Is it possible to scrub?

I used to have a Roland VS-840, a recording device that recorded on zip disk. (Just to give some context where this question is coming from.)

That device provided a way to move the playhead while repeatedly playing a small fraction of audio. It would either play a small fraction ‘starting from’ the playhead or a small fraction ‘up to’ the playhead. This allowed to find the beginning of words/syllables in a recording.

I’d like to use autotune to correct a few off notes, but for that I’d like to be able to find the exact start and end of the syllables. Is there a way in Ardour to mimic the VS-840 behavior? I guess I could do it by creating a small range that I’d loop. But then I’m looking for a way to gradually move the position of the loop back and forth.

Suggestion?

Regards,
Wilbert

No, we removed scrubbing several years ago.

Control surfaces that provide jog wheels can still move the playhead around in a quite satisfying way, but they are doing what used to be called “shuttle” rather than “scrub”.

Ha, I have such a control surface (behringer). It has a jog wheel. Turning it moves the playhead back and forth.
Should it work in that way that I’d have to push ‘play’ and then control the varispeed with the jogwheel? Like turning if a bit clockwise would increase the playback speed. Counter-clockwise to decrease (until stop and then play backwards)?
I tried to find some posts on the behringer and the jog-wheel but didn’t find anything usefull so far.

No, as mentioned we no longer support scrubbing.

Ah that’s a pity. Thanks for the answer. Final request: did you post the rationale? I’d like to read and learn about it.

We never did it very well. It is very hard to do it properly across many tracks. Several DAWs only do a “scrub” that is similar to CD player ffwd/rewind, rather than varispeed, and if we bought it back, it is more likely we’d do that. Doing it across 1 track and well really requires a totally different model than “drag the playhead” (mouse tracking is hard to implement well, too).