Clip launcher

The clip launcher lets you trigger repeating phrases in any order. Choose Clip launcher in the Studio rail. Each row is a track and each column can hold one clip per track.

A launcher clip has its own notes and repeat length. This differs from an arrangement clip, which places a track's shared pattern on the timeline.

Create and edit a clip#

Double-click an empty slot, focus it and press Enter, or right-click it and choose Create clip. Studio creates New phrase, two bars long, and opens its notes in the Editor dock. Write notes with the piano roll or drum roll.

Click an existing clip's body to open it. The small triangle at its top right launches it instead. Opening a clip loads its material into the track's editing pattern; switching among launcher clips can therefore change the phrase used by that track's arrangement placements.

The grid draws at least eight columns, with more visible when there is room, up to 16. Empty columns beyond the stored set are placeholders. Creating a clip or giving such a column a name makes the required columns active.

Launch music#

Launching a clip starts the transport if it is stopped. A queued clip pulses until its start boundary. A playing clip has a moving progress line. One track plays one launcher clip at a time; another launch on that row replaces it.

Launching a whole column also stops tracks whose slots are empty in that column. It does not simply leave their previous clips running.

Choose launch timing#

Launch quantise at the bottom right offers:

When the transport is stopped, a launch takes effect immediately regardless of this setting. During playback, stop-track and stop-all actions also follow the launch boundary. One launch timing setting applies to the project; columns do not have separate settings.

Move and manage clips#

Drag a clip to move it to another slot. Hold Alt while dragging to copy it. Right-click a clip for:

• Rename clip, up to 80 characters.
• Clip colour, with five swatches.
• Length, choosing 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars.
• Duplicate clip, which uses the next free slot on the same track and grows the stored columns when possible.
• Delete clip.

Ctrl+D, or Cmd+D on a Mac, duplicates a selected clip. Delete removes it. If notes are selected in the open editor, editing keys act on those notes first.

Length sets the loop cycle. The ordinary note editor still exposes 32 sixteenth-note steps, or 16 for a one-bar clip. Choosing eight bars does not add an eight-bar piano roll; it can leave space after the written phrase before the cycle repeats.

The track's mute and solo controls still apply. The recording-arm indication appears on its clips, but recording follows the selected track and the transport's Record notes setting.

Name and manage columns#

Double-click a column heading to rename it. Names can contain up to 32 characters. Enter or clicking away applies the name; Escape cancels.

An active column's right-click menu offers Insert column, Duplicate column, Rename column, Delete column and Stop all clips. At least one column must remain, and no more than 16 can be stored. Duplicating a column makes separate copies of its clips. A placeholder column offers Rename column and Stop all clips.

Returning to the arrangement#

Choosing Arrange changes the view, but it does not return launched tracks to timeline control. A launched track remains under launcher control even after its clip has been stopped. The current interface has no separate action that hands those tracks back to the arrangement.

To resume normal timeline playback, keep your project saved, open a different project and reopen the one you want to play. Merely closing Studio preserves the current session and does not reset this state. See projects for safely switching projects.

The currently running clip performance is not recorded into the arrangement by launching it. Audio export renders the saved song, rather than a record of the order in which you pressed launch buttons.