The arrangement

The arrangement is the big area in the middle: one row for each track, time running from left to right, and your regions sitting on the rows.

Regions

A region is a block on a track. An audio region plays a piece of a sound file; a MIDI region holds notes.

Click a region to choose it. Hold Shift and click to choose more.
Drag a region to move it, to another time or another track.
Drag its right edge to make it shorter or longer.
Hold Option and drag either edge to stretch it in time instead. Audio keeps its pitch, through the region's stretch mode; a MIDI region's notes stretch with it.
Option-Command-drag inside an audio region to slip its audio (see Slip editing).
Right-click a region for everything you can do to it: cut, copy, colour, mute, loop and more.
D makes a copy of the chosen regions right after them.

Tools

The pointer does different jobs depending on the tool. There are two tool buttons in the arrangement's toolbar:

Primary Tool: what a normal click and drag does.
Command-Click Tool: what a click does while you hold the Command key.

Press T to open the tool menu where the pointer is and pick a tool from it. The tools are Pointer, Pencil, Eraser, Scissors, Text, Join, Mute, Solo, Fade and Marquee. Choosing a tool never makes an undo step.

Snap

Snap makes regions land on the grid: bars, beats or smaller steps. Choose it from the Snap menu in the arrangement's toolbar. With snap off, things go exactly where you let go.

Under Snap To in the same menu, edits can also land on the edges of other regions, on markers and sections, on the hits in audio near the pointer, and — zoomed in close on an audio edge — where the waveform crosses zero, so the cut makes no click. Turn on as many as you like: whichever is nearest the pointer wins, and a thin line shows what an edge snapped to.

Drag modes

The Drag menu in the arrangement's toolbar says what happens when you move a region onto another on the same track. It also applies when you drag a region's edge.

Overlap: the moved region lands where you let go, on top of the one under it, and is the one that plays there.
No Overlap: the moved region never covers another. It jumps to just after the region it would land on when you move it right, or just before it when you move it left. A dragged edge stops at the next region.
X-Fade: the moved region lands on top, and where two audio regions overlap they get a crossfade the length of the overlap, so the change is smooth.
Shuffle R: the regions after the moved one are pushed right so nothing overlaps.
Shuffle L: the regions on the track are packed up against each other from the first one, closing every gap.

The button shows the current mode, and is lit when it is anything but Overlap.

The cycle

The cycle plays one part of the song again and again. It is the bright bar in the ruler.

Drag in the top of the ruler to draw it. Drag its middle to move it, its edges to change it.
L turns the cycle on and off.

The arrangement and the piano roll share one cycle: change it in one and the other follows.

The song's end

The small triangle in the ruler marks where the song ends. Drag it left or right to change the end; it lands on the grid when snap is on, and the change is one undo step.

It cannot go before the end of the last region, the end of the cycle, or the first bar. Moving or lengthening a region past it moves the end later by itself.

The song's end is what a bounce uses: with the cycle off, File ▸ Bounce renders from the start to the song's end, so drag it out to keep a reverb tail or in to trim silence. The last range in Export Ranges ends there too, and the playhead does not go past it.

Cutting and joining

⌘T cuts the chosen regions where the playhead is. With nothing chosen, it cuts the chosen track's regions.
J joins the chosen regions into one.
M mutes the chosen regions, and pressed again unmutes them.
⌥← and ⌥→ nudge the chosen regions earlier or later by the nudge amount (see Nudge amount).

Slip editing

Slipping moves the audio inside a region while the region itself stays where it is: to line up a late hit without moving the region's edges.

Hold Option and Command and drag inside an audio region. The audio follows the pointer, unsnapped, and the whole drag is one undo step.
Or choose Slip Audio Earlier (⌥⌘←) or Slip Audio Later (⌥⌘→), also in the region's right-click menu. Each press slips the chosen audio regions by one snap step, or a sixteenth with snap off.

The audio stops where its file runs out: a region that already plays its whole file has nothing to slip into. Claude can do this for you: ask it to slip a region's audio a number of beats earlier or later.

Tracks

To add a track, use the + buttons in the TRACKS header: Create instrument track, Create audio track, or Duplicate selected track. Track ▸ New Tracks… (⌥⌘N) asks first: Software Instrument or Audio, how many, and their settings. Track ▸ Duplicate Track copies the chosen track.

To reorder tracks, drag a track by its icon or name.

