Link Project and Lower Zone Editor Cursors

I cannot find how to Link the Project and Lower Zone Editor Cursors. I know there have been posts on this before, but they were for Cubase 9 and 10. Yet, I was able to do it in Cubase 11. There does not appear to be the “link” icon in the transport bar, nor anything in the settings. It is making my editing so difficult. Can anyone help please?

You can find the relevant help article here. Please note, that the cursor linking is only available in some editors.

Thank you for the reply. I have already read this carefully. I am not using the sample editor, therefore the link button should be shown. It does not show at all in the transport bar.

You might have disabled the “Auto-Scroll” section of the toolbar. In the lower zone, click on the cogwheel in the upper right corner and make sure the entry is selected. It will then show up in e.g. the key-editor.

Thank you for your reply. Yes the Auto-scroll is showing. There used to be an actual “link button” but that is not there.

Could you please post a screenshot of your lower zone including the toolbar?

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It works only in the Lower Zone Key Editor, is that where you are?

Here’s a screenshot for you. Thanks.

Yes, I’ve included a screenshot below. Cheers.

So no.

And i’m still wondering why it’s the case, still in the current Cubase 14.0.10 days, at least for the Sample Editor : a rather strange omission, in my view, as the Audio Part one has it. Maybe someone in Steinberg team could give us an explanation.

Use case : this would be a very useful tool when working on an audio take, in order for it to make it more or less match an already existing track with a rythmic content. Currently, I constantly have to adjust the zooming and horizontal scrolling of the lower zone so that the two panels are more or less visualy matching. Again, why the Audio Part editor and not the Sample one ?

This is my n°1 feature request for next Cubase updates, so I took the liberty to add both the Cubase 14 and Feature Request tags to this thread.

My conclusion is that the current behavior derives from a design decision that was made some 25 years ago.

The Sample Editor was not designed to work in detail on the content of an audio event. It is rather designed to work on the entire audio file to which a particular audio event refers. And since audio events do not refer directly to files but to audio clips (I think you are familiar with the structure file → clip → event) the Sample Editor is designed to work on audio clips.
It is quite different from the midi editors or the audio part editor in the way that all other editors allow you to see details of the object that you selected in the project view, while the Sample Editor looks up what the event refers to and opens that. A small but significant difference: If you have a 2 hours long audio recording and from that you cut out a 3 second long audio event - open that event in the sample editor and Cubase will open the 2 hour long clip. This becomes very noticeable if you use e.g. VariAudio, as Cubase analyses the entire 2 hours clip and not just the 3 second event.

Therefore from the start the Sample Editor was not designed to have a direct relationship to the project but rather to an audio asset in the Pool. Steinberg has since included some features to “pretend” that the Sample Editor works on the object that was selected in the project view. It seems the syncing of the rulers and play cursor position is, so far, not one of these features.

What I am saying is that the design of the Sample Editor at its core is different from what many people expect it to be and Steinberg have to then write features to meet user expectations. If you will, they are patching up the Sample Editor.

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Thanks for the detailed answer. :slightly_smiling_face:

OK, but again, why does the Audio Part Editor (I know it has been designed more recently - Don’t remember exactly when, in Cubase history timeline) is able to have the cursors linking available in all cases ? I’ll take a simple example : two guitar takes.

  1. I made a quick record as a first take, then split it in two different events and dragged the right one in the timeline, before applying the Events to Part command. Here is what I get in the Audio Part Editor :

  1. I got rid of the right portion of the IRT Studio_64 clip and recorded another take with a different sound, less saturated. After a new Events to Part action, I get this, in the Audio Part editor :

So, the Audio Part Editor is also designed as working on a ‘clip level’ and we have the Cursors linking feature available in both cases, no matter the number of clips involved, it seems. The Sample Editor also allow multiple clips editing. So, there isn’t a fundamental difference between the two, IMO, beside the tools available in each of them.

Indeed, from which my feature request. Still would like Steinberg point of view, on the subject, as the Audio Part Editor isn’t fully featured enough to make serious audio editing.

What you see in the Audio Part Editor are audio events, not audio clips. I am using Cubase lingo here, not PT or Ableton lingo.

Again, all editors display details to the selected object in the project window. Only the Sample Editor displays items from the Pool.

What I see is that the different audio events that could be created on a single audio tracks are displayed exactly in the same manner in both editors, with the same audio clip based labelling. Fom which the confusion on my end, I guess, as the Operation Manual is of no help, sadly, and as often…

Same here, as I never had the occasion to use one of them.

Which probably explains that, thanks. But I maintain my feature request… :sunglasses: