Markers can be placed anywhere in the piece and come in three flavors : "Section", "Measure" (bar) and "Beat". There is also the current point marker (the place where you last clicked). Markers are displayed as little triangles in the marker zone above and below the waveform profile, except beat markers which get just a little tick line. Each marker type has a different color (configurable in the Marker Options dialog) and each marker can have a text label which is displayed in the Splitter Bar. See Screen Layout for a picture showing all of these features.
There can also be automatically generated subdivision markers - these are described below.
Markers are for your benefit : Transcribe! doesn't care where you put them, or whether you use them at all. However, if you have ever transcribed music from cassette then you will know that finding your way around is always a bit tedious - when you want to hear the last bit again, how far should you wind back? When you want to hear the middle section again, where was it? By placing markers, you can locate the desired spot very easily. You don't, of course, need to place markers throughout the whole piece - only the part you are interested in.
Often the easiest way to place new markers is to set the piece playing and use the "New marker" keyboard shortcuts 'S', 'M' and 'B' for new section, measure (bar) and beat marker respectively. Thus tapping the keyboard in time with the music, "SBBBMBBBMBBBMBBB" marks a four measure section with four beats per measure. The measure markers mark the first beat of each measure (bar), and the section marker marks the first measure of the section.
If you use these commands while music is not playing then you will be offered the option of placing the new marker at the current point or at the paused play point if you are paused. However if you hold the <shift> key down when using the keyboard shortcuts 'S', 'M' and 'B' then this will bypass the dialog and the marker will be placed directly at the paused point (if paused) or the current point.
You can also place a new marker by double clicking in the marker zone.
If you
ctrl-click
in the marker zone
then you will get a popup menu from which you can select various marker related
commands. If you clicked on an existing marker then you can change its type,
edit, or delete it. Otherwise you will be offered choices for creating a new
marker at the clicked point.
This won't work on older Mac OS versions which don't have Appearance Manager. If
Finder offers you contextual menus when you ctrl-click then so will Transcribe!,
otherwise not.
Editing Markers
You can move an existing marker by clicking on it and dragging.
You can edit (change its type or label) or delete an existing marker by double clicking on it (in the marker zone).
If you want to delete a lot of markers then select the relevant section of the piece (so the waveform profile is highlit) and then use the Delete Markers command.
Marker subdivision
The "Subdivide" options in the Edit Marker dialog refer to the automatic generation of subdivisions between markers. These are shown as little tick lines in the same color as the current point marker (red by default). These are not true markers - they cannot be moved, edited or deleted individually.
They are for your convenience : if a piece is in (say) 4/4 then you could decide to mark just the measures (bars), but tell Transcribe! to divide each into 4 which would effectively mark the beats. Or if it is in sections of 8 measures you could mark just the section starts, but tell Transcribe! to divide each into 8 which would effectively mark the measures.
You can specify the subdivisions for each marker individually if you want. The choices are :
Marker labelling
Text labels are used to distinguish one marker from another. The text is displayed in the Splitter Bar, beneath the marker. By default, section markers are automatically labelled A, B, C etc, measure markers are labelled using numbers appended to the section label thus A2, A3 etc. and beat markers are not labelled. By editing a marker you can override this and give it any label you want. Also the Marker Options command allows you to switch auto labelling on or off.
Note that automatic labelling of measure markers is derived from
the section name, so if the section is "A" then the
measures will be labelled "A2" "A3" etc, on the assumption that the
section marker is also the first measure of the section. Therefore you
should put a section marker first if you want auto-labelled measures
to get labelled correctly.
Beat markers similarly are numbered on the assumption that there is a
measure (or section) marker marking the first beat of the measure, so
if you are using auto-labelled beat markers it is a good idea to make
sure they are preceeded by a section or measure marker.
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