6 Playlist

The playlist is where you arrange the song. It has tracks, laid out top to bottom, and a ruler numbered in bars along the top. You place clips on the tracks: sample clips play an audio file, and pattern clips play a pattern from the Pattern Sequencer (see 7 Patterns and sequencer).

The playlist is 128 bars long, in bars of the project's time signature. If clips already reach further than that, it reaches to the end of the last clip.

Open it with Window ▸ Playlist.

1. Tray — The mouse tools and snap (see 6-2 and 6-6).
2. Ruler — Numbered in bars. Zoomed in, it numbers each beat too: 3.2 is bar 3, beat 2. Click or drag here to move the playhead.
3. Tracks — Each track has its own mixer strip.
4. Clips — Sample clips show their waveform. Pattern clips show a lane for each row with notes in the pattern. When every row's notes are plain steps (as the Pattern Sequencer shows them), each lit step is a block a step wide. Otherwise a sample row's notes are short ticks and a synth row's are bars. A pattern clip longer than its pattern shows faint lines where the pattern starts over.
5. New track area — Below the last track. Drop a clip here to put it on a new track.

6-1 Moving around

• Scroll: mouse wheel or two-finger swipe. Up and down scrolls through the tracks; left and right (or Shift with the wheel) scrolls along the timeline.
• Zoom: ⌘ (Ctrl) with the wheel, or pinch on a trackpad. Zooming in stops once the grid is down to 1/16 notes.
• Pan: drag on empty track space.
• Move the playhead: click or drag in the ruler.

6-2 Tools

The tray above the ruler has three mouse tools. Only one is active at a time; its LED is lit.

Button	Key	What it does
Select (S)	S	Selects, moves and trims clips.
Draw (D)	D	Paints pattern clips along a track. On a clip, it works as Select.
Cut (C)	C	The cut tool. Click a clip to split it in two.

The keys work while the playlist is the focused tab. A tool stays on until you pick another.

6-2-1 Select tool

• Select a clip: click it.
• Add or remove a clip from the selection: Shift-click it.
• Select with a box (lasso): Shift-drag, starting anywhere except a clip's edge. Every clip the box touches is selected, replacing the previous selection. A box that touches no clips leaves it as it was.
• Select every clip: ⌘A (Ctrl+A).
• Clear the selection: click empty track space, or press Esc.
• Move clips: drag a clip. If it's selected, the rest of the selection moves with it. Drop it in the new track area to put it on a new track.
• Open a clip: double-click it. A sample clip opens in the Sample tab (see Samples); a pattern clip opens its pattern in the Pattern Sequencer.

6-2-2 Cut tool

With the cut tool, a dashed line shows where a click would cut.

1. Press C, or click Cut (C).
2. Click a clip where you want to cut it.

The clip becomes two clips. If the clip is selected, every other selected clip that spans that beat, on any track, is cut too. The cut lands on the snap grid (or the playhead, see 6-6). A cut can't be made closer to an edge than the shortest a clip can be.

With the cut tool, double-clicking doesn't open the clip. Shift-click and Shift-drag still select.

6-2-3 Draw tool

The draw tool paints clips of the pattern you selected or made last (in the Pattern Sequencer, the pattern browser or the Piano Roll).

1. Press D, or click Draw (D).
2. Drag along empty space on a track.

Outlines show where the clips will go. When you let go, clips of the pattern are laid end to end from where the drag started, the last one cut short where it ended. A click without dragging places one whole clip. Both ends of the drag land on the snap grid (see 6-6); hold Option (Alt) to turn snapping off.

If no pattern has been selected since the project opened (or the last one was deleted), the drag makes a new, empty pattern, long enough to hold it in whole bars, and one clip of it. Open the clip to fill it in.

Each paint is one step to undo, the new pattern with it.

6-3 Adding clips

Drag from the sidebar into the playlist. A preview shows where the clip will land.

