3

Appendix A The Playback plug-in 134
Use the Playback Action menu and File eld
The Action menu is found to the top right of the waveform display and contains the following
items:
•
Open File: Opens a dialog from which you can preview and choose a le to load into the
Playback plug-in.
•
Remove File: Removes the le currently loaded in the Playback plug-in.
•
Flex Mode: For audio les containing tempo information, you can choose one of the following
time-stretching modes:
•
Slicing is a good choice for general use, particularly for rhythmic material such as drum parts.
It works by dividing the audio material at transient markers. Each slice is played back at its
original speed.
•
Rhythmic is best suited for playing polyphonic rhythmic audio material such as rhythm
guitar or keyboard parts.
•
Speed is recommended when the concert tempo is the same as (or close to) the recorded
tempo of the audio le. It produces an eect like slowing down or speeding up a tape
recorder, without the artifacts of time stretching.
•
Polyphonic is designed for complex polyphonic audio material and is a good choice for
guitar, piano, and choir parts, or for complete mixes.
•
Start on Patch Change: Starts playback when you select the patch (or set) containing the
Playback instance.
•
Start with Play Action: Starts playback of the Playback plug-in when the MainStage clock starts.
Start with Play Action follows the current Play From setting—that is, it waits until the next
event specied in the Play From setting.
The File eld, which is located to the left of the Action menu, shows the name of the currently
loaded audio le. You can load an audio le in several ways.
Load an audio le
Do one of the following:
m Click the File eld to show an Open dialog, from which you can choose the le you want to load.
m Choose Open File from the Action menu to show an Open dialog, from which you can choose
the le you want to load.
m Drag an audio le to the File eld.
m Drag an audio le into the waveform display.
m Drag an audio le to the Instrument slot containing the Playback plug-in.
m Drag an audio le between two channel strips. This creates a new channel strip with the Playback
plug-in inserted. The (dragged) audio le is automatically loaded into this new Playback instance.
You can drag multiple les between channel strips to create a new channel strip for each le.
Note: Using either of the rst two methods, you can preview les in the dialog before adding
one to the Playback instance. To preview the selected audio le in the dialog, click the Play
button. Click the Stop button in the dialog to stop playback.