait a moment while the waveforms are computed. Press the rewind button, then press the play button. Use the file menu to save the EDL. If you are curious, take a look in the recording directory at the newly created subfolder and the files it contains Example: Making a Simple Edit Here is one way to perform a simple edit: removing a range of material and cross-fading across the cut: Select the ingredient(s) to be cut. Audition the material and locate the cut points. Position the Nowline at the end of the cut and do a slice command. Position the Nowline at the beginning of the cut and do another slice command. Select the ingredients representing the material that should be removed and do a cut command. Select the ingredients to the right of the cut. The Nowline should still be at the beginning of the cut. Do either of the following: Do a move selection after Nowline command, or alternatively: Do a cut command then a paste after Nowline command. Adjust the crossfade lengths by selecting one or more incoming or outgoing ingredients and set the fade lengths in the ingredient editor control panel. 71

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91 3.1 Overview The Sonoma Mixer has eight full and eight short channels for input, a center section, and various meters including a set of meters to check compliance with the signal requirements laid down in Annex D of the Scarlet Book V1.2, Part 2 (Audio Specification), 6 and the recommendations laid down in Annex E of the same document. The final DSD stream, i.e., the one that will be put onto an SACD, must meet the signal requirements laid down in Annex D. It is preferable that the signal also meet Annex E requirements, though this is not mandatory. If the signal requirements laid down in Annex D are not met, a disc replicator will not press the disc. The mixer supports simultaneous stereo and six-channel surround mixes, with additional loudspeaker controls. There are insert points for channels and program, an AUX bus, and equalization and filtering for both channels and program. An internal triangular wave oscillator with variable frequency and level is available on each channel input. Please refer to Figure 3-5 and Figure 3-6 for block diagrams of the Sonoma Mixer. Dedicated windows provide user controls for managing the mixer s processing resources: The Control window appears when the Sonoma application is launched. From this window you can configure and manage the other windows that comprise the Sonoma Mixer. The Setup window sets the loudspeaker gain trim levels, displays clock information, and allows the user to select the mixer s clock source. The Patch Bay allows fully flexible routing including one-to-many fan-out connections. The EQ Center Section contains meters and global controls. The EQ and Dynamics Section, also called the Channel Section, contains eight input channel strips. When the Sonoma application is launched, the state of the mixer is initialized to the state it was in the last time the application was running. The mixer state can be saved and restored from files on the system disk via the snapshot controls in the EQ center section. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 3.2 Screen Controls The on-screen mixer controls are activated by using the left mouse button. There are three types of controls: push buttons, dials, and faders Push buttons Push button controls can be switched into two positions, in or out. The out position is indicated by a grey background and the in position is highlighted in color: the color depending on the type of button. When a button is out, it is switched in via a mouse button in. Conversely, when a button is in, it is switched out via a mouse button up. This mimics the down and up behavior of many physical switches. 6. Super Audio CD System Description Part 2: Audio Specification published by Royal Philips Electronics and Sony Corporation. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 73

92 Figure 3-1 Mouse clicking on buttons. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Dials Dials are continuous controls that appear as semi-circles. Volume levels are displayed as a filled pie splice from 0 db at the center, while other units are shown as a simple indicator within the dial. The current value of a dial is displayed above it To set the value, place the mouse inside the dial s semi-circle and press the left button. The color of the indicator changes to show that the dial is active. Drag the mouse up and down, or, for left/right panning controls, left and right. Releasing the mouse button deactivates the dial and it retains its last value Faders Faders are also continuous controls. They can be adjusted by placing the mouse anywhere within the fader area and pressing the left button and dragging. You do not have to grab the knob of the fader itself. The current value of a fader is displayed below it Control Normalization All continuous controls, such as channel faders or oscillator frequency controls, have normalized ( detent ) settings, which can be recalled by clicking the right mouse button on the control. Each control has its own normalized value. As a general rule, all gains are normalized to 0 db, and other controls are normalized to their minimum values. The master oscillator frequency control is normalized to 1 khz. 74 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

