Timeline Editing

Edit audio, lyrics, cues, tempo, and video on one time axis. Unified view lays out a block in the current show; Song view focuses on one song. Editing a song shared by several shows changes its contents in every show that uses it.

A schematic of the main lanes. The application also provides timecode and guide-video lanes.

Track kinds

Track	Contents	Main operations
Comments	A dedicated top lane showing cloud comment markers.	Double-click to add a comment at that time. Markers can be dragged to retime.
Timecode	Project-wide LTC / MTC / Art-Net input and output.	Select the lane to configure its inspector; see Audio & Routing.
Video	Guide video synchronized to the song.	Drop a video to import, then move, trim, or replace it. Choose destination views in the inspector.
Beat	Beat clips declaring the BPM on the lower row, count markers on the upper row.	Drives the click, beat grid, and snapping. Edit BPM / time signature / click sound in the inspector.
Prompter	Prompt blocks containing lyric, guide, and direction lines.	Double-click to add, ⌘B to split, ⌘J to merge. See the Prompter page for details.
Cue	Human cues, cue messages, and MIDI / OSC / Art-Net signal cues.	Supports adding, splitting, and copying clips. Each cue can address cue targets.
Shot	A two-row layout of camera cues and switching instructions.	Holds per-track camera source presets and signal-output settings.
Audio	Project-wide audio lanes; one track can hold multiple audio clips.	Split, trim, fade, replace. Stereo material shows split L / R waveforms; volume / pan / route are edited in the inspector.

Unified lane behavior

Prompter, Cue, Shot, and audio tracks share the same look and handling.

Collapse — Click the colored strip at the left of a track to collapse or expand it. Cue / Shot shows outlines, the prompter shows summary bars, and audio retains a compact waveform and fades. Selection still works while collapsed.
Trim handles — Hover over a clip edge or select the clip to reveal its trim handles. Drag an edge to change its length.
Snap and beat grid — Press N or the magnet button to cycle through Beat + clips → Half-beat + clips → Off. Half-beat mode shows a ½ badge. Dragging, trimming, and the edit cursor snap to the selected grid, clip edges, sections, and other nearby targets; the guide labels the target.
Lock Mode — The header padlock blocks content edits in local and cloud projects. Selection, inspection, playback, mute/solo, routing, and operational timecode/prompter settings remain available.

Editing in the Unified timeline. Audio, prompter, and Cue / Shot clips support splitting, moving, trimming, and copy & paste.

Range selection, playback modes & copy/paste

Drag the time ruler at the top of the timeline to create a time range selection. It highlights across every track, and you adjust it with the in / out handles at each end.

Using a range — Choose “Selection” as the scope in the audio export dialog to export just that range (clips crossing a boundary are trimmed to start/end inside it). The “Insert gap” dialog is also pre-filled with the selection’s length.
Copy & paste — Section / Prompter / Cue / Shot / Switcher / Audio share one clipboard: ⌘C / ⌘X copy or cut, and ⌘V pastes whatever you last copied at the yellow edit cursor — including into a different song, and copy & paste across songs.
Insert gap and delete time — Insert Gap can use the selection, edit cursor, or current playhead time as the starting point and shifts later items later. Delete Time removes the specified span and pulls later audio, prompter, and Cue / Shot items earlier.
Align to playhead or edit cursor — Selected Audio / Prompter / Cue clips can move their start directly to the playhead or edit cursor. For fine placement, drag while watching the snap-target labels.

Playback modes (TransportBar)

Mode	Behavior
Normal	Advances per the setlist’s auto-play settings (waits at MC).
Forced continuous	Ignores auto-play settings and keeps going, skipping MC / block gaps straight to the next song.
Selection loop	Loops the selection, returning to the in point when it passes the out point. Works across multiple songs too: it plays from the in point (first song), skips MC / breaks through the following songs, and loops back at the out point (last song).

While a cloud Master Lock is held, Forced continuous and Selection loop are disabled. Playback and loops follow the song order of the currently selected show.

