iLife '04: The Missing Manual

The Time Display

The Time Display is the blue “LED” number counter just below the timeline.

As shown in Figure 25-8 at top, this display can express the position of the Playhead in either of two ways:

• As measure and beats. If you’re musically inclined, you’ll probably prefer the standard musical notation that appears here. It’s this format: 025.15.3.100, which refers to measures, beats, sub-beats (that is, quarters of a beat), and ticks (of which there are 240 per sub-beat).

  That’s probably way more precision than you’ll ever need, but hey—overkill is in these days. (Just ask anyone who’s bought a Hummer.)

• As hours, minutes, and seconds. The Time display can also display your position in pure time code—that is, how many hours, minutes, seconds, and thousandths of a second you are into the song.

  This mode is especially handy when you’re preparing music to accompany, say, an iMovie movie, because you can use it to make sure that the music fits the important moments in the movie exactly.

To switch between these two displays, click to the left of these digits, where you see the tiny clock (absolute time) or musical note (measures:beats).

Note

As you work, remember to save your project file every few minutes (choose File → Save, or press

-S). The dark dot inside the window’s red Close button (upper-left) lets you know that your project has unsaved changes.

Figure 25-7. Top: The Time display can ...