User Manual

TRACKS WINDOW
171
Figure 20-14: The Track Overview automatically and musically
groups MIDI data into singular blocks that you can view and edit as
units. It is designed to give you a “bird’s-eye” view of your music.
Customizing MIDI phrasing blocks
The Phrase setup settings in the Tracks Overview
preferences lets you customize the way that data is
phrased in the Track Overview.
Figure 20-15: Phrase Setup, which can be found in the Tracks window
preferences (in Tracks window mini-menu), lets you customize the
way that data is grouped into phrase blocks in the Track Overview.
Phrase Setup settings are saved with the project file,
which allows you to choose different settings for
different projects. You can also choose the desired
settings for your new file template. (See “Creating
project templates” on page 20 for details.)
Dynamic Phrase Parsing
This is Digital Performer’s special algorithm for
determining how events should be grouped into
phrase blocks. Dynamic Phrase Parsing does much
more than just separate blocks of events by a
certain minimum amount of empty time. It looks
at overall event density and takes a number of
factors into account. The result is a more musical
organization.
Break Phrases After ____ Ticks
This option gives you a simple, straightforward
way of controlling where phrases begin and end.
The number of ticks that you enter determines how
much space there must be for a phrase to end and
another one to begin.
Phrase Detail
The term Phrase Detail refers to the miniature
representation of the MIDI data you see inside each
phrase block. The Phrase Detail menu gives you
several choices for how this detail is displayed so
that you can control the trade-off between a high
degree of detail versus the Track Overview’s
responsiveness when scrolling, zooming and other
redraw operations. Here is a summary of the three
possibilities:
Audio data
Soundbites (sections of audio data) are displayed
as blocks containing a waveform. They are selected
and edited as single events. Their edges cannot be
trimmed in the overview. Use the Sequence Editor
or Waveform Editor for trimming.
Automation
data
Block of
MIDI data
Tempo data in the
conductor track
Mono
Audio
soundbite
Stereo
audio
soundbite
Phrase
detail
setting Explanation
On Phrase detail is always computed before any
redrawing happens. This setting produces the
best-looking results, but it is also the slowest in
redrawing. If you are running Performer on
fairly slow computer, you will probably find one
of the other two options to be more convenient.
On Demand Phrase blocks are initially shown by their outline
when redrawing, and detail is filled in after you
stop scrolling, zooming or otherwise redrawing
the Overview. This setting is faster than above,
but it is not quite as elegant.
Off Phrase detail is completely turned off. Instead,
phrase blocks are filled with a generic pattern.
This setting definitely produces the fastest
redraws, but it is, of course, missing all detail.