93 The normalized settings are stored in a snapshot file called m1csa_normalised.snp which resides in the default installation directory (see the Sonoma Audio Workstation Hardware Installation Guide). It is possible to load this snapshot file directly to quickly restore the normalized values to all continuous controllers (see ). You can also do this to view and edit the normalized values for each control. It is possible to overwrite this file with new settings if you wish, giving your system custom normalization values. (We highly recommend that you make a backup copy of the original snapshot file beforehand, in case you wish to revert to it later.) Text Display and Type In If you hold down the Shift-key while left-clicking and dragging a dial or a fader, a large text box will appear showing the current value of the control. If you hold down the Ctrl-key while left-clicking a dial or a fader you can type a new value into the text box. The Delete-key clears the entire value, the Backspace-key erases one character at a time. You can scale your entry by appending the letters k (for kilo, i.e., times one thousand), m (milli, divide by one thousand) or u (micro, divide by one million) after the value. Pressing ENTER sets the new value and closes the text box. The Esc-key closes the box and retains the control s original value. If you enter a value beyond the normal range of the control, it will be clipped to the minimum or maximum value of the control as appropriate. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 3.3 The Control Window The Control window is opened automatically when the Sonoma application is launched. The accelerator key combination Alt+PageDown will toggle the visibility of the control window. It can also be re-opened from the Sonoma window menu bar by selecting Windows>Toolbars>Control Screen Mode The screen mode determines whether the Sonoma Editor and Mixer windows appear together or separately. Small depictions of the modes appear at the top of the control window. Click on the desired configuration with the mouse. The modes can be cycled using the keyboard combination Ctrl+End. 7 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 75

94 There are two combined Mixer and EDL views, one combines a small EDL window with the channel faders and the center section, the other combines a larger EDL window on the left with just the center section on the right side of the screen. When the mixer is viewed by itself, the channel section occupies the full height at the left of the screen, and the center section appears on the right Router Button The router button opens the patch bay window. Pressing Ctrl+PageDown toggles the display between the current screen mode and the patch bay window. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Setup Button The Setup window can be opened and closed with the Setup button. See 3.4 for a description of this window Monitor Controls The Dim and Cut buttons and the Gain dial in the Control window are copies of the same controls in the monitor group of the mixer center section. Modifying them in either location updates the controls in both windows Quit Button This button exits the Sonoma application. When you click the quit button, the system will ask you if you really want to exit. Clicking on NO will take you back to the mixer Play/Stop Buttons You can control the playback of the active EDL in the Sonoma window using these two buttons. 3.4 The Setup Window The Setup window controls the loudspeaker gain trim levels, displays clock information, and allows the user to control the mixer clock source. The Setup window can be opened and closed with the Setup button on the Control window. Typically, the Setup window is displayed initially, and then closed by the user for the remainder of the session. 7. Note: when using the combined Mixer and EDL views, care should be taken with re-sizing of the EDL window(s) as this can cause the Nowline to disappear behind the Mixer Center Section for part of the time. This problem can only be remedied at this time by returning to the EDL-only display and maximizing the EDL window view. 76 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

95 3.4.1 Gain Trim The Gain Trim controls are divided into three groups: The Surround OP controls provide levels for each of the surround output speakers in Surround Mode. The two Stereo controls provide for gain and balance of front L/R surround output speakers when in Stereo Mode and with Stereo Output Disabled. The Stereo OP group provides controls for gain and balance of L/R stereo output speakers, in Stereo Mode and with Stereo Output Enabled. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Mixer clock source The master clock can be set to either INTERNAL, BNC or OPTICAL via the supplied radio buttons. The latter two options select an external clock. Next to the selector switches are indicators which show the selected external frequency: 44.1kHz (Fs) or MHz (64Fs). The LOCK indicator is lit if the internal clock is locked to the indicated source. When the source is changed, the internal clock usually takes a second or two to re-establish lock. For use with the Sonoma Editor, the OPTICAL radio button should be selected. When launched, the OPTICAL radio button is selected by default. If the mixer clock is supplied externally (i.e., via BNC or OPTICAL), it is possible that the mixer application may not be locked if, for example, there is a cabling problem. If no suitable clock is received by the mixer, you will be warned by a message which appears above the master fader on the mixer screen. In this event, test the equipment connections, make sure power is supplied to the external source, and that the clock source is configured correctly. Note: Before changing clock source, be sure to turn down the inputs to your analog monitoring equipment. Modifying the clock source while the loudspeakers are turned up is dangerous for your equipment and your ears, and should be avoided. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 77

