Trouble moving the playback cursor in the piano roll

New Nuendo user here, forgive my ignorance.

Look at this movie I captured, where I try to move the playback cursor within a MIDI clip (in the piano roll): Nuendo playback cursor hassle - YouTube

There’s this tag that indicates where the MIDI clip ends, and the tag has the MIDI clip’s name on it (“Instrument Track 01” in this case). This tag is located right on the stripe (right below the “ruler” that sits on top of the piano roll) where I need to click to set the playback cursor - and when I click the tag, nothing happens. Basically, thit “name tag” prevents me from moving the playback cursor to any spot on the stripe covered by it.

Why is this? And why can I only move the playback cursor by clicking on this thin stripe above the piano roll? Why can’t I move it by just clicking anywhere in the piano roll where there isn’t a MIDI note?

Personally I’ve always dragged the cursor instead of clicking at specific spots like you do in the video. The track name tags never got in the way for me.

Being able to move the cursor by clicking anywhere on the piano roll would likely lead to accidents since you can insert notes by double clicking.

Hm, grabbing and dragging? That seems to unecessarily cumbersome to have to take into consideration two positions on the piano roll: 1) Where the playback cursor is currently at and 2) Where the playback cursor is supposed to go.

In Ableton Live you can just click anywhere in the piano roll to move the cursor there and it works like a charm (and you create MIDI notes by double clicking in the piano roll in Ableton Live as well, and that function never interferes).

The way I do it is by clicking anywhere on the ruler (usually close to where I want the cursor to be), then dragging the cursor for more precise adjustment. I find that the visual feedback helps me drop the cursor at the right spot.

But what if the cursor is on top of the name tag already? Then it can’t be grabbed without moving the name tag.

Well, the problem is not getting the cursor to stick to the grid at the right place, the problem is to set it to a place on the timeline where the name tag is covering the ruler. Re-read my first post (and watch the video) - it’ll make it clearer.

I’m aware, just mentioning why I prefer to drag instead of just clicking where I want it to be. Also you don’t really need to click on the cursor to drag it, just clicking anywhere on the ruler works.

So if the cursor is behind a name tag, you can just click anywhere else to be able to move the cursor again without touching the tag.

Yeah that’s nice, thanks for the tip! So I click-and-hold on the ruler beside the name tag and drag the cursor sideways (over the name tag) and release the cursor on the point where I want it.

I’d still prefer being able to click once, anywhere, and not have to take the placement of the name tags into consideration at all - but the way you suggests I at least won’t have to move the name tag.

You can turn the flags off if they’re not useful. They drive me crazy, too, and they’re even worse in Cubase:

The relevant preference under Transport says “Locate When Clicked In Empty Space”. It doesn’t say this only works in the Project window. This is one of the most maddening navigation things about Cubendo. Why are you forced to adopt a different mode of navigation in the Project editor and the Key editor!!!

  • Jason