Ableton/Live/UG/27 Clip Envelopes/05 Unlinking Clip Envelopes From Clips
- A clip envelope can be unlinked from its clip and given its own loop and region settings.
- To fade out over eight bars with only a one-bar loop:
- Choose Clip Gain or Mixer Track Volume and unlink it from the sample. The envelope's loop braces turn coloured and its own loop and region controls become active; the sample keeps looping while the envelope plays once.
- Type 8 into the envelope's loop length field.
- Drag up on the envelope's time ruler to zoom out fully.
- Add a breakpoint at the region end and drag it to the bottom.
- Turn on the envelope's own Loop switch and the eight-bar fade repeats over the one-bar sample. Any control works this way, such as a filter sweep every four bars.
- Make room by dragging the loop braces past the edge of the view or typing values. Lengths can be odd, such as 3.2.1.
- Several odd-length envelopes in one clip get complex; the start markers of sample and envelope give a shared reference for where playback begins.
- Markers, loop braces and drawing snap to the zoom-dependent grid.
- The reverse works too: a one-bar volume envelope loop over a sample several minutes long repeatedly cuts holes into it, for example removing every third beat.
- A looping clip envelope acts as an LFO synced to tempo, or unsynced with an odd loop length. Hide the grid to set loop points freely.
- Stretch and skew handles and automation shapes help design LFO shapes.
- Linked envelopes follow the clip's Warp Markers: moving a marker stretches or squeezes the envelope too. Warp Markers can also be adjusted from the envelope editor.
