The Timeline

The timeline is the third of the three major "panels" in Numerology's UI. It is where you can create arrangement for your project by setting up a series of presets for each stack to play in time with the master transport.

Each stack has a track in the timeline, even the Clock stack. On the left of each track is the track header, with the label for the stack, some mixer-related controls (bypass, mute, solo, audio volume and meter), and the Arrange mode setting, which enables and disables the track arrangement for the stack.

Next to the track header is the track body, where you will add "Preset Blocks" to build your arrangement. To do this, hold down the command-key and drag the mouse across a range of time in the track. When you release the mouse button, a dialog will appear with a list of all the presets for that stack. Pick the one you want to use and click "OK". When the dialog closes, a box will appear on the timeline with the presets name it it. This is a preset block : it indicates that the stack should play this preset over the range of time you initially selected for the block.

There is a red 'wiper' on the timeline that indicates the current location of the master clock. While an arrangement is playing, it will sweep over the preset blocks as they play. When a stack has no block to play during the playback of an arrangement, it mutes itself.

Arrangement ON/OFF

This is the master switch for the arrangement in the timeline. This is a handy way to enable or disable all track arrangements at once.

Arrange Mode

The arrange mode setting allows you to turn the track on or off for each stack individually. By default, the Arrange Mode for a stack is off. When you first add a preset block to a track, the arrange mode for that stack is automatically change to "ON", which means that the track-based arrange mode is on. You can turn it back off using the same menu. When the arrange mode is off for a track, the preset blocks in the track are drawn in gray.

Adding Preset Blocks Moving, Resizing & Deleting Preset Blocks

To move a preset block, click on it to select it, then drag it to a new position. Once a block is selected, you can resize it by clicking and dragging on the small handles that appear at either end. To delete a block, hit the backspace key while it is selected.

Working with multiple blocks

You can select multiple preset blocks by holding down the shift key and clicking on each one in turn. Or, you can click and drag the mouse to select a range of preset blocks. Both of these techniques work within a track or across multiple tracks. Once you have several selected blocks, you can move, resize or delete them as one.

Editing a preset

If you want to jump to the rack to edit a specific preset, just command-click on the preset block in the timeline.

Zoom

You can zoom the timeline out to make it easier to view large arrangements. There are 5 zoom levels, which you can pick directly.

Next : Signals : Audio, MIDI, CV and Clock