96 3.5 Mixer Center Section The Mixer Center section contains meters and controls which perform master and global operations on the state of the mixer as a whole. It usually appears at the right of the screen (see Figure 3-2) Meters Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer There are two types of meters: Audio Level meters, used for normal level monitoring, and Annex Meters, which relate to the specifications and recommendations laid down in Annexes D and E of the Scarlet Book Part 2 (Audio Signal Specification). The audio level meters are a set of eight meters displaying the audio levels on the surround and stereo channels of the selected bus, plus additional M and S component metering for stereo left and right. The Annex meters are subdivided into 4 types labeled from left-to-right as DC, LF, MaxPeak, and HF. These meters are calibrated to display an overload (red) if the signal has exceeded the Annex D/E levels. A brief description of each mode: DC: Measures the DC offset of the DSD signal. For SACD, the recommended maximum DC offset level is -50dB SACD, although this is not mandatory. LF: This displays a zoomed-in version of the main level meters around the 0dB SACD point. In a previous version of the Scarlet Book Part 2, Annex E, there was a recommended maximum value for the LF band, but this has been superseded by the MaxPeak specification and, consequently, the LF band can be ignored. MaxPeak: This displays the maximum peak level of the DSD signal. It is a requirement for an SACD that the maximum specified level of 3.10 db SACD is not exceeded. Failure to comply with this specification will result in the master being rejected by the disc replicator. HF: This displays the maximum RMS level of the DSD signal in the 40 khz khz band. It is a requirement for an SACD that the maximum specified level of -20 db SACD is not exceeded. Failure to comply with this specification will result in the master being rejected by the disc replicator. See Section 3.9, Sonoma Mixer Specifications for further details Meter Assign The meters can be fed by one of five sets of signals. The labelling beneath the meters will change to reflect the current assignment: Program out Record Return AUX send Short channel input (channels 9-16) Monitor Source mode (follows the Monitor Assign selector). When monitor source mode is selected the meters show pre-monitor gain. When short channel input is selected the meters show pre-short channel gain. Note that mono and stereo levels are not metered when AUX send or short channel metering is selected. 78 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

97 Figure 3-2 Center Section Controls 8 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Input Metering The PRE/POST control switches all channel input meters to read input signal level either before (PRE) or after (POST) the input gain controls. 8. Please note: the center section snapshot shows an Annex E filter whereas it is actually an Annex D HF filter. This typographical error is also mirrored in the current Sonoma software, and will be corrected in the next release. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 79

98 Peak Hold All meters, except the DC meters, have a peak hold function. The peak value held by the meters can be reset by left-clicking the mouse on the meter area. Acceptable signal levels are indicated in green on the meters and overloads are indicated in red. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Snapshot Controls When the Sonoma application is launched, the previous state of the mixer is automatically loaded from a file on the system disk. You can save and load alternate mixer set-ups or restore the mixer s default settings via the Snapshot controls. The snapshot SAVE and LOAD buttons are used to save or load a snapshot of the mixer s settings to or from a file. The DEFAULT button returns the mixer to its default setup after asking you first for confirmation. When pressed, these buttons bring up a standard file name dialog box which allows a file name to be specified. After the file name is confirmed, the snapshot is saved, or loaded, as specified. You may create as many snapshot files as you wish. During a LOAD operation, the mixer's outputs are muted. You will be notified by a dialog at the end of the SAVE or LOAD about the success of the operation. The saved snapshot includes the entire state of the mixer, including clock settings and routing, but does not include the Editor s settings. Note: Note: It is not advisable to modify a snapshot file using a text editor. Do not load or save snapshots while the editor is streaming audio as this may cause an interruption to the sound Monitor Controls Monitoring functions are affected by a variety of controls in the center section Monitor Assign The monitor output bus can be sourced from any of the following: Program out Record return AUX send Short channel input (channels 9-16) Monitor Subsource When the monitors are sourced from either AUX send or short channel input, only two of their component channels may be monitored. These are arranged in adjacent pairs, the odd numbered channels being sent to stereo left, and even numbered channels to stereo right Monitor Levels There are several controls that work together to set the level of the output monitor. DIM is the master dim control. It attenuates the signal level sent to the monitor mix by the amount given by the DIM LEVEL control. The DIM control also appears in the control window. DIM LEVEL determines the amount of additional attenuation of signals sent to the monitor output when the DIM control is engaged. The level specified here is added to that indicated by the LEVEL control to determine the effective monitor level. CUT, the global cut control, sets the monitor output level to, overriding both the DIM LEVEL and LEVEL controls. This control also appears in the control window. 80 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

