Ableton/Live/UG/08 Clip View/01 Clip View Layout
- The Clip View has a title bar, clip panels on the left, and an editor on the right: the Sample Editor for audio clips, the MIDI Note Editor for MIDI clips. See Ableton/Clip/View.
- Open it by double-clicking a clip, with the Clip View Selector or its toggle, or with
Cmd+Option+3 (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+3 (Win). Opened with the toggle while the Device View is showing, it stacks above it. Drag its top border to resize; dragging it to the bottom closes it. - It always shows the selected clip. With two windows it opens in the focused one;
F12 moves it to the other window, as does Shift+Tab when "Use Tab Key to Navigate" is off. One window can stay on clip editing while the other shows Session or Arrangement. - Clicking a track's status display in Session View opens the clip playing on that track.
- Holds the Clip Activator toggle, the clip's name and color, and, for audio clips, the Save Default Clip button.
8.1.1.1 Clip Activator Toggle
- Turns a clip off so it doesn't play when launched or during Arrangement playback; also available from the clip's context menu or with
0. Applies to every selected clip.
8.1.1.2 Clip Name
- A clip takes its file's name by default. Rename it from the title bar's context menu, or with Edit → Rename; Edit Info Text adds a description (Ableton/Info Text, Ableton/Clip/Q/Can info text move with the clip).
- Renaming an audio clip doesn't rename its sample; rename the file in the browser.
- With several clips selected, the title bar shows how many, and a rename applies to all of them.
8.1.1.3 Clip Color
- New clips take their track's color. Pick another from the title bar or clip context menu.
- Assign Track Color to Clips, in a track header's context menu, resets them; on a Group Track, Assign Track Color to Grouped Tracks and Clips colors everything inside. Each affects only the view you run it in, Session or Arrangement.
- With several clips selected, the title bar shows stripes, but a chosen color still applies to all.
- Related: Ableton/How To/Produce a single sample audio clip for color coding.
8.1.1.4 Saving Default Audio Clip Settings with the Sample
- Save Default Clip stores the clip's settings, Warp Markers above all, in the sample's analysis file (Ableton/File/.asd), for every selected clip.
- Live restores them whenever the sample is dropped into a Set from then on; existing clips aren't changed. A Live Clip, unlike this, also saves devices.
- Main and Extended Clip Properties panels, shared by both clip types, hold start, end, loop, time signature, groove and scale, plus launch settings for Session clips.
- Audio clips add the Audio Utilities and Audio Transformation panels; MIDI clips add Pitch and Time Utilities and the MIDI Transformation and Generative panels.
- Panels can sit side by side or stacked. Drag the panels' right edge left to stack them, or right to go back, or choose Arrange Clip View Panels Vertically, Horizontally or Automatically in the View menu. Live remembers the choice.
- Double-click the title bar, or choose Fold, to minimize the panels.
- Audio clips switch between the Sample Editor and the Envelope Editor; MIDI clips between the MIDI Note Editor, Envelope Editor and MPE Editor. Use the tabs, the View menu, or
Option+Tab (Mac) / Alt+Tab (Win).- Sample Editor: the waveform and warping.
- Envelope Editor: clip envelopes that automate or modulate effects, mixer, clip and MIDI controls.
- MIDI Note Editor: notes and velocities.
- MPE Editor: per-note MIDI Polyphonic Expression.