Question

I would like the simple option of having the timeline start at a negative value. When working with an ensemble I would have the timeline start at say bar -2. I could place the click track there and then we could start playing right on bar 1. For long compositions it would be nice to have the bar number line up with the sheet music. Then if you need to loop bars 30-35 it just is a little more intuitive than having to subtract two bars, or if you are using HMS then it makes it easier to find your way around the track. It's a small thing but I record a lot of sheet music.

Answer 1

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Answer 2

Yes! Pro Tools, which I used for 20 some years, allows this. Melodyne also. I understand Logic Pro does the same. Usually achieved either by moving the Song Start Marker to the left or renumbering bars from zero or a negative number.

Some commenters I've read seem to think this is a trivial matter. However, as the original requester points out, scores are written this way. Writing a pickup before Bar 1 is a musical convention. Not to mention, it makes counting bars in a session a lot easier to not have to remember that your 7th 12-bar chorus actually ends at Bar 84, not Bar 86 when you have a 2-bar pickup, or perhaps some odd number if you have several odd-bar breaks in your timeline, or perhaps multiple time signatures. Scenarios that are not all that uncommon.

This request should be easy to implement and would move Studio One Professional one small but important notch closer to living up to its name. Can't understand why anyone would disagree. Please vote this one up. Thanks.

Answer 3

If you start a song with a lot of sound (midi esp)  at 0, when it's rendered the attack of the first note is sometimes not perfect. It's like the latency takes a fraction of a second to kick in.  I like to have a second or so at the front of my songs, but don't want to mess up the bar grid by starting the song at the second bar.  If I get a good render, then I have to open it in Sound Forge and add a second to the front end, but Id like to send the output to the project directly with the silence included.

Answer 4

In Studio One 4.6 the requested feature is already implemented. A one bar upbeat setting can be configured anytime like this:

Go to Menu Song > Song Setup > Bar Offset > -1 > hit Apply.

This setting is for one bar offset. For more information on this topic take a look at this short videotutorial:



Very glad that I found that video. Happy recording and thanks to the author.