99 LEVEL is the master monitor level control that determines the overall signal level sent to the monitor output (except when DIM or CUT controls are engaged). This control also appears in the control window Monitor Modes There are three monitor modes, the monitor mode depends on the setting of the Stereo Loudspeaker Output Enable and Stereo/Surround switches. Stereo Loudspeaker Output Enable This switch is labeled STEREO L/S ENA. It only has an effect when stereo monitoring is selected. It determines whether the stereo monitor bus is routed to the left and right stereo monitor outputs (stereo output on) or to the front left and front right surround monitor outputs (stereo output off). Surround/Stereo Monitoring This switch can be toggled to select stereo or surround monitoring. When stereo monitoring is selected the monitor output routing depends on the stereo output enable as described above. When surround monitoring is selected, the monitor surround bus is always routed to the six surround monitor outputs and all other monitor outputs are muted. Some mixer controls maintain separate settings for surround and stereo monitoring. This switch affects the behavior of the following controls: Program inserts Program EQ Program Dynamics Annex filter Master fader Faders in the channel section (see 3.6.9) Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Solo and Cut The solo buttons cause the corresponding monitor outputs to be soloed when they are engaged, the cut buttons mute the corresponding output. There are six buttons because only six monitor channels can be active at a time. In Stereo Mode, only the L and R buttons affect the monitor output Fold-down buttons Although there are two fold-down buttons only one of them can be on at a time. They control three fold-down options: stereo fold-down, mono fold-down, and no fold-down (both buttons out) Oscillator The oscillator produces a non-band-limited triangular waveform of selectable level and frequency. It is available on the inputs to all the input channels in the same form. The OSC switch turns it on and off. It is calibrated such that at 1 khz, nominal 0 db is at a signal level of 0 db SACD. 9 Note, nominal level at other frequencies may vary, because the higher harmonics of the triangular wave will be more or less filtered than those where the fundamental is at 1 khz LFE Filter The LFE Filter controls determine the slope and frequency of a low-pass filter which affects only the surround LFE program output db SACD = 6 db full scale DSD. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 81

100 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Program Insert The INSERT button globally controls whether program inserts are used. Separate settings are maintained for Stereo and Surround Mode Program EQ There are three independent second-order parametric equalization filters, corresponding to high-frequency (HF), mid-frequency (MF) and low-frequency (LF) ranges. They are activated when their individual buttons are pressed. All have a parametric cut/boost equalization curve with variable Q. The low frequency EQ has an additional button to switch between parametric and shelving filters. The parametric and shelving functions are the same as those available in each individual channel. Note: Unlike the EQ in the channel strips, these filters do not have a separate engage button, they are activated as soon as their individual buttons are pressed. Separate settings are maintained for Stereo and Surround Mode Program Dynamics Each program channel has a limiter followed by an independent compressor. The compressor has additional controls for ratio, overeasy (allowing the user to adjust the hardness of the 'knee') and gain make-up. The gain reduction meter monitors both limiter and compressor, showing the limiter in light orange and the compressor in dark orange. The total bar height shows the sum of the gain reduction from the two sections. Separate settings are maintained for Stereo and Surround Mode. Linking: The stereo dynamics are permanently linked. The surround dynamics are permanently linked except for the LFE channel which is switchable. The LFE switch both unlinks and switches out the LFE dynamics. This applies to both limiter and compressor HF Control (Annex D.4 Filter) The Annex D.4 filter is a variable slope and frequency low pass filter provided to assist with compliance with Annex D.4 of the Scarlet Book Part 2 (Audio Specification), which specifies the maximum High Frequency Signal + Noise Level. Practically, this filter can be used in conjunction with the Annex D meter labeled HF to correct signals which do not comply with Annex D.4. If a DSD signal intended to be put on SACD exceeds the HF specification (meters will show an over condition) then this filter may be used to attenuate some of the level in the frequency ranges measured by the HF meters. For best results, the minimum amount of filtering should be used to achieve Annex D.4 compliance. For cases where the HF level is within specification, this filter need not be used. Separate settings are maintained for Stereo and Surround Mode Master Fader The master fader applies gain or attenuation to all output program material. The CUT button silences all outputs. If the mixer is not locked to a clock source a warning message will appear above the master fader. Separate settings are maintained for Stereo and Surround Mode. 82 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

