What is the Group Bar?
The Group Bar is an empty area to the left of the track headers (in the editor window) or above the mixer channels (in the mixer window).
The group bar provides convenience functions to create groups from your channels, or assign them to a grouping master bus, or assign them to a VCA master fader.
Operations from the Group Bar:
Right-click in the black (empty) group-bar area to display the Group-Bar context menu:
- Create New Group From : Select either “Selection, Record-Enabled, or Soloe’d” to create a new Group with those channels.
- Create New Group With Master From : Select either “Selection, Record-Enabled, or Soloe’d” to create a new Group with those channels. A new “bus” will be created, and your channels will be assigned as the input for that bus.
- Assign Selection to VCA: The selected channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Assign Record-Enabled to VCA: Any record-enabled channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Assign Soloed to VCA: Any solo’ed channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Enable all groups
- Disable all groups
Creating an Edit Group with the Group Bar:
In the edit window, a group selection can be be made by clicking in the black bar to the left of the track header. While holding the left click, slide the mouse vertically along-side the tracks you wish to group. Right click on the name of the group to rename it. To add tracks to that group just left click and slide the mouse alone-side the track you would like to add. This will create a group tab that extends the width of the tracks assigned to that group. Many times it is convenient for a group to contain tracks adjacent to one another but it is not absolutely necessary, a group of tracks does not have to be contiguous.
Learn more about the grouping functions here: Groups.
Right-clicking on a group tabs calls up a context menu for groups:
- Edit Group : launches the Group editor
- Collect Group : Moves the grouped tracks together into a contiguous series
- Remove Group : Deletes the Group (but not the tracks in it)
- Assign Group to VCA: The channel(s) in the selected group will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Add new Subgroup Bus : Creates a New Bus, and assigns the output(s) of the grouped tracks to it
- Add New Aux Bus (pre-fader) : Creates a New Bus, and creates a pre-fader Send to it, from each of the grouped tracks
- Add New Aux Bus (post-fader) : Creates a New Bus, and creates a post-fader Send to it, from each of the grouped tracks
- Fit to Window : the channel(s) in the selected group will be sized to fill the editor window (vertically)
- Create New Group From : Select either “Selection, Record-Enabled, or Soloe’d” to create a new Group with those channels.
- Create New Group With Master From : Select either “Selection, Record-Enabled, or Soloe’d” to create a new Group with those channels. A new “bus” will be created, and your channels will be assigned as the input for that bus.
- Assign Selection to VCA: The selected channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Assign Record-Enabled to VCA: Any record-enabled channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Assign Soloed to VCA: Any solo’ed channel(s) will be assigned to the VCA selected from a submenu
- Enable all groups
- Disable all groups
The mix-window group bar.
In the mix window, a group can be be created by dragging in the black bar above the channel strips. While holding the left click, slide the mouse horizontally over the channel strips you wish to group. This will create a group tab that extends the length of the tracks being assigned to that group. Many times it is convenient for a group to contain tracks adjacent to one another but it is not absolutely necessary. You may have any tracks in a group.
In all other ways, the Group Bar in the Mixer window operates identically to the Group Bar in the Editor window.
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