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The arrangement

See the whole song on one timeline, listen to a few bars, and record or bring in audio.

The Arrangement tab shows the whole song as a timeline. Where the node editor shows how blocks are connected, the arrangement shows when each of them plays.

Reading it#

• The ruler at the top counts the bars, with the seconds beside them. The tempo decides how many seconds a bar takes.
• Every block with sound or notes has a row. The coloured bar in a row is the stretch of bars in which that block plays: its at and for, or its named parts.
• Below the ruler, when the song is built, the waveform of the whole song is drawn. Click in it to jump to that moment.
• − and + change how wide a bar is. A block you right-click offers Open in source, which jumps to its text.

Listening to a few bars#

1. Press the mouse on the ruler and drag to the right: a band shows the chosen bars.
2. Press the button that says, for example, preview bars 4-8 (or the Play bars button in the header).
3. AMPLE builds just that stretch if it has to, and plays it.

This is the quickest way to work on one place of a song: choose the bars, listen, change something, listen again. Turn on loop to hear them over and over.

Recording and importing audio#

Two buttons at the top of the tab bring sound in from outside:

• Record… records from the microphone. You can listen to it first, and then add the take to the project as a file.
• Separate and transcribe audio… takes a recording and tries to split it into parts and write down the notes in it. It uses a local analysis tool that has to be installed on your computer, and it stays on your machine.

Next: the keys that make all this faster, in Keyboard shortcuts.