101 Aux Master There are four sets of aux send controls for the channel pairs 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8, each set comprising a cut button and a gain control. There is also a global cut button Max Peak Limit This switch enables and disables the max peak limiter on the mixer's DSD outputs Controlling the Channel Faders and Signal Processing The appearance and behavior of the faders and signal processing blocks in the channel section is affected by three controls in the center section Fader Mode These three buttons determine whether the faders in the channel section control the program, the AUX send trim, or the short channels (channels 9-16) see Channel Strip Reordering The CHANNEL and COPY buttons are used to change the order of the audio processing on each channel strip see Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Link The buttons in this section are used to link faders and other controls into groups and to copy settings between channels see Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 83

102 3.6 Mixer Channel Section Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer The Channel Section appears on the left-hand side of the screen by default. There are eight identical channel strips. One of the strips is shown in Figure 3-3. Each strip consists of a series of sections from top to bottom. The processing of the channel signal proceeds through the sections in order, as displayed from top-to-bottom. Blank sections are left intentionally for future expansion. The sections are described below Channel Input Controls in this section include a channel input gain via a DC blocking filter, a phase invert switch, and a control to switch the source between the channel input and the on-board oscillator. An input meter scaled from 60 db SACD to 0 db SACD can be switched between pre- and post-input gain using the pre-post button in the center section. 10 Figure 3-3 Channel Strip Input EQ Channel EQ There are five independent second-order sections of parametric equalization (EQ), corresponding to five frequency ranges as follows: high frequency (HF), high-mid frequency (HMF), mid frequency (MF), low-mid frequency (LMF) and low-frequency (LF). All are variable-frequency parametric equalizers with variable Q (which is the ratio of the center frequency to the bandwidth). In addition, the low frequency section can be converted into a shelving filter. When operating as a parametric EQ, the LF section has gain, frequency and Q controls. In shelf mode, the LF s Q control is replaced by an overshoot control which places a variable-size ripple at the point where the pass-band meets the transition band. This has the effect of accentuating the difference between the shelf band and the pass band. Each EQ section is armed by pressing the switch labeled with its frequency range: HF, HMF, MF, LMF and LF. Armed EQ sections become active only when engaged via the Master Engage switch, which is labeled IN/OUT, and is placed just below the LF section. When an EQ section is not armed, its arming button is grey. When an EQ section is armed but not engaged, its arming Dynamics Filters Delay Delay Insert Scribble Strip Link Group Fade/Pan db SACD = 6 db full scale DSD. 84 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