• Samples: from the Samples page (see Samples).
• Recordings: from the Recordings page (see Basic recording).
• Clips: from the Clips page (see Samples).
• Patterns: from the Patterns page, or from the Pattern Sequencer (see 7-7). The Draw tool paints them too (6-2-3).

Drop on a track, or in the new track area to add a track. With snap on, the clip's start lands on the grid.

6-4 Trimming and stretching

6-4-1 Trimming

Move the pointer just inside either end of a clip. A bar marks the edge. Drag the edge to shorten or lengthen the clip. The sound stays where it is in time; only the part that plays changes.

• If the clip is selected, the same edge of every selected clip moves by the same amount.
• A sample clip's edges can't go past the start or end of its sample.
• A pattern clip's left edge can't go back past where its pattern starts. Its right edge can go past the pattern's end, as far as the playlist's end: the clip then plays the pattern over and over, and faint lines mark where it starts again.
• No edge goes past the playlist's start.
• Esc while dragging puts the clips back.

A pattern clip keeps its own length. Making its pattern longer or shorter doesn't change the clip; drag its edge instead.

6-4-2 Stretching

Shift-drag a clip's edge to stretch a sample clip, like tape: its pitch changes so it plays for the new length. The other edge stays where it is.

Stretching works on sample clips only. The pitch can go up to 24 semitones either way.

6-5 Editing commands

The commands act on the selected clips while the playlist is the focused tab. Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Repeat, Select All and Join are also on the Edit menu. Most are on the clip right-click menu (see 6-8).

Command	Keys	What it does
Undo	⌘Z (Ctrl+Z)	Undoes the last change.
Redo	⇧⌘Z (Ctrl+Shift+Z)	Redoes it.
Copy	⌘C (Ctrl+C)	Copies the clips to the clipboard.
Cut	⌘X (Ctrl+X)	Copies the clips to the clipboard and removes them.
Paste	⌘V (Ctrl+V)	Pastes at the playhead (see below).
Repeat	⌘R (Ctrl+R)	Places a copy of the clips right after them.
Select All	⌘A (Ctrl+A)	Selects every clip.
Join	Shift+J	Makes one clip of the selected clips.
Explode	Shift+E	Splits pattern clips into a track per row.
Delete	Delete (or Backspace)	Removes the clips.

See also the Shortcuts page.

6-5-1 Copy, Cut and Paste

The clipboard belongs to Dawesome; the system clipboard is left alone.

Paste (⌘V) places the clips so the earliest starts at the playhead, on the snap grid, on the tracks they came from. To paste somewhere else, right-click empty track space and choose Paste: the clips go at that point, with the topmost on that track. Nothing is pasted if a clip would start past the end of the playlist.

6-5-2 Repeat

Repeat (⌘R) copies the selected clips so the copies start where the originals end. The copies are selected, so pressing ⌘R again adds the next copy after them.

6-5-3 Join

Join (Shift+J) makes one clip from two or more clips. The clips must be on one track and of one kind.

• Sample clips that are neighbouring parts of one sample (for example, the halves of a cut) are put back together.
• Other sample clips are written out as one new WAV file, from the earliest start to the latest end, with silence in the gaps. The file goes in the project's clips folder.
• Pattern clips become one clip of a new pattern holding their notes one after another, as the clips play them (a looping clip's every time round), each row's together. The new pattern is named after the old ones (Verse + Chorus). The halves of a cut clip that still meet go back to one clip of their pattern. The clips must sit on the same sixteenth-note grid as the first one, and span no more than 128 bars.

If a join isn't possible, a message says why.

6-5-4 Explode

Explode into tracks (Shift+E) splits each selected pattern clip into one pattern clip per row with notes in it, sample row or synth row, each on its own track (so its own mixer strip). Each new clip plays a pattern of just that row's notes, named after the pattern and the row (Verse (Kick)), with the clip's length, so a looping clip explodes to looping clips. A synth row's plugin gets a copy on its new track.

