Audio and MIDI Clips

NOTE. These descriptions of clips have been written from the Expert Arranger Screen mode point of view as we feel this mode provides the best overall workflow and experience. If you are using the Beginner Arranger Screen mode you will find that the clips do not have the Three Dot Button or the Clip Trimming Handles shown here. When in this mode, you will need to have the Scroll mode button activated to allow you to long press a clip and open the Clip/Track Options. You will need the Edit mode button activated to allow you to trim, move clips and change their relative volume using the Volume Handles. For more information on the two modes, please see here.

Once recorded, created or imported, audio and MIDI is shown as a clip on the track's timeline. Here, we are going to quickly look at the display of individual clips and the functionality they give you access to.

As you can see above, audio clips display the audio wave present in the clip on the timeline. MIDI clips display the MIDI note events contained in the clip on the piano roll/timeline. To select an individual clip, tap on it once. As you can see, selecting the clip reverses the color scheme and displays various controls. These controls are the same for both audio and MIDI clips, though some of the menu options are different. We shall look at an audio clip as our example and any differences found in MIDI clips will be covered afterwards.

NOTE. When enabled in the Settings , double tapping an audio clip will allow you to open it in Vocal Tune Studio. When this option is deselected, an audio clip can be opened in Vocal Tune Studio via its Clip Options.

NOTE. If the selected clip is too small on the display for these controls to be shown, please zoom in to make the clip larger on the display using pinch/pull in the timeline area.

At either end of the selected clip, there are Clip Trimming Handles. In Beginner mode, with the Edit mode active, these handles are not explicitly displayed, but tapping on the edge of the clip will initiate trimming just as well. As the name suggests, these can be used to quickly and easily edit the length of the clip. Touch, hold and slide the white handles (or just the edge in Beginner mode) to trim your clip. Don't forget the Grid functionality if you want to easily snap to an increment of the current tempo when trimming - or, indeed, turn snapping off completely if you want to trim your clip freely. Remember you can resize the scale of the clips on the display by using two fingers to pin/pull if you need to see greater detail. This process of resizing the clips does not 'cut' or 'destroy' their original content but simply changes what is heard, and seen, of the original content in your project: drag on the Clip Trimming Handles again and you'll find all of the clip's original content is still intact; it's just out of view.

If you want to move your clip on the timeline of its track - or move it onto another track of the same type (audio or MIDI) - tap and hold the central area of the clip and slide it to the desired location. In Beginner mode, the Edit button needs to be activated first. If you drag an audio clip over an existing audio clip you will see the following pop-up.

This allows you to define how you would like the overlapping samples/clips to interact. Cancel cancels the whole operation and returns the clip moved back to where it was. Replace places the clip moved at the point defined and trims the clip underneath where it is overlapping with the clip moved so that only the clip moved is heard in playback. Cross-fade applies as cross-fade between the two clips where they overlap. A cross-fade fades out the signal of the first source as it simultaneously fades in the signal from a second source (as long as there is enough time length of audio present in both clips for the action to be carried out). Once created, the cross-fade (or cross-fades if one clip is moved completely within another longer clip - a cross-fade will be created at either end of the short clip moved) is shown as its own separate clip on the track timeline. Remember, as mentioned above, with these processes of 'replacing' and 'cross-fading', the original clips are not being 'cut' or 'destroyed', but rather trimmed to fit the requirements: drag on the Clip Trimming Handles and you'll find all of their original content still intact.

If you drag a MIDI clip over another MIDI clip, their MIDI data will be 'combined' and performed together (though they will remain as separate clips (unless you manually combine them using Merge Clips in the MIDI Clips/Track Options).

At the top of a selected clip, the Volume Handles can be found (if the clip displayed is large enough, otherwise you will need to zoom in horizontally and/or vertically until the white boxes appear). These three handle/boxes allow you to set the volume for each clip in relation to other clips. The Volume Handles also allow you to apply a simple volume envelope to each clip - a fade in from and a fade out to silence - if desired. This clip volume control is separate from the overall track volume, controlled by the volume fader on the channel strip and the volume block on the FX Grid, and works by allowing you to attenuate (lower, or reduce) the volume available from the individual clip. Tap, hold and slide the central handle/box up and down to set the overall clip volume. When it is at the top it has a level of 0.0dB meaning no attenuation will be applied and the clip is as loud as it can be (unless you apply normalization to increase the overall waveform level). When the handle is completely at the bottom the clip level has been fully attenuated to -infinity dB, to silence. The fade-in handle/box is on the left. Move it to the right to define the length of the fade-in from silence. The fade-out handle/box is on the right. Move it to the left to define the length of the fade-out to silence. Both fade-in and fade-out handles can also be moved up and down to set the overall clip volume as the center button does. The volume level is displayed in the playback timer display as the handles are moved.

Finally, in Expert mode, there is the Three Dot Button. Tapping this once opens the Clip/Track options which give you full control over the clip and its contents. This is where the options for audio and MIDI tracks differ slightly and so we shall cover them separately next.