Want a bar or two before bar 1 with min:sec starting at bar 1

[macmuse]

Hi. Am wanting to have a leeway measure or two preceding Bar 1, with the min:sec 0:00 to start at bar 1 (where the actual audio will start).

I can't quite get it to do this. If I make a -1, I can't get the 0:00 to start at bar 1. Thank you!

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

First you need to add time, second you need to adjust song start time. Pretty easy once you know what to look for.

[albee1952]

Indeed^^^ IIRC, Add Time is in the Events Menu. I always leave the first 2 bars as a count-in. I would never start music at bar 1 beat 1

[JFreak]

I myself want to adjust time so that first hit is on 1|1 when the song is recorded to the grid (because it is easy to go to another part of song by adding 8 or 16 bars to counter wherever you are). Adding time before that is no problem, it just starts from zero or minus. When the song is not recorded to click, I am obviously not using bars and beats at all, simply adding enough seconds before song start does the trick.

[macmuse]

Thanks! I was able to create an 0/1 bar, but I still can't get the min:sec to line up and begin at 1/1. The 0:00.0 still stays "locked" to the left of the window, no matter what bar is above it.

[JFreak]

Take a look at your transport. There is main counter and sub counter. It sounds like you want to have bars and beats as your main counter and then on the song start you also need to choose that if you want to move song start by bars and beats instead of seconds.

[macmuse]

I just want to have the minutes:seconds be 0 where the audio starts so that I can see how long the cue is.

For example, if the left of the window starts at -1/1, (meaning I have 2 bars before bar 1 where the audio will start), I want the 0:00:0 to begin counting at 1/1.

[JFreak]

just play with it a little, it all makes sense when you get your song start to beat 1|1 and take a look at your counters. if you rely on bars and beats that is what you want to get. if on the other hand you rely on seconds, then just reset whatever time you want to your first beat. you can obviously have only one main counter, you need to decide which is it, beats or seconds. they are related to each other by your session tempo

[macmuse]

What is the field (and on what dialog box) that I need to modify in order to make the 0:00 change to anywhere other than the far left of that window? That's what I'm having trouble changing. No matter what I do, the 0:00 will not move from that position.

Or, maybe it never moves in PT. (I'm coming from another DAW). In that case, if it stays at the far left, then how can I actually see space before my clips will start if I want those negative measures?

[Rich Breen]

You're not gonna be able to have the mm:ss counter move (many of us have asked for a "local zero" for ages) - you can however set your timecode rulers to zero anywhere you want - just put the cursor at bar1/beat1 and go to setup->current timecode position and set to 0. Then set your main subcounter to timecode.