• The first row stays on the clip's track, unless other sounds are on it. The rest go on the empty tracks below it (new tracks past the last one). A row whose clips already sit on a track of their own, from an earlier explode, goes back to that track.
• Tracks without a name are named after their rows.
• A pattern an earlier explode made, with exactly that row's notes, is used again rather than made twice.
• Sample clips, and clips of a pattern with no notes, are left alone.

6-5-5 Deep copy

Deep copy (clip menu only) writes each clip out as a WAV file of its own and switches the clip to play it. The file holds the clip as it plays: its trim, pitch, fades, pan and gain (not its track's strip or the master). The clip's settings go back to their defaults so nothing is applied twice. A pattern clip becomes a sample clip. The file it played before is left alone.

CAUTION

A deep copy of a pattern clip holds only its sample rows' notes. Synth rows' notes aren't written into the file, so they go silent.

The files go in the project's clips folder and appear on the Clips page of the sidebar.

NOTE

Deep copy and a Join that writes a file need a saved project. If the project has never been saved, the Save dialog opens first.

6-6 Snap

The tray's snap controls set the grid that clips, edges and cuts land on.

• Snap to grid — Turns snap on or off. Its LED is lit when on.
• Snap menu — The grid size: 1 bar, 1/2 bar, 1 beat, 1/2 beat or 1/4 beat. The menu is dimmed while snap is off.

When you drag an edge or use the cut tool with playback stopped, the edge or cut also snaps to the playhead when it's nearer than the grid. Hold Option (Alt) while dragging an edge or cutting to turn snapping off.

6-7 Loop

Loop in the top bar turns looping on or off. With loop on, playback jumps back to the start of the loop at its end. Clips still sounding at the loop's end stop there.

6-7-1 Loop end

With no loop region, the loop runs from the start of the playlist. It ends at the end of the last clip, rounded up to the next bar line (four bars on an empty playlist). A flag in the ruler marks where it ends.

• Drag the flag to move the loop's end. It snaps to the grid, and stays where you drop it when clips move.
• Double-click the flag to let it follow the last clip again.

6-7-2 Loop region

A loop region loops part of the playlist. It shows as a band in the ruler, with a flag at each end, and the lanes outside it are slightly dimmed.

• Shift+drag along the ruler to draw a region. Drawing one turns loop on.
• Drag either edge to move it. Dragging an edge past the other swaps them. Dropping one edge on the other removes the region.
• Shift+click, or double-click the band, to remove it.
• A click inside the band still moves the playhead.

Edges snap to the grid when snap is on. If you press play with the playhead before the region, playback plays into it, then loops it. With the playhead past the region, playback starts at the region's start.

With loop off, the region stays in the ruler, dimmed, and playback plays through it.

The loop region and a dragged loop end are saved with the project. Undo doesn't change them.

6-8 Clip menu

Right-click a clip to open its menu. If the clip is selected, the command acts on the whole selection; otherwise only on that clip.

Item	Shown	What it does
Explode into tracks (⇧E)	Pattern clips	See 6-5-4.
Open in Pattern Sequencer	Pattern clips	Shows the clip's pattern in the Pattern Sequencer.
Cut (⌘X)	Always	Copies to the clipboard and removes.
Copy (⌘C)	Always	Copies to the clipboard.
Paste (⌘V)	Clipboard not empty	Pastes at the playhead.
Repeat (⌘R)	Always	See 6-5-2.
Split at playhead	Playhead inside the clip	Cuts the clip (and, if it's selected, the other selected clips) at the playhead.
Join (⇧J)	Two or more clips	See 6-5-3.
Deep copy	Always	See 6-5-5.
Delete (⌫)	Always	Removes the clips.

Right-click empty track space to get a menu with only Paste, when the clipboard isn't empty.

The menu closes when you choose an item, click elsewhere, press Esc, or scroll.