Waveform and markers

Each deck strip shows its sample as a waveform with two markers: the cue, where the record starts, and the end, where it goes silent. Placing them well is most of the work of setting up a scratch sample, so the waveform has zoom, snapping, nudging and typed times to make it quick.

The pad inspector’s waveform, for pads with their own sample, works the same way.

The two markers

Cue (the flag pointing right): the start point. Shapes, the MIDI scratch controls and Sync Loop all measure positions from it. Moving the cue, or loading a new sample, drops the needle on the cue unless a hand or a Shape is holding the record. That means a knob mapped to the cue works as a needle drop.
End (the flag pointing left): audio past it is silent. The cut is faded so it doesn’t click, at any speed. The end always stays at least 10 ms after the cue.

The end marker is greyed out while Sync Loop restarts the cue by length, because the loop length decides where playback stops. With Sync Loop on Sample, cue to end is the loop.

Zooming and scrolling

Action	What it does
Mouse wheel, or `+` / `-`	Zoom in or out around the mouse.
`Shift`+wheel	Scroll the view.
`0`	Show the whole sample.

The seconds ruler and a position bar follow the view. Markers outside the view are hidden.

Setting the cue

Click the waveform to set the cue there. The cue moves when you release the mouse, so a click never jumps it by accident.
Drag on the waveform to move the cue. The drag starts once the mouse has moved a few pixels.
Drag the cue flag itself to move it.

To move the end, drag the end flag.

While a marker moves, a time readout shows where it is.

Fine drags and snapping

Hold Shift while dragging for a drag ten times finer.
Markers snap when they come close to something useful: first a beat of the sample’s beat grid, otherwise a transient (the start of a hit), otherwise a zero crossing. Snapping keeps cues on the attack of a sound and avoids clicks.
Hold Ctrl to turn snapping off for that drag.

Transients show as small ticks on the waveform once ScratchCraft has analysed the sample, which happens in the background after it loads.

Nudging with the keys

Click a marker to give it keyboard focus, then use ← and → to nudge it by one pixel of the current zoom. Hold Shift to nudge by a tenth of a pixel. Zoom in for finer steps.

With the waveform itself focused, the arrow keys nudge the cue.

Typing a time

Double-click a marker to type its time. You can write it in:

seconds: 1.5
milliseconds: 250 ms
minutes and seconds: 1:02.5

Press Enter to set it, or Esc to cancel.

Alt+double-click a marker to reset it: the cue to the start of the sample, the end to the end.

The run-out at the end

When the motor plays a record up to its end marker, the needle stops just past it and sits in the run-out groove, the way a real record does. The platter keeps turning, but the deck is silent. Pull the record back by hand, or move the end marker later, and it plays again.

Hands and Shapes can still move the record past the end marker; they just play silence there.

You can change this in the Feel window with At the end:

Choice	What happens at the end marker
Run out (default)	The record sits silent in the run-out groove, as above.
Loop	The record wraps back to the cue at its own speed, with a smooth crossfade.
Stop on the cue	The deck’s motor switches off and the needle parks on the cue.

The Feel window’s Cue drag option also decides whether dragging the cue on screen drops the needle on every move, once on release, or only while the record is stopped.

MIDI

The cue and end markers can be MIDI-learned and automated. Right-click the waveform for the deck’s MIDI targets: Jog, Scratch, Touch and the cue. See Jog wheels.