Timeline System

The Timeline system in SPAT Revolution is a built-in media playback and automation engine. It lets you import audio files directly into SPAT Revolution and play them back with full spatialization — without needing a DAW. You can also record and play back spatial automation (source positions, gains, and other parameters) directly within a timeline.

A session can contain multiple independent timelines, each with its own playback state, gain, and looping settings. This is useful for layering different audio elements — for example, one timeline for background ambience and another for dialogue — each with independent playback control.

Each timeline is built from three building blocks:

Timeline Properties

Each timeline in the list has the following properties, which you can view and edit directly in the timeline grid:

  • Play — Start or stop playback for this timeline.
  • Sync — Activates sync mode for this timeline (see below). Only one timeline can be in sync mode at a time.
  • Num. — Display order number.
  • Label — A custom name for the timeline. Defaults to the imported file name.
  • In — The start point of the playback region, in timecode (HH:MM:SS:FF). You can trim this to play only a portion of the imported audio.
  • Out — The end point of the playback region.
  • Offset — A temporal offset applied to the timeline, allowing you to shift the entire timeline forward or backward in time.
  • Gain (dB) — Output gain applied to all tracks in the timeline.
  • Scale — A scale factor applied to automation data. For example, setting this to 0.5 would halve all spatial movements.
  • Remote Number — An editable identifier used for OSC remote control, independent of the display order.
  • Loop — The repeat count: enter a number for a fixed number of loops, or ∞ for infinite looping. During playback, this displays the current loop progress (e.g., 2/5 for the second of five loops).

Sync Mode vs. Trigger Mode

Timelines can work in two different ways, depending on whether Sync mode is enabled:

Sync Mode

When you enable the Sync toggle on a timeline, it becomes the active timeline for the session:

  • The timeline’s playback position is driven by the main SPAT Revolution transport — pressing play, stop, or seeking in the transport controls the timeline.
  • The waveform and clip view is displayed in the main panel, allowing you to see and edit the timeline content.
  • Automation is processed even when the transport is stopped or paused — so when you seek to a position, all source properties update to match that point in time.
Note

Only one timeline can be in sync mode at a time. Enabling sync mode on one timeline automatically disables it on any other.

Trigger Mode (non-sync)

When a timeline’s Sync toggle is off, it operates in trigger mode — a self-contained, autonomous playback mode:

  • The timeline manages its own playback independently of the main transport.
  • You can trigger playback manually (by clicking Play), via OSC, or via a Cue System action.
  • Multiple timelines can play simultaneously in trigger mode, and they can also run alongside a timeline in sync mode.
  • Loop and repeat settings are applied based on the Loop field value.

This is ideal for sound effects, ambient beds, or any audio elements that need to play independently of the main session transport. For example, you could have a background rain ambience looping indefinitely in trigger mode while you use sync mode on another timeline to work on dialogue spatialization.

Tracks, Clips, and Markers

Tracks

Each timeline contains tracks, and each track is linked to a specific input or source in your session. When you import an audio file, two types of tracks are created:

  • Input Track — Linked to an input in your session. This track carries the actual audio media (the waveform data from your imported file).
  • Source Track — Linked to a source in your session. This track carries spatial automation data — recorded changes to the source’s position, gain, and other properties over time.

Each track has a Number (auto-assigned), a Label (inherited from the imported file name), and its own set of markers.

Importing Audio Files

To create a new timeline, you import audio files into SPAT Revolution. The import process automatically creates the necessary inputs, sources, tracks, and connections in your session. There are several import modes available:

ADM Import (Audio Definition Model)

If your audio file contains ADM metadata (BW64/WAV format — commonly used in broadcast and immersive audio production), SPAT Revolution reads the embedded spatial information automatically. The import process:

  1. Reads the ADM audio objects from the file.
  2. Creates a Room, Master, and Output in your session.
  3. For each object in the ADM file, creates an Input and a Source, connects them to the Room, and creates both an audio track and an automation track.
  4. Imports all spatial automation data from the ADM metadata — including position (XYZ, Azimuth, Elevation, Distance), width, gain, and diffuse parameters.
  5. Configures the room speaker layout based on the ADM bed channel information.
  6. Activates sync mode on the new timeline so you can start working with it immediately.