103 button is colored yellow. When an EQ section is both armed and engaged, its arming button is colored green. Table 3-1 shows the various states for the EQ Master Engage switch and the EQ Arm switches, using the MF EQ as an example. Table 3-1 Interaction of Master Engage and EQ Arm controls Master Engage EQ Arm EQ Color EQ State OUT IN OUT IN + Out = MF Grey Out + Out = MF Grey Out + In = MF Yellow Armed + In = MF Green Engaged Channel Dynamics Each channel has a limiter followed by an independent compressor. The compressor has additional controls for ratio, overeasy (allowing the user to adjust the hardness of the 'knee') and gain makeup. The gain reduction meter monitors both limiter and compressor, showing the limiter in light orange and the compressor in dark orange. The total bar height shows the sum of the gain reduction from the two sections. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Channel Filter In addition to the parametric EQ filter sections, there is one low-pass and one high-pass filter per channel. Both have individual enable buttons for high-frequency attenuation and low-frequency attenuation labeled HF and LF, respectively. The slope of each filter is continuously variable between 0 db per octave and 36 db per octave via its slope control. Note: The filter enable buttons are not subject to the master enable switch associated with the parametric EQ section Channel Delay It is possible to insert a delay time of between 0 msec. and 92.9 msec. into the channel Channel Insert This button switches the channel routing at this point in the chain between a straight-through (OUT) path and the same path but via the channel s insert send and return Channel Strip Ordering It is possible to change the ordering of processing in each of the channel strips, or to copy one channel's ordering to another channel. Use the CHANNEL and COPY buttons in the mixer s center section. When either of these buttons is depressed the mixer s channel controls are disabled. You may then select and move processing blocks. When the CHANNEL button is depressed, the processing blocks on a channel strip highlight in orange as the mouse cursor passes over them. To select a block left click the mouse. The block will Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 85

104 highlight in red to show it has been selected. Now, as you move the mouse up and down the channel, an orange line indicates the new position of the selected block. You can place the block anywhere below the input section and above the channel fader section. A second left click on the mouse moves the block to the new position. When the COPY button is depressed, the entire channel strip will highlight as the cursor passes over it. A left click selects that channel as the source. Once a source channel has been selected, a left click on any other channel copies the source ordering to the new channel. Right click to deselect the current source channel and choose another one. The CHANNEL and COPY buttons are toggles. To restore the mixer to normal operation you must release them when you are finished reordering. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Scribble Strip Clicking the mouse on this area enables the user to enter a label for the strip via the keyboard. All controls remain functional during editing of the strip. Press ENTER to apply the edit to the strip label, or mouse-click any other control. Press the Esc-key to abandon the edit. If the edit is abandoned, the text reverts to what was there previously Channel Faders One channel fader appears at the bottom of each strip. The fader can appear in four forms, corresponding to four modes as shown in Figure 3-4. All faders are displayed in the same mode, which is determined by the stereo/surround and fader mode switches in the center section of the mixer. The fader mode affects the behavior of the channel faders and their associated panning controls. Figure 3-4 Channel Fader Modes Surround Stereo Surround Stereo Program Mode Program Mode Ch 9-16 Mode Ch 9-16 Mode AUX Send Trim Mode Surround Program Mode Surround Mode selected and FADER MODE = PROGRAM This mode has the most controls present. It controls the portions of the channel signal which are sent to each of the six surround channels. This is done by a surround pan section consisting of left/right, front/back, divergence and channel gain. A surround channel s input can be disabled by selecting the corresponding surround channel button within the section. In 86 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

