Guide Playback and the loop

Playback and the loop

Play / Pause: the green button or Space. Playback starts exactly at the playhead, and notes that start right there play. With the loop on, a playhead at or past OUT jumps straight back to IN, so to play later parts turn the loop off (L) or move OUT.
Stop (the square): stops and sends the playhead back to the loop's In point.
Go to In (the skip-back button, or Home). If the In point is off screen, the view scrolls to it.
Playhead: click or drag anywhere on the ruler, or drag the red line. Works while playing too.

The transport bar: go to start, play, stop, record, loop, markers, metronome, the bar and timecode readouts, tools and snap. — The transport bar, with the bar and timecode readouts in the middle.

The loop

The amber region on the ruler, between the IN and OUT brackets, is the loop. With loop on (the Repeat button or L), playback goes round it, and the beat at IN plays on every pass. With it off, playback runs to the end of the timeline.

The ruler with the amber loop region between the IN and OUT brackets. — The loop: the amber region on the ruler, between IN and OUT.

Drag the IN and OUT brackets, or move the playhead and press I (set In) or O (set Out). They follow the snap grid; set SNAP to Off to place them anywhere.
For exact values, click the small chevron (˅) right of the Loop button. Loop range has In, Out and Length boxes in the ruler's units (bars, or timecode in Time mode); each accepts bars (17.3) or a timecode (00:00:12:15), and Length takes bars.beats (2.2) or a timecode duration. Enter applies. Typed values don't snap. Typing an In at or after the current Out moves the whole loop there.
A new project loops bars 1 to 5, so at first you only hear 4 bars. Press L to turn the loop off, or move OUT.

Going to an exact position

Both readouts in the toolbar are also input boxes. Click one, type a position, and press Enter to jump the playhead there, scrolling the view to it if it's off screen (Esc cancels):

BAR.BEAT.TICK: a bar (17), a bar and beat (17.3) or bar, beat and hundredths of a beat (17.3.50).
TIMECODE: a timecode (see below).