This makes it very easy to open and spatialize ADM content directly in SPAT Revolution without any manual setup.

Simple WAV Import

For plain WAV files without ADM metadata, SPAT Revolution creates one multi-channel input and one multi-channel source, connects them to a room, and creates the corresponding audio and automation tracks. Sync mode is activated automatically.

One Source Per Channel

This import mode creates a separate source for each channel in the audio file. This is useful when you have a multi-channel recording where each channel represents a different sound source — for example, individual microphone feeds from a live recording — and you want to spatialize each one independently.

Automation Recording

You can record spatial automation directly within SPAT Revolution while the transport is playing. This captures real-time changes to source properties (position, gain, etc.) as automation data on the timeline.

Here is how it works:

  1. Select an automation mode — Select the source(s) you want to record automation for and choose an appropriate automation mode (touch, or write for example).

  2. Start playback and move sources — Press record on the transport and start making changes to the armed sources — move them in the 3D view, adjust their gain, or modify any other property. All changes are captured in real time.

  3. Stop recording — When you stop the transport, the recorded automation data is committed to the timeline. If you recorded over a section that already had automation, SPAT Revolution automatically flattens the overlapping clips: the most recently recorded values take priority, and older data is preserved where there is no new recording.

The timeline is saved to disk automatically after each recording pass.

Note

You can make multiple recording passes on the same timeline. Each pass creates new automation data, and the flatten operation ensures that overlapping regions are resolved cleanly — the latest recording always wins.

Timeline Page

The Timeline panel can be displayed inside any user-defined page by selecting it from the panel toolbar (see User Interface). The panel is divided into two main areas: the timeline list on the left and the waveform view on the right.

Toolbar

A toolbar at the top provides the main timeline management actions:

  • Fold — Collapse or expand the timeline list. When folded, the waveform view takes up the full width.
  • Add — Import a media file. This opens a file dialog where you select an audio file, and a new timeline is created from it.
  • Duplicate — Duplicate the selected timeline(s).
  • Delete — Delete the selected timeline(s). If the timeline is referenced by cue actions, a warning dialog will appear listing which cues use it, so you don’t accidentally break your show.
  • Move Up / Move Down — Reorder timelines in the list.

Timeline list

The timeline list shows all your timelines as rows. Each row displays the timeline properties (Play, Sync, Number, Label, In/Out, Offset, Gain, Scale, Remote Number, Loop). The timeline in sync mode is visually highlighted so you can always see which one is active.

Waveform view

When you select a single timeline, the right side of the page displays the waveform view, showing:

  • Track lanes — Horizontal lanes for each track, showing their clips.
  • Clip waveforms — Audio waveform visualization within each clip’s boundaries.
  • Time ruler — A timecode ruler at the top with frame-accurate markings.
  • Playback cursor — A vertical line showing the current playback position.
  • Scroll and zoom — Vertical scrolling for navigating many tracks, and horizontal zoom for adjusting the visible time range.

Timeline Bar

The Timeline Bar is a compact waveform display embedded at the bottom of the SPAT Revolution window. It shows the waveform and playback state of the active (synced) timeline, giving you a quick overview without having to navigate to the Timeline page.

You can show or hide it from the View menu.

Using Timelines with the Cue System

Timelines can be controlled automatically using the Cue System. By adding a Timeline action to a cue, you can:

  • Play a timeline — optionally setting the play mode to Play Once, Loop Infinite, or Loop N Times (with a configurable loop count from 1 to 1,000).
  • Pause a timeline.
  • Set In Timecode — Define the start point of the playback region to a specific timecode.
  • Set Out Timecode — Define the end point of the playback region.