105 addition, the channel s contribution to all the surround channels can be cut or soloed. There is also an independent control for the contribution to the surround LFE channel. A divergence of 0% means that all the enabled surround channels (except the LFE) receive an equal proportion of the audio. A divergence of 100% is the opposite, where it is possible by hard-panning to send the audio only to one or two surround channels, the remaining channels receiving nothing. Stereo Program Mode Stereo Mode selected and FADER MODE = PROGRAM This mode controls the portions of the channel s signal which are sent to each of the two stereo channels. This is achieved by a left/right pan and a channel gain. There are disable buttons for each of the destination channels, plus cut and solo. Surround Ch 9-16 Mode Stereo Ch 9-16 Mode Stereo/Surround Mode selected and FADER MODE = CHAN 9-16 The eight short channels (9 through 16) are not affected by the channel processing blocks above them (e.g., EQ, dynamics, filters, and insert; these processing steps remain assigned to channels 1-8). In all respects, the faders operate upon the short channel inputs in the same way as the corresponding program modes operate upon the post-processing signals of channels 1 to 8. AUX Send Trim Mode FADER MODE = AUX TRIM This mode controls each channel s contribution to the AUX bus. It contains, per channel, four sets of stereo controls and a cut button. These controls can be individually switched pre-fader ( Pre ), post stereo fader ( St ), or post surround fader ( Su ). The four sets of stereo controls determine the contribution of the channel to the eight AUX send buses. AUX 1+2, 3+4, 5+6, 7+8 form these stereo pairs - AUX 1, 3, 5 and 7 correspond to fully-panned left position, and AUX 2, 4, 6 and 8 correspond to fully-panned right. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Linking and Copying Channel Faders and Controls The Link area allows you to create and destroy links between processing sections on different channels and copy settings between them. When a control in a linked group is changed, a corresponding change occurs in the same control on all the other channels in that group Linking and Unlinking Clicking on the LINK button puts the mixer into link mode. Clicking the button again exits link mode. While in link mode, left-clicking on a control selects the section in which the control appears rather than changing its value. If the control is the first to be left-clicked after entering link mode, it becomes the group s source, it will be highlighted by a red bounding-box and a new group number is displayed in red next to the controls. Subsequent left-clicks on the same section in other channels places them in the same link group; they are highlighted with a yellow box and labeled with the same group number. For example, if you were to left-click on LINK and then on Channel 1's EQ section, it would allocate a link group number to channel 1's EQ (or use the number in existence, if channel 1 already has a link group number) and channel 1 becomes the source. Then if you clicked on Channel 2's EQ, it would assign this EQ to the same group number as Channel 1's EQ. Note that other sections, like dynamics, insert, channel gain, and pan are not linked just because the EQ is linked - this has to be done independently, if required. Sometimes, not all controls in a section are Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 87

106 linked for operational reasons. For example, the input section's OSC and phase switches are not linkable, because these functions are usually handled independently. There are nine different control sections that can be grouped, all controls in each section participate in a link unless otherwise noted: Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Input section (gain control only) EQ section Dynamics section HF filter section LF filter section Insert section Aux send controls (all controls except stereo pan control) Channel fader and Cut, but not Solo Channel stereo pan dials and selector buttons Controls are unlinked by clicking on UNLINK and then on the section to remove from the link group. If a link group only contains one member, it is removed Linked Behavior The value of a control is usually not changed at the time it is linked. Linked buttons are an exception. Buttons are always set to one of a small number of states, usually on or off. When a new section is added to a linked group, each of its linkable buttons is set to the state of the corresponding button in the group s source. This synchronizes the states of all the buttons in the group. For example, if channel 1's EQ is the group source and channel 2 and 3's EQ are added to the group, the act of linking copies the state of all of channel 1 EQ's buttons to channel 2 and 3's EQ buttons. Thereafter, when the state of one button is changed, the corresponding linked buttons will follow it. For continuous controls, like dials and sliders for frequency, Q, or gain, when one of the controls in a linked group is adjusted, a corresponding change occurs in the same control in all the other channels in the same group. The way in which linked controls follow a change in value depends on the type of control that is linked:. Continuous controls such as frequency, Q, and Gain behave differently than buttons. The way in which linked controls change depends on the type of control. At link time, the difference between the newly linked control and the same control in the group s source is stored. When a linked control changes, the value of that control in the other channels of the group changes so as to preserve either a constant difference or ratio to the source. The following types of controls maintain the original difference: Decibel (gain, threshold) Slope (decibel per octave) Pan (L/R, F/B, Divergence, Surround LFE) Q These controls maintain the original ratio: Frequency Time (attack, release, hold) Ratio (dynamics ratio) If two or more linked controls are adjusted via a ratio or difference relationship such that the valid range of a parameter is exceeded, the control s actual value is maintained behind the scenes, while the effective value of the control is limited to its legal range. For example, if channel 1's gain is always 6 db above channel 2's gain, and then channel 2 is set to its maximum value, the value of channel 1 remains pinned at the fader s maximum as well, until channel 2 s value falls 6 db below maximum. 88 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

