Zooming and scrolling the grid in Loop by Zaweba
Ctrl+wheel zooms the grid in Loop by Zaweba, Shift+wheel scrolls along, Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- step the zoom and Ctrl+0 fits the whole song.
A song is long and a bar is short, and you need to see both. When you are shaping the structure, you want every section on screen at once. When you are placing a clip exactly or trimming a fill, you want a few bars filling the window. Loop by Zaweba switches between the two with a few keys.
Ctrl and the mouse wheel zoom the grid. Shift and the wheel scroll along the song. Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- zoom in and out from the keyboard. Ctrl+0 fits the whole song in the window.
Seeing the whole song
Ctrl+0 is the overview key. Press it when you have lost your place, after a long stretch of detailed work, or before you listen through from the start. With the full song in view you can see where sections begin and end, where the arrangement gets too thin or too crowded, and whether parts come in and out at sensible points.
Arrangement problems are much easier to spot this way. Eight bars where only the drums play, or a lead that never stops, jump out at a glance.
Working close up
Zoom in for detail. Clips snap to bars, so placing loops is easy at any zoom, but when you drag a clip's right edge to repeat it or position a short fill, a closer view makes it easier to grab the right part of the clip.
Zooming in also helps with automation lanes, which line up with the grid. Points are easier to place precisely when each bar is wide.
Moving along
Shift and the wheel scroll sideways through the song without changing the zoom. Combined with Ctrl and the wheel, that gives a quick rhythm: zoom in on a section, scroll along to the next, zoom back out with Ctrl+0 to check the whole.
Zoom and the other editors
The piano roll in Studio mode has a zoom of its own too. That makes sense, since a melody often needs a much closer view than the arrangement does.
Habits worth forming
Keep one hand on the keys. Ctrl+0 to see everything, Ctrl and the wheel to dive in, Shift and the wheel to move along. After a while you won't think about it.
Return to the overview often. It's easy to spend an hour perfecting four bars and lose sight of the song. A quick Ctrl+0 and a listen from the top with Home and Space keeps the big picture in mind.
Lost on the grid
The usual one is editing at a zoom where you can't see what you are grabbing, so you move a clip when you meant to stretch it. Zoom in a step first. Another is leaving the grid zoomed in and then wondering where the rest of the song went. It hasn't gone anywhere; Ctrl+0 brings it back.
Any slip is covered by undo, Ctrl+Z, with 100 steps. Zooming itself doesn't change the song at all, so in Loop by Zaweba you can zoom as much as you like.