For example, you could set up a cue that starts a background ambience timeline on infinite loop when your show begins, and another cue that pauses it during a quiet scene.

OSC Remote Control

Timelines can be controlled remotely via OSC using the /timeline/[remote_number]/ address pattern. For example, if a timeline has remote number 2, you would use /timeline/2/play to start it.

The following OSC addresses are available:

OSC Address Description
/timeline/[N]/dump Requests SPAT Revolution to send back all properties for timeline N.
/timeline/[N]/name Gets or sets the timeline name.
/timeline/[N]/play Gets or sets the play state (send 0 to stop, 1 to play).
/timeline/[N]/edit Gets or sets the sync state (send 0 to exit sync mode, 1 to enter sync mode).

Additionally, two global OSC addresses let you query information about all timelines:

OSC Address Description
/project/timeline/count Returns the total number of timelines in the session.
/project/timeline/remotenumber Returns the list of all timeline remote numbers.

Saving and Loading Timelines

All timeline data is automatically saved as part of your SPAT Revolution session file (.json). This includes:

  • All timeline properties (label, number, in/out points, offset, gain, scale, loop count, playback mode, sync state).
  • All tracks with their clips and automation data.
  • All markers.

When you reopen the session, all your timelines are restored exactly as you left them.

Note

Timelines can also be saved and loaded individually to and from separate files, allowing you to reuse timeline configurations across different sessions.

Missing Media and Reconform

When a session is loaded, SPAT Revolution checks that every audio file referenced by timeline clips can still be found on disk. Files may become unreachable if they were moved, renamed, or if the session was transferred to a different machine. The system handles this in two stages: automatic relinking at load time, and a manual reconform dialog for anything that remains unresolved.

Automatic Relinking

During session loading, SPAT Revolution tries to locate each missing media file using a seven-strategy waterfall. The strategies are attempted in order, and the first successful match is used:

Strategy Description
1. Original path The file still exists at the absolute path stored in the session
2. Session folder Same filename found in the session file’s directory
3. Media subfolder Same filename found in the media/ subfolder next to the session
4. Relative path If the stored path looks relative, resolve it from the session folder
5. Preserve structure Match subdirectory names (e.g., audio/, samples/, sounds/) relative to the session
6. Parent directories Walk up to 3 parent folders from the session, checking directly and in media/ subfolders
7. Recursive search Full recursive scan of the session folder tree for a filename match (case-insensitive)

Media Reconform Dialog

If some files remain missing after automatic relinking, the Media Reconform Dialog opens. It presents a grid listing every unresolved media file:

Column Content
Status Green indicator when the file has been successfully resolved
File Path The original path stored in the session
Reconformed Path The new path after relinking
Clips Number of clips referencing this file

Four action buttons are available:

  • Locate File — Opens a file browser to manually select the replacement file for the selected entry.
  • Scan Folder — Picks a folder and recursively searches it for .wav / .bwf files, auto-matching unresolved entries by filename (case-insensitive). This is useful for batch relinking when files have been moved to a new location.
  • Search & Replace… — Opens a sub-dialog with Find and Replace text fields. Performs a string substitution on the original paths and verifies that the resulting path exists before relinking. This is ideal when only the root folder has changed (e.g., /old/server/ → /new/server/).
  • Skip All / Validate — Closes the dialog. The button text changes to Validate once all entries are resolved.
Note

After each successful relink, the focus automatically advances to the next unresolved entry, and the grid refreshes in real time.

Session Report

When the Media Reconform Dialog is closed, a summary is appended to the session opening report indicating how many files were resolved and listing the status of each entry. You can review this report from the session log.

Multiple Timeline Mixing

When multiple timelines contain tracks that reference the same input or source, their audio data is additively mixed. This means you can layer multiple timelines on top of each other — for example, combining a dialogue timeline with an ambience timeline that both feed into the same source — and their audio will be summed together automatically.