Sections and markers

Sections — The colored band at the top of the timeline. Double-click empty space to create a section, then drag its start marker to move it. Its end follows the next section’s start, or the song end for the last section. Set the name and color in the inspector.
Song markers — Notes / jump points inside a song. Add one at the playhead with ⌘K or by double-clicking the marker lane. Click a marker to seek to it.
EoS (End of Song) — The logical end of the song, drawn as an orange dotted line with the “next program area” hatched to its right. Drag the EoS pin to adjust it (double-clicking the lane to set it was removed to prevent accidents).

Beat clips and the click track

Beat clips form a sequence of “from here, the BPM is X” declarations, building a variable-tempo map. The click sound, beat grid, and beat snapping all follow this map. Count markers are independent markers that play a count-in (voice or beep) ending at their position. Choose Single (1 bar), Double (2 bars), Three (1 2 3), or Two (1 2). Click and count sounds and volumes are configured in the song inspector.

Meter and BPM — In the beat-clip inspector, choose beats per bar (1–32) and the note unit (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64) independently. BPM counts that note unit: 120 BPM in 6/8 equals 60 quarter notes per minute.
Tempo changes within a bar — Bar offset specifies the beat position within the bar at which the beat clip begins; 0 starts a new bar. Check it when placing mid-bar tempo changes to keep the click, bar lines, and prompter beat display aligned.

Audio crossfades and joining clips

Create a crossfade — With Settings → Timeline → Auto crossfade enabled, overlapping two audio clips on the same lane creates a crossfade across the overlap. For touching clips, use Create crossfade from the context menu.
Adjust position and length — Drag the highlighted overlap to move it. Hold Alt (Option) while dragging to resize it around its center. Double-click to remove the crossfade and butt the clips together. Moving the clips apart removes their automatic fades.
Curves and overlap limits — Choose Auto, Linear, Equal power, or S-curve in the inspector. Auto uses linear for phase-aligned copies of the same source and equal power for different sources. Ordinary move, trim, and paste operations that would overlap three clips are refused. Turning Auto crossfade off trims overlapping material instead.
Join clips — Select neighboring clips on the same lane that use consecutive portions of the same file, then choose Join clips from the context menu. If they cannot be joined, the menu explains why. This is separate from merging songs.

Import a Pro Tools session

Choose ＋ → Add from Pro Tools Session… in the setlist and select a .ptx file. CueFlow searches the session folder, including Audio Files. If audio is missing, add a search location with Add audio search folder….
Review each track’s destination, tempo and meter changes, markers, and missing files. CueFlow suggests an existing lane when a similar name identifies one unambiguous match. Set unwanted tracks to Skip.
Import to create a new song beginning at the first clip. Audio is converted to the project sample rate; clip positions and source ranges, tempo/meter changes, and song markers are placed on the timeline. Split-stereo files are combined into one stereo lane.

Pro Tools fade shapes, volume, pan, plug-ins, and clip groups are not imported. Overlapping audio becomes CueFlow crossfades. Review the conversion warnings and lane limit in the import dialog. One Undo removes the imported song, but copied audio stays in the folder; use the library or file manager’s unused-file list to clean it up.

Merge songs or split at In-Song dividers

Merge songs — Right-click a song in the setlist and choose Merge with next song…. This creates a new song from consecutive songs in the same block, with named In-Song dividers at their boundaries. The originals stay in the library and other shows are unchanged. Stop or pause first. Songs separated by MC items or excluded from timecode cannot be merged. Start timecodes are preserved, but review changes to waits, audio tails, and omitted content beyond EoS. Song boundaries do not gain automatic crossfades.
Split songs — Choose Split here… on an In-Song divider, or Split at every In-Song… on a song. Audio crossing a boundary is cut there and video chains are separated. If the original songs and boundaries meet the restore conditions, Restore the original songs is available. Edits made after merging do not transfer back; the merged song stays in the library.
Comments and Undo — In an online cloud project, affected comments move to the corresponding positions in the new songs. One Undo reverses the merge or split, but does not reverse comment re-anchoring. Comments are not transferred while offline; check the count and explanation before confirming.

