I really wish the option to have the cursor go to the nearest zero-crossing was available in Audio Montages. This is because if I want to make a gapless album for digital release such as Spotify, first I have to split the tracks in the Audio Editor using its “Snap to Zero-crossing” feature and then import the files in the Audio Montage. Extra work and steps that do not need to be there. And if I want to find tune the start of the gapless track, I need to go back again to the Audio Editor and make the change and then re-import the file or have its markers imported again. Not convenient or elegant.
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can’t you quantize markers or splice markers from the CD wizard or markers menus? that moves things to zero crossings… yes? (someone please confirm! as i run into this wish/solution often)
if using CD wizard use Pause set to “0” zero
maybe you mean something else !?
regards S-EH
Thanks everyone for the all the replies.
@PG1 thanks for that. Yes, I’ve been doing that but not as efficient or convenient as just clicking the “snap to zero-crossing” when editing inside the Audio Editor. However, if I want to change the place of the zero-crossing then I have to go back again in the original Audio Editor of that audio file and change the placement of the marker on the zero-crossing, save it, delete the existing audio file in the audio montage, and then re-import in the audio-montage. Not efficient and slowing everything down. It introduces 4-5 different steps instead of just a single click. Also increases room for error.
@S-EHansson - interesting! but wouldn’t that change all of the markers at once? And I don’t believe it snaps to a “zero-crossing”. What if I want to change just one of the markers?
You can “snap to zero-crossing” in the Audio Editor but not when working in an Audio Montage.
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It seems that doing this in the montage would be complex for a few reasons:
- Overlapping Clips Would Make This Less Clear
- Montage Plugin Processing Would Make This Harder To Predict
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“snap to zero-crossing” only really makes sense for mono files. On Stereo, zero-crossing is not always possible on exactly both L/R channels, hence it’s better not to rely blindly on this.
Using heavy zooming is a good alternative.
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Thanks both for the replies.
@PG1 You are correct that mono files work better for “snap to zero-crossing”, however this feature is available for stereo files in the Audio Editor.
@Justin_Perkins really good points on the montage plugin processing. I did not think of that. Regarding overlapping clips, it could occur on the selection region of the clip.
it’s very annoying that you can’t do stuff in the audio-montage which you can do in the audio-editor 
yesterday i had to split an Album-Render into separate tracks - there are different ways to do it but very painful to get a pleasing final version - also the mentioned CD-Wizard wit countless insane options i never needed. Last night i learned that Analysers in the output-section of the Audio-Montage or in the Master-Section don’t react to Reference-Tracks unless you put the plugin directly on it. I work with a lot of Steinberg Software but it’s still overcomplicated :0
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100%
I can’t see any reasonable argument for restricting the audio-montage.
WL is great, but somewhat overdeveloped, imho.
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Having snap to zero crossing for clips would be nice to have in Montage as well in the future.
Until then this is the only workaround.
It looks like the concern of OP was addressed over the years wrt importing markers, but WL is creating markers for all source markers on every import. This leads to WL creating duplicate markers.
The proper way to have good splits is to use fades. Because when you create a fade, you create a zero crossing on both left and right channel edges, always!
This being said, if you want a zero-crossing on a selection, you can use this function (which can be made as a preset).
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I see range from cursor to cursor works almost close to Snap Cursor of the Audio Editor. This is giving a range of 2 zero Crossings. You wrote this can be made a preset. Why is this Range Settings not Persistent? And this (Range) is also there in the Audio Editor. Then, why not add snap cursor in the Montage on right click?
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Make it as a preset, and then trigger this preset without opening this dialog.
I repeat:
The proper way to have good splits is to use fades. Because when you create a fade, you create a zero crossing on both left and right channel edges, always!
Thank you for writing. I thought you were replying to the previous poster.
I was asking for this feature, and I do not use fades on files.
The edit cursor being at zero crossing provides many other benefits - to know time difference between two channels, to create temporary markers (a music loop between a song) to name a few. It is also channel independent, which makes it even more valuable. It is like your Tab to Transient, even though it is not very accurate in all cases, it is very helpful. This snap feature on Montage, since the early 2000’s, I always thought why it was not there. This is also there in Cubase, Reaper, and other Daws, in one form or the other.
Having said that I think it is always better to have many editing options on right click, because the user does not have to move hand away from the point of edit to select a feature like snap cursor, scroll to start, cursor end, reset envelopes, envelope smoothing etc.
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