The header's buttons act on every track:

M: mutes every track; lit, it clears every mute.
S: solos every track; lit, it clears every solo.
H: shows hidden tracks. Each track then has its own H, lit when hidden: press it to show or hide that track.

Track ▸ Hide or Show Track hides the chosen tracks from the arrangement; they still play. Track ▸ Disable or Enable Track switches tracks off: they leave the engine and their plug-ins are unloaded until you switch them on.

An orange INACTIVE badge beside a track's name means the engine cannot play it, so it is silent. Point at it for the reason, such as a plug-in still loading or not running.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to create an instrument, drums, bass or audio track.

Moving tracks up and down

Choose a track and press ⌥⌘↑ or ⌥⌘↓ (Track ▸ Move Track Up, Track ▸ Move Track Down). The track moves past the next track shown, in one undo step.

Nudge amount

How far ⌥← and ⌥→ move the chosen regions is the nudge amount. Choose it in Edit ▸ Nudge Amount:

Grid: one snap step, as the arrangement's snap is set (a sixteenth with snap off).
1 Tick, 1 Beat or 1 Bar.
1 ms, 5 ms, 10 ms or 100 ms: real time, so 10 ms is 10 ms wherever the tempo changes.
1 Sample, 10 Samples or 100 Samples.
1 Frame at 24, 25 or 30 fps, for picture.

Every amount but Grid moves the regions exactly, without snapping. Each nudge is one undo step. The nudge amount is a preference: it stays the same for every song. Claude can nudge regions by any of these amounts for you.

Position and Move to Playhead

To put a region at an exact place, choose it and look in the inspector's Region section:

Position is where the region starts, as bar, beat, sixteenth and tick. Type a new one and press Return.
Length is how long it is, as beats, sixteenths and ticks.

With several regions chosen, they all move or change by the same amount, keeping their distance from each other. Each change is one undo step.

To move the chosen regions to the playhead, choose Edit ▸ Move Regions to Playhead (⌃;). The earliest one starts at the playhead and the rest keep their distance from it.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to move a region to a bar, or to make it a number of bars long.

Ripple editing

With ripple editing on, taking time out of a track closes the gap behind it, and making a region longer makes room for it.

Edit ▸ Ripple Per Track: only the track you edited moves.
Edit ▸ Ripple All Tracks: every track moves, and the markers and the automation move with them, so the song stays together.

Only one can be on. Choose the one that is on again to turn ripple editing off.

While it is on:

Delete or cut a region and every later region pulls left by its length.
Shorten a region by dragging either edge and the later regions pull left by what was taken off.
Make a region longer by dragging its right edge and the later regions push right by as much.

Each edit, ripple and all, is one undo step. Ripple editing is a preference: it stays as you set it for every song.

Clip gain on a region

An audio region has its own gain, before the track's fader: to tame one loud word or lift a quiet note without touching the mix. Choose an audio region and its gain line is drawn across it.

Drag the small handle in the middle of the region's top edge up or down to turn the whole region up or down.
With the Pointer tool, click on the gain line to add a point there, and drag from that click to move it.
Drag a point to move it. Option-click a point to delete it.

A click away from the line chooses and moves the region as usual. Each gesture is one undo step, and the audio editor shows the same gain. A looped region's gain is edited in the audio editor.

Ranges of time

The Marquee tool chooses a range of time across several tracks, not whole regions. With a range chosen:

Edit ▸ Split at Range Edges cuts every region at both ends of it.
Edit ▸ Insert Silence pushes everything after it later, to make room.
Edit ▸ Delete Time takes the range out and pulls the rest of the song in.

Audio that follows the tempo

An audio region can stay on its beats when you change the tempo. Choose it and look in the inspector:

Follow Tempo on: the region is stretched to fit the new tempo, and its pitch stays the same.
Stretch Mode says how it is stretched. Polyphonic is for mixes and chords, Monophonic for one voice, Slicing for drums, Rhythmic for guitars and keys.
Original Tempo is the tempo the audio was played at. Nebula can find it for you.

Markers and sections

Track ▸ Add Marker at Playhead puts a marker in the ruler. ; and ' jump between markers. Sections (verse, chorus) live in their own lane and can be moved with all their regions.

Global tracks

The global tracks are lanes under the ruler for things that belong to the whole song. Choose Track ▸ Show or Hide Global Tracks (G), or click the global tracks button in the TRACKS header, to show or hide them. Choose which lanes appear in Track ▸ Configure Global Tracks, or right-click that button.