107 Copying Control Values To copy settings between control sections, click on the COPY button in the Link section and then left click to select a source section. The source section will be highlighted in yellow. Follow by clicking on one or more destination sections, the value of every control in the source will be copied to each destination as it is clicked. If the source and destination sections are in the same link group, the destination values will change first, and then the difference or ratio relationship will be applied, effectively changing the setting of the source control. Even so, the original values of the source section are remembered for subsequent copy operations, until copy is disabled by clicking on the COPY button again The Router Window The Router window allows patching of DSD audio sources to destinations. One-to-many routes are possible. Sources are displayed on the left and destinations on the right of the window. A source or destination can be either a single path or a set of paths (denoted by the tab at the side, which collects the paths together). Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 89

108 A link is made between a source and a destination as follows. 1. Left-click with the mouse on a source, which highlights it. 2. Left-click on the destination. A link is removed by simply right-clicking with the mouse on the item to be unlinked. Thus, when a source which feeds multiple destinations is unlinked, all the destinations are unlinked together. An alternative method for unlinking is to highlight the item to be unlinked by left-clicking, and then left-click the CLEAR PATCH button at the bottom of the screen. Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 3.8 Sonoma Mixer Automation Overview Mixer automation allows you to record mixer events and play them back again. The events are synchronized to timecode. Automation currently operates on a subset of the mixer controls: the channel faders and cuts, and the master faders and cuts. The mixer automation is slave to the timecode from the Sonoma editor. At the moment, there is no option to have the mixer slave to external timecode, nor for the mixer to act as timecode master Arming Controls Automation data can only be recorded on armed controls. You can control the arm state of controls individually Recording Control Movements When the editor is playing (i.e., timecode is running), the system is said to be live. In order for control movements to be recorded by the automation, automation also needs to be ON, and the control in question has to be armed. When you record control movements, the data is saved alongside the time when the control was moved, so when you replay the timecode, the control moves with the audio exactly as it had done before, assuming the audio has not been otherwise affected Enabling Play on Controls Automation data is only played on selected controls. You can control the play state of controls individually Replaying Control Movements After recording a control movement, if you are not happy with it, you can undo it. This is a single-level UNDO system. Please note therefore, that if you choose to replay the movement, the automation controller will regard this as having committed and you will not be able to undo it. If you are happy with the recording, relocate to the timecode where you want to replay from and press 'play' on the editor. The controls will not track the timeline while the timecode is not playing. 90 Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer

109 3.8.2 Automation Controls and Indicators Automation State Indicators Each automated control has a small indicator light next to it, which shows the state of automation for the control. The control may be armed for recording and/or enabled for automation playback. The following scheme gives the possible automation states: Color Armed for Record Playback Enabled Grey No No Red Yes No Blue No Yes Yellow Yes Yes Automation Control Panel The panel controls are described below in the order they appear. ON / OFF button When this button is in the ON position, automation recording and playback is enabled. When OFF, recording and playback are disabled, and the state indicators for each control are turned off. [The state of this button is fixed while the system is live.] Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer LOAD Automation File When you click on this button, a dialog box appears. You can navigate through directories to select an automation file (which will have a suffix of.aut), and it will then be loaded. Any previous automation data in the mixer is removed by this operation. SAVE Automation file When you click on this button, a dialog box appears. You can navigate through the directories and type in a file name. The mixer will then save the current automation data to the file. Automation files have a suffix of.aut, and this is automatically added, if it is not present in the filename you typed. When you save, you cannot subsequently perform an UNDO. Join MODE select When you record automation data for a control, there might be data previously recorded on the control. The Join Mode selector button has two settings, which change the way that recorded movements are superimposed on the previous movements. The state of this button is fixed while automation is live. TO END mode When the mixer automation is in 'TO END' mode, from the moment you press an armed control its automation data is overwritten by the current movement, from that timecode point onwards. Even if you stop the timecode before the end of the piece of audio, the automation data after the first activation of the control, will be overwritten. BUTT JOIN mode When the mixer automation is in 'BUTT JOIN' mode, and a control is being recorded any previous data is overwritten only while the control is actively being manipulated. For continuous controls, this Chapter 3: Sonoma Mixer 91