Canvas

The Canvas is ACE Studio's main arrangement workspace.

Canvas is the arrangement area in ACE Studio. Here, you can create, place, move, and edit all contents as clips along the timeline to create your music works.

Marker-line & Timeline

The Marker-line is a static vertical line that flashes between white and blue, indicating the starting point for playback or the precise position for editing actions, such as pasting. You can click anywhere on the Time Ruler or on the grid to reposition the Marker-line. When a selection exists on the canvas, the marker-line is always positioned at the left boundary of the selection.

The Timeline is a moving vertical line that indicates the current playback position and only appears when playback begins.

• Press the Space to start playback from the Marker-line's position.

• Press Shift + Space to resume playback from the last paused position.

Time Ruler

The Time Ruler is located at the top of the Canvas, displaying time in a musical format (bars and beats). It serves several key functions:

• Time Display: Shows the project's timeline in bars and beats.

• Navigation and zooming:

  • Drag horizontally on the Time Ruler to scroll the view.

  • Drag vertically on the Time Ruler to zoom the view.

Grid & Snap

The Canvas features a background grid that represents musical time divisions, helping you align clips precisely. Editing actions (like moving or trimming clips) will automatically snap to these grid lines by default.

Right-click on the blank area of the Canvas to open the Grid & Snap menu.

• Auto-Narrow: Automatically adjusts the grid size to narrow spacing based on the zoom level of the Canvas.

• Auto-Medium(default): Automatically adjusts the grid size to medium spacing based on the zoom level of the Canvas.

• Auto-Wide: Automatically adjusts the grid size to wide spacing based on the zoom level of the Canvas.

• 1-16 Cell/Beat: Divides each beat into 1-16 grid cell.

• Snap off: Disables snapping to the grid. Allows free placement of clips without alignment to the timeline. You can also bypass it by holding down the Ctrl/ ⌘Command while editing.

Navigating & Zooming

• Horizontal/Vertical Scrolling: Use your mouse wheel to scroll vertically. Hold Shift while using the mouse wheel to scroll horizontally.

• Zooming: Hold Ctrl/ ⌘Command and use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out horizontally.

• Hand Tool: Hold down the middle mouse button and drag to pan the view in any direction.