5. Clips and structure

Takes and comping

A clip can hold several takes: the attempts you recorded over the same place. It plays one of them at a time, and keeps the others, so you can compare them, switch, or take each bar from the attempt where it went best (comping). This page covers MIDI takes, played on a keyboard, a MIDI guitar or an e-kit into a fretted, keys or drum track; audio has its own take lanes, in Audio takes.

Takes and comping

Available on every platform.

Recording takes

Set the loop round the passage, and in the Transport pane’s record menu choose Keep Each Loop Pass as a Take. Then record and play it round: each pass becomes a take of one clip over the loop, numbered in order, and the clip plays the latest. See Loops, passes and takes.

A clip with takes says which it plays in its header, such as “take 3 of 4”.

Choose the take a clip plays

Right-click the clip’s header and, under Takes, choose one: Take 1, Take 2… The one playing is checked. The others are kept as they were, so you can go back to any of them.

Comp the best bars

To put one bar of another take into the clip:

1. Right-click the clip’s header over the bar you want to replace.
2. Choose Use This Bar From and the take.

The notes that start in that bar are replaced by the ones that start there in that take; the rest of the clip stays as it was. Do it bar by bar to build a performance from the best of each pass. Only the take playing changes; the take you borrow from stays as it was.

Keep only one

When it’s right, choose Keep Only the Take Playing: the other takes are removed and the clip is an ordinary clip again, with what it plays now.

Good to know

• Each choice is one undo step.
• Deleting a clip deletes its takes. Moving it to another track keeps only the take it plays.
• Takes belong to one clip. A linked copy never gets recorded into: a take that would land on one goes to another voice of the track instead.