Track alternatives and screensets

Track alternatives keep several versions of one track's regions and let you switch between them with one click. Screensets keep several layouts of the screen and bring each one back with a number key. Both help you try something without losing what you have.

What a track alternative is

An alternative is a whole set of regions for one track: keep the comp you have, try another edit on a copy, and go back to either. Exactly one alternative plays at a time. The others are never heard, in playback or in a bounce.

  • An alternative holds the track's regions, with their take folders, comps and the automation drawn in the regions themselves.
  • The track's plug-ins, mix settings and track automation belong to the track, so they stay the same whichever alternative plays.
  • A track starts with one alternative, called A. New ones are named B, C and so on.

Make a new alternative

  1. Right-click the track's header and open Track Alternatives.
  2. Choose New Alternative for an empty one, or Duplicate Alternative for a copy of the regions playing now.

The new alternative plays from then on. A copy is a real copy: editing it never changes the one it came from. Each of these is one undo step.

Once a track has more than one alternative, the playing one's name shows beside the track's name in its header. Click that name for the same menu.

Switch alternatives

Click the alternative's name in the header, or right-click the header and open Track Alternatives, then choose the alternative to play. The one playing has a tick.

A frozen track cannot switch: unfreeze it first. A track that is an instrument's second output has no regions of its own, so it has no alternatives.

Show inactive alternatives

Choose Show Inactive in the alternatives menu. Each alternative that is not playing shows as a dimmed lane under the track, its regions where they lie in the song. They are still not heard.

  • Click a lane's name to play that alternative.
  • Drag a region from a dimmed lane up onto the track to copy it into the alternative that plays. The other alternative keeps its own.

Choose Hide Inactive to put the lanes away.

Rename or delete an alternative

  • Click the playing alternative's name in the header and choose Rename with its name (for example Rename A…) to give it a name of its own, such as Comp 2.
  • Choose Delete with its name (for example Delete B) to delete the playing alternative and its regions. A track always keeps at least one.

Alternatives on grouped tracks

On a track in an edit group, such as the microphones of one drum kit, new, switch, rename and delete reach the other tracks in the group too, by the alternative's name. That keeps the microphones of one performance on the same version. To act on one track alone, turn off Switch Group “name” Too in the alternatives menu.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to list a track's alternatives, start a new one (empty or a copy) or switch to another.

Views in windows of their own

The Mixer, the Piano Roll (with its Event List), the Audio Editor and the Library can each leave the main window for a window of their own, for example on a second display.

  • Click the window button at the right of the view's own bar, or choose Window ▸ Mixer in Its Own Window (or Piano Roll, Audio Editor, Library).
  • The view leaves its place in the main window while it has a window.
  • Close the window, or click its button again, and the view goes back to its place.
  • Each window opens where you last left it. If that display has gone, it opens on the main one.

While the Piano Roll's window is in front, its keys work there as they do in the main window. Claude can open a view in its own window too, when you ask.

Screensets

A screenset is a layout kept under a number from 1 to 9. It keeps:

  • whether the bottom panel is open, and whether it shows the mixer or the editor;
  • whether the Library, the Inspector and the channel strips show;
  • which views have windows of their own, and where;
  • where the main window is;
  • the arrangement's zoom and where it is scrolled to.

To keep the layout you have now, press saveScreenset1 for screenset 1 (the others work the same with their own number), or choose Window ▸ Screensets ▸ Save Layout as Screenset. To bring one back, press screenset1 for screenset 1, or choose it in Window ▸ Screensets.

Bringing a screenset back changes nothing in the song, and keeping one is never an undo step. Screensets are saved with the song.

Lock Screensets

To keep screensets from being changed by a slip of the key, choose Window ▸ Screensets ▸ Lock Screensets, or turn on Lock screensets in Nebula DAW ▸ Settings… ▸ General. While they are locked, the numbers still bring them back, but nothing can be saved over them.

Appearance

View ▸ Appearance chooses the colours Nebula is drawn in: Graphite, Studio Grey, Silver or Nebula Classic. It is your own setting, kept for every song.

View ▸ Editor Visual Settings…, or the gear button in the transport bar, beside the master volume, opens the editor visuals: the same Appearance menu, Nebula clouds and Stars behind the MIDI and waveform editors, Nebula intensity, Star density, Nebula color with four presets, and Reset. Under AUTOMATION it also says whether automation moves with a region: Ask each time, Always move automation or Never move automation.

Three View menu items set the intensity in one go: Balanced Visuals, High Visuals and Static Background, which set Nebula intensity to 65%, 100% and 0%.