Place guide video

Enable Settings → Video Engine, then drop a movie onto a song in the video lane. Dropping while the engine is disabled also offers to enable it. Import prepares a playback copy and extracts the audio into an audio track.
Move and trim the clip to align it. Video spanning songs in the same block is handled as one linked chain. It cannot cross an MC item or overlap another video clip.
Open Video Monitor, or enable video for a view in Settings → Prompter Views. Choose destination views in the clip inspector; configure the picture’s position and size on the prompter-view side.

Video files themselves are not cloud-synced. On another computer, copy the required files into the project’s Videos folder to reconnect them. Importing songs from another project does not include video. If a song occurs more than once in the same block, check the notice that automatic video-chain adjustment is suspended.

Shot tracks and signal output

Shot tracks place the information handed to the camera team and the switcher on the time axis.

Camera Cue — Framing, subject, and standby instructions for camera operators. Shown on the timeline, the camera/switcher prompter, and the cue sheet.
Switching — Program / Preview / Transition instructions for the switcher. Transitions include CUT / MIX / WIPE / FADE / HOLD.
Source presets — Register CAM numbers, display names, colors, and switcher input numbers per track.
Signal toggle — The Signal button on the track header toggles output (grey = off / yellow = on). When on, switching commands are sent to Blackmagic ATEM / Roland LAN / OSC as the playhead enters each Switching clip.

Caution

Once connected to a real switcher, always send a CUT test from the track properties before the show. During rehearsals where you do not want output, leave the Signal toggle off (grey).

Comment markers

On cloud projects, comment markers appear in the comment lane at the top of the timeline. Clicking a marker opens a lightweight popup for reading, replying, and changing status; double-clicking adds a new comment at that time. Markers can be dragged to retime, and the new time is saved to the cloud. During playback, when the playhead passes a marker, a small bubble with the author and text pops up for about five seconds.

Zoom and navigation

Zoom with a pinch gesture, R / T, ⌘= / ⌘- (also the 2 / 1 keys), fit the whole timeline with ⌘0, the current song with ⌘⌥0, or the selection with ⌘⇧F. On Windows, use Ctrl for ⌘ and Alt for ⌥. You can also hold ⌘ / Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel to zoom. Where zoom centres is set in Settings ▸ Timeline, separately for the keyboard and the wheel: the keyboard offers the mouse-cursor position (default), the edit-cursor position, or always the playback position; the wheel offers the playback position centered (default) or the mouse-cursor position. Scroll horizontally with the trackpad, middle-button drag, Shift + wheel, or the bottom scrollbar. Song view shows a minimap for a whole-song overview.

Waveform display

Stereo files are drawn as split waveforms: L on top and R below. The waveform zoom control in the timeline toolbar scales only the displayed amplitude from 0.5x to 48x, making quiet material easier to read. It does not change playback volume or export levels.

Exporting and interchange formats

From Export at the top of the timeline, choose the current song, block, whole show, or selected range. Whole show means the currently selected show, not every show in the project. Audio exports reflect the current mute/solo, volume, pan, and clip edits.

Stereo mix — Export the 2-mix as WAV / FLAC / MP3 / OGG. You can also choose an LTC mix export with LTC on the left channel and the 2-mix on the right.
Stems (parallel WAV) — One WAV per lane, with the option to include the click and count.
Embedded metadata (WAV option) — An option (on by default) on WAV stereo-mix and stem exports that embeds sections, markers, and BPM into the WAV files; Japanese names are preserved.
MIDI tempo map — A MIDI file carrying tempo changes and section/marker names. MIDI and WAV tempo metadata use quarter-note BPM: 120 BPM in 6/8 is stored as 60, preserving bar positions.
grandMA2 timecode — An XML file for lighting consoles that lays out lighting cues against absolute timecode.
AAF (multitrack) — A multitrack AAF for Pro Tools / Avid / Premiere. Python 3 is required; the first export installs a helper over the internet. AAF cannot carry tempo or sections, so pair it with the MIDI tempo-map export.

Stereo mix export (WAV / FLAC / MP3 / OGG) is available on Free. Stems, LTC mix, MIDI tempo maps, grandMA2, AAF, and XLSX cue sheets require Pro or above, or an active organization editor seat. Prompter MP4 export requires Team or above; see the Prompter page.