Arrangement: sections such as Intro, Verse and Chorus. Drag on the lane to draw one, + adds one at the playhead, double-click renames. Dragging a section moves its music with it; Option-drag copies it; Command-drag moves the section alone.
Marker: named flags. Click one to go there, drag to move it, double-click the lane to add one.
Signature: time signature and key. Click one to change it; double-click the lane to add a change at that bar.
Tempo: the song's tempo map (see The tempo track).
Chord: the chord track (see its own chapter).
Tape Stops: tape stops over the whole mix (see Tape stops).

Arranger chains

An arranger chain plays the song's sections in an order of your own, without moving any music. Try the bridge after the second chorus, or the chorus twice at the end, and listen before you change anything. It works like Cubase's arranger chains.

Draw the sections on the Arrangement global track (Intro, Verse, Chorus…).
Click the arranger chain button (the numbered list) in the Arrangement track's header, or choose Track ▸ Arranger Chain ▸ Edit Arranger Chain…, which works while the global tracks are hidden. The panel opens.
Choose New Chain. It starts with every section in the song's order.
Change the order with the up and down arrows, set how many times a step plays with its × stepper (1 to 16), take a step out with ✕, and add a section with Add Section. You can also right-click a section on the lane and choose Add to Arranger Chain.
Turn on Play Chain and press Play. The playhead jumps from section to section in the chain's order. The button glows orange while a chain plays.

Each change to a chain is one undo step. Choosing a chain and turning Play Chain on or off are not, because they do not change the song.

A song can have several chains. Choose one from the menu at the top of the panel, where you can also rename or delete it.
Track ▸ Arranger Chain also has Play Arranger Chain and Flatten Arranger Chain, for the chain chosen in the panel. Each item can have a key: give it one in the Key Commands window.
Turning on the cycle, or starting a recording, turns Play Chain off: both work on the song as it lies. A banner above the tracks says so; its Play Chain button plays the chain again once you are done.
Tempo, signature and key changes stay where they are in the song, as they do when a section moves.
A bounce while a chain plays is the chain: the whole of it, in its order, as you hear it. Order in the Bounce dialog chooses the song or any chain, so you can bounce a chain without flattening it, or the song while a chain plays.

Flatten

When the chain is right, click Flatten. The song becomes the chain: its sections in the chain's order, as many times as they repeat, with their regions, notes, automation, chords and markers. Sections the chain leaves out are gone. What is written is exactly what the chain played. The chain itself goes, because it has become the song. Flatten is one undo step, so ⌘Z puts the song and the chain back.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to try the sections in another order, play that chain, and flatten it when you like it.

Scratch pads

A scratch pad is another version of the whole song to try ideas on, like Studio One's Scratch Pads. Make one, change anything you like, and switch back to the song with one click.

Click the scratch pads button (two squares) in the Arrangement track's header, or choose Track ▸ Scratch Pads, which lists the pads too.
Choose New Scratch Pad for an empty version, or Duplicate Song as Scratch Pad for a copy of everything that plays now.
The new pad plays. Edit it as you would the song.
Open the menu again and choose Song to go back, or any other pad to play it. The one playing has a tick, and the button's tooltip names it.

Each pad keeps its music as a track alternative of the same name on every track (see Track alternatives in its own chapter), so you can also switch a single track by hand. Plug-ins, mix settings, track automation, sections, tempo and chords belong to the song, so they are the same in every pad.

Song is the song as it was before the first pad. It is always there while there are other pads.
Choose Rename with the pad's name to give the playing pad a name of its own, and Delete with its name to delete it and its music. When the last pad goes, the song is as it was before.
New, switch, rename and delete are each one undo step.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to start a scratch pad, sketch something on it, and switch between the pads.

The tempo track

Show the Tempo global track to change tempo during the song. The line is flat where the tempo holds and sloped where it glides.

Double-click the lane to add a tempo change there.
Drag a point to move it.
Drag a flat stretch up or down to change its tempo.
Right-click a point and choose Glide to Next to ramp to the next change, or Hold to keep the tempo until it. Delete Tempo Change removes it.
Right-click the lane's header for Clear Tempo Changes.

Notes, audio that follows the tempo, and the click all follow the map. Claude can do this for you: ask it to write the song's tempo map, with changes that hold or glide.

