Input node
Timeline
Draw your own curves over one time axis and get every curve as an output. Markers fire one-frame triggers. The clock can be the patch time, a cable, a scrub fader, a free-running transport, an armed trigger or a beat grid driven by BPM.
Inputs
| Port | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Time SourceWhat drives the playhead. Internal: the patch clock, a pure function — equal settings replay equally. External: the Time cable IS the clock. Scrub: 0–1 is the loop region. Free: your own transport (Play, Speed, Restart). Trigger: armed at In, fires on a Restart edge. Beat: beats from BPM, resynced by Beat pulses. | int | 0 |
| TimeExternal only: the clock, in the timeline's unit. Cable a Video or Audio Player's Time, a Timer's Seconds, a transcription playhead. | float | 0 |
| ScrubScrub only: 0 = In point, 1 = Out point. A fader, an LFO or an EEG channel becomes the playhead. Markers fire on forward motion only. | float | 0 |
| PlayFree / Trigger / Beat: run while true, hold the position while false. | bool | true |
| SpeedPlayback rate. Negative runs backwards, 0 freezes. In Internal mode a change jumps the position (pure function of the clock) — ride Speed live in Free mode. | float | 1 |
| RestartRising edge: back to the In point (Free / Beat / Internal) or fire the armed timeline (Trigger). A cable already true on the first frame does not restart. | bool | false |
| Loop ModeLoop wraps and pulses Loop. Once — Hold parks at the end (Finished true). Once — Return jumps back to In and holds. Ping-Pong bounces between In and Out. | int | 0 |
| In PointStart of the loop region, 0–1 of Length. The editor's loop brace edits the same value. | float | 0 |
| Out PointEnd of the loop region, 0–1 of Length. Never closer than 5 % to In. | float | 1 |
| LengthExtent of the time axis, in seconds or beats (Time Unit). Keys past the end are still evaluated through the track's extrapolation. | float | 8 |
| Time UnitSeconds, or Beats — then Length, keys and markers are in beats and BPM sets the grid. Beat source always uses beats. | int | 0 |
| BPMTempo for beat units and the Beat source. Cable Audio Analysis' BPM, a Composer's BPM or a Constant. | float | 120 |
| BeatBeat source: a pulse (Audio Beat Detection, Pulse) that pulls the playhead toward the nearest beat by Sync Strength. | bool | false |
| Sync StrengthHow hard a Beat pulse corrects the phase: 0 ignores pulses, 1 snaps to the beat, in between eases toward it. | float | 0.5 |
| Launch QuantizeTrigger source with beats: a fire waits for the next beat or bar boundary, like a clip launch. | int | 0 |
| OffsetAdded to the position before wrapping — the LFO's Phase, in time units. | float | 0 |
Outputs
| Port | Type |
|---|---|
| TimeExternal only: the clock, in the timeline's unit. Cable a Video or Audio Player's Time, a Timer's Seconds, a transcription playhead. | float |
| Progress | float |
| Playing | bool |
| Cycle | int |
| Loop | bool |
| Finished | bool |
| Values | structure |
How It Works
Timeline is an LFO whose waveform you draw. One time axis carries many named curves; each curve gets its own output port, keyed by the track's id, so renaming a track keeps its cable attached. A marker lane runs alongside them, and every marker fires a one-frame trigger as the playhead passes it.
What moves the playhead is chosen by Time Source, and this is the node's real range: a free-running transport of its own; the patch clock; a cable, where any float scrubs the axis directly; a Scrub fader; a Trigger sampler pad that arms and fires; or a Beat grid driven by BPM, with Sync Strength and Launch Quantize so a launch lands on the bar. Loop Mode, In Point, Out Point, Speed and Offset shape the playback; Time Unit makes the axis read in seconds or in beats.
Besides the per-curve outputs there is a full transport report: Time, Progress, Playing, Cycle, Loop, Finished, and a Values structure carrying every track at once. Two Timelines in one patch are born with distinct names and each keeps its own wall clock, so two render views cannot make one of them run double.
The curves themselves are sculpted in the Curve Editor — a floating panel (⌥⌘K, or double-click the node) bound to the node by id, so it stays on your curve while you select and cable other nodes.
Use Cases
- Choreographed animation — Draw the exact rise, hold and fall of a parameter instead of approximating it with an LFO and a Remap. Several parameters share one time axis, so they stay in step by construction.
- A show cue list — Markers fire triggers: a camera move, a clip change, a DMX blackout, a recorder start, all on one timeline.
- Beat-locked motion — Time Source: Beat with BPM from Audio Beat Detection makes every curve musical, and Launch Quantize makes a manual launch land on the bar.
- Scrubbing for authoring — Drive Time Source from a cable while you build, so you can park the patch at any moment and see it.
- Deterministic replay — Transcription, Kinetic Text and the display family all run on Timeline's clock in Timeline mode, so a recording replays exactly what the room saw.
Tips
- Step tracks draw as steps and emit integers; Gate tracks threshold to a bool — right for mode switches and on/off cues.
- Freehand-draw a curve with the mouse and the editor simplifies the stroke into keys; then clean it up with Smooth and Simplify.
- Proportional edit (with a scroll-resizable falloff ring) moves a neighbourhood of keys together — the fastest way to reshape a long curve.
- Copy a selection and paste it into another track: clips travel through the pasteboard as JSON and rescale into the target range.
- Every gesture in the editor is one undo step, and the panel watches the stored curve, so an inspector edit shows up in the editor immediately.
- The panel remembers its frame and whether it was open, and comes back that way at launch.
Open Timeline in the interactive catalog →
Timeline is one of 381 nodes in Grafit Pro.
Free download. Every feature for 7 days, no card. Then €99.99 once — or keep playing your projects as a Player.