Tap tempo

Tap the tempo in, from a feel or from a record playing next to you: choose Transport ▸ Tap Tempo (⇧T) on each beat, or click TAP under the tempo in the transport bar.

The second tap sets a tempo, and each tap after it sets the tempo of the last four taps, so one uneven tap moves it only a little.
Stop for two seconds and the next tap starts counting again.
With tempo changes in the song, the taps set the tempo where the playhead is, the one the transport bar shows.
A run of taps is one undo step, however many taps it has.

Tape stops

A tape stop slows the whole mix to a stop and then brings the music back exactly on the beat, the move before a drop.

Show the Tape Stops global track.
Drag on an empty part of the lane to draw a stop, from a quarter of a beat up to 16 beats long.
Drag a stop to move it, or drag an edge to resize it. Stops never overlap.
Right-click a stop to choose Tape Stop (a straight slow-down), Vinyl Stop (fast at first, then easing) or Backspin, or Delete Tape Stop.

To stop just one audio region, select it and use In Speed and Out Speed in the inspector. Out Speed chooses whether the fade-out lowers the level (Volume) or slows the region to a stop (Tape Stop, Vinyl Stop, Backspin); In Speed chooses whether the fade-in raises the level or spins the region up to speed (Tape Start, Vinyl Start).

Claude can do this for you: ask it to add a tape stop at a bar.

Zoom

⌘+ and ⌘- zoom time in and out.
⌥⌘+ and ⌥⌘- make the tracks taller or shorter.
Z fills the window with the chosen regions, or the whole song when none are chosen.

The clip launcher

The clip launcher is Logic's Live Loops and Bitwig's clip launcher: a grid beside the arrangement where the song's tracks are columns and scenes are rows, and each cell holds a looping clip — audio, MIDI or a pattern. Choose View ▸ Clip Launcher to show it in the bottom panel.

Choose Add Launcher Scene (the button in the launcher's bar, or Track ▸ Add Launcher Scene) for a row of cells. A launcher scene is a row of the launcher; it is not a mix scene, which keeps a mix by name.
Drag a region from the arrangement onto a cell to copy it there. The region stays where it was. A track's column takes clips of its own kind: an instrument track MIDI, any other track audio.
Drag a clip from a cell onto the arrangement to place one loop of it there, or right-click it and choose Place in Arrangement at Playhead.

Click a clip to choose it; the launcher's right-hand side shows its settings. Editing the grid is an undo step; playing it never is. View ▸ Clip Launcher (⌃⌘L) shows or hides it.

Launching clips and scenes

Click a clip's triangle to launch it. It starts on its next line — its launch quantize: none, a note value, or one, two or four bars — and loops until something else plays in its column. If the song is stopped, it starts.
Click a scene's triangle to launch its row: every clip in it starts together on the scene's line, set by the quantize menu in the launcher's bar. A track the launcher is playing with nothing in the row stops there.
While the song plays, a launch is placed a little ahead of the playhead, so the clip's first notes are planned with the rest: a clip launched just before a line may wait for the next one.

A launched clip plays as a region of its track, through the same mixer, plug-ins and engine as the arrangement: it sounds exactly as the same region would.

Follow actions and play modes

Loop: how long one loop of the clip is. It steps by bars.
Follow action: what happens after the clip has played After loops — Next or Previous clip in its column (wrapping round), Random (another clip in the column), Again, or Stop. None loops for ever.
Play mode: Trigger starts the clip, again if it is playing. Gate plays it only while its triangle is held. Toggle starts it, and a second click stops it.

Back to Arrangement

A track plays either its launched clip or its arrangement. Once a clip is launched on a track, the launcher holds it: stopping the clip leaves the track silent rather than going back to its regions, as in Bitwig and Live.

Each column's arrow, or Back to Arrangement in the launcher's bar or the Transport menu, gives the tracks back to their arrangement on the next line. The button lights while any track plays the launcher.
Each column's square stops its clip; Stop All Clips stops every one.
Stopping the song stops every clip; the tracks stay the launcher's until Back to Arrangement.
A bounce is the arrangement: the launcher is played, not written, until you record its performance.

Record Performance

Turn on Record Performance (the round button in the launcher's bar, or Transport ▸ Record Performance into Arrangement) and play the launcher. When you turn it off or stop the song, what was heard is written into the arrangement as regions on each track the launcher played — and silence where a clip was stopped. It is one undo step, and the arrangement then plays back exactly what you heard.

Launcher clips by key

Click a cell, empty or not, and the launcher has the keys, as the arrangement and the piano roll do:

↩ opens the chosen clip in its editor (see below); so does a double-click.
⌫ deletes it, D puts a copy in the first empty cell below it — a new launcher scene when the column is full.
⌘C and ⌘X keep it with its loop and launch settings; ⌘V puts it in the chosen cell, or the first empty one below when that cell holds a clip. A column takes only its own kind of clip.
⇧N renames it; type the name and press Return.
⌃⌘. stops every clip and ⌃⌘A gives every track back to its arrangement, wherever you are.

Each edit is one undo step, named for what it did: Undo Duplicate Launcher Clip.

A launcher clip in its editor

A launcher clip opens in the editor of its kind beside the launcher, so you see the grid and the clip together: the piano roll for notes, the step sequencer for a step pattern, the session player's view for a player, the audio editor for audio. What you change there is the clip itself, in its cell; the arrangement is not touched. The editor's close button closes it and leaves the launcher.

An audio clip is edited in the audio editor as a region is: drag its edges to trim it, its corners to fade it, and its gain with the Gain tool or the right-click menu (+1 dB, −3 dB, Normalize). Each edit is one undo step. The clip always starts at the beginning of its cell, so trimming its start takes the beats off its front. A MIDI clip shows in the score too (the editor's View menu ▸ Score), from its own first bar, and what you write there is written in the clip.

A session player in a cell follows the chords where it is launched: launched at bar 9 it plays bar 9's chords, as the same player in the arrangement would. Record Performance writes it into the arrangement as a session player region, which goes on following the chords there.

Recording into a cell

Arm a track, then right-click an empty cell in its column and choose Record 1 Bar, 2 Bars, 4 Bars or 8 Bars. Recording starts on the next bar line and stops after that many bars; the take goes into the cell, not the arrangement, and the clip starts playing at once in time with the bars it was played over. The take is one undo step.

Scoring to picture

A song can have one movie to score to — an ad, a trailer, a video — as in Logic. Choose File ▸ Import Movie… and pick a QuickTime or MPEG-4 file (H.264, HEVC or ProRes). The movie is referenced where it lies, not copied into the song, so a large file costs nothing to save; File ▸ Consolidate Movie copies it into the song when you want a song that carries its picture. Importing a movie replaces any the song had, and is one undo step.

The picture shows in the bottom panel (View ▸ Movie), or in a window of its own — on a second display as a picture monitor — with the window button in its bar. It follows the transport: it shows the frame you hear, with the output's latency taken into account, jumps when you locate, and stands on the playhead's frame while the song is stopped. It never moves the song. With Varispeed or Speed Only it runs at the same speed; a movie that cannot play at that speed holds its frame and says so. The movie's own sound is never heard from the picture.
The Movie track, among the global tracks, shows thumbnails of the picture where it plays. They are made in the background and appear as they are ready.
The movie's sound: Track ▸ Import Movie Audio puts it on a new audio track, starting where the picture plays. One undo step.
Timecode: View ▸ SMPTE Ruler shows SMPTE timecode on the ruler in place of the beats, at the song's frame rate — 24, 25, 29.97 drop frame or 30, chosen from the Movie track's menu. Navigate ▸ Set Song Start to Movie Start puts the movie's first frame at the song's start and takes the song's timecode from the movie's own, so the ruler and MIDI Time Code read as the code burnt into the picture. With a movie, a new marker lands on the start of the frame showing at the playhead, and markers dragged while the ruler reads SMPTE land on frames.

Export Movie

File ▸ Export Movie… bounces the part of the song the picture covers and writes it into a copy of the movie as its sound. The picture is passed through exactly as it is — never encoded again — and the sound is uncompressed, at 48 kHz and your bounce bit depth (24-bit when you bounce at 32-bit float). Tick Add stems as extra sound tracks to put each stem after the mix as a sound track of its own, switched off, as a post house expects. A panel shows how far it has got, with Cancel; a cancelled export leaves nothing behind. Set Varispeed and Speed Only back to 100% first: the picture runs at the song's own speed.

Claude can do this for you: ask it to import a movie, to tell you its frame rate and timecode, or to export the mix into it.