Clip groups

SONAR lets you treat multiple clips as a single unit. By grouping clips, you can select and edit an entire group of clips by simply selecting or editing any group member. A group can contain both audio and MIDI clips from a single track or from multiple tracks.

Clip groups are very useful, for example, when editing multitrack drums and you want to synchronize edits on all clips from the same recording take.

You can instruct SONAR to automatically group clips after recording multiple tracks simultaneously, or you can add and remove clips from a group after the clips have been recorded.

Grouped clips are indicated by a group number before the clip name.

Figure 95. Grouped clips

A. The group number is displayed next to the clip name

To group clips during multitrack recording

You can specify how clips should be grouped when recording multiple tracks simultaneously.

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > Project - Record, or right-click the Record button to access recording settings.

2.	Under Multi-track grouping, select one of the following options:

Group all clips. All clips that are recorded at the same time are placed in a clip group.

Group only clips in folders (default). All clips in folders are grouped. Different folders have different groups. Tracks not in folders are not grouped.

Do not group tracks. Each new take will belong to a different clip group if loop recording is enabled.

After recording is complete, all new clips are grouped together. When loop recording, each pass of the loop gets placed in its own group.

Two discrete steps are placed in the Undo history. The first step is the actual recording and the second step is for Create Clip Group. This allows you to undo the clip group, if desired, without losing the recording.

The following example shows two takes of a five track loop recording. The first clip group is selected.

 

Note: The Group Clips Across Tracks setting is stored with each project.

To create a clip group

1.	Select all the clips you want to group together.

2.	Do one of the following:

Press [ (square bracket).

Right-click any selected clip, point to Add to Clip Group and choose New from the pop-up menu.

A new clip group is created and the group number is displayed next to each clip name.

Note: A clip may only belong to one clip group at a time. If any of the selected clips already belong to another clip group, they will be removed from the other group and placed in the new group.

To add clips to an existing clip group

1.	Click on any clip in the existing group.

All clips in the group are selected.

2.	Hold down the CTRL key and click the clips that you want to add to the group.

3.	Right-click any selected clip, point to Add to Clip Group and choose the desired group from the pop-up menu.

All selected clips are placed in a new clip group.

Note: A clip may only belong to one clip group at a time. If any of the selected clips already belong to another clip group, they will be removed from the other group and placed in the new group.

To remove clips from a clip group

1.	Select the clips you want to remove from the group.

Tip: To select only a single clip in a group, hold down the SHIFT key and click the clip that you want to remove from the group.

2.	Right-click any selected clip and choose Remove from Clip Group from the pop-up menu.

The selected clips are no longer grouped.

To remove all clip groups

1.	Do one of the following:

On the Edit menu, point to Select and choose All.

Press CTRL+A.

All clips are selected.

2.	Do one of the following:

Press SHIFT+[ (square bracket).

Right-click any selected clip and choose Remove from Clip Group from the pop-up menu.

The selected clips are no longer grouped.

Using editing tools on grouped clips

The Select, Mute and Split tools behave as follows when editing grouped clips:

Select tool :

Clicking a clip in a group will also select all other clips in the same group.

Lasso-selecting will select clips that are touched by the lasso as well as other clips in the same group that intersect the lasso time range.

Split tool :

Clicking an unselected clip will split that clip and all other clips in the same group that intersect the split time.

If a previous selection exists, clicking will split only the clips in the selection.

Selecting a range will split all clips in the group that intersect that range.

Mute tool . The Mute tool has several modes of operation. The corresponding mode is indicated in square brackets.

[Mute Entire Clips mode] Clicking an unselected clip will mute that clip and all other clips in the same group.

[Mute Entire Clips mode] If a previous selection exists, clicking will mute only the clips in the selection.

[Mute Entire Clips mode] Lasso-selecting will mute clips that are touched by the lasso as well as other clips in the same group that intersect the lasso time range.

[Mute Time Ranges mode] Selecting a range will mute all clips in the group that intersect that time range.

Note: Muting a time range is limited to one track or take lane at a time.

[Isolate mode] Isolate mode does not follow clip groups for clips that live in the same track.

SONAR can automatically create a new clip group when splitting clips in an existing clip group. To specify the split behavior, follow these steps:

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > Customization - Editing.

2.	Under Clips, select the When splitting clips in groups, create new groups check box.

For more information about splitting clips, see Splitting and combining clips.

Copying and pasting grouped clips

When you copy and paste clips that belong to a clip group, you can specify if the pasted clips should be placed in a new clip group or continue to be grouped with the original clip group. By default, a new clip group is created. You can change the behavior by adding the following line to the [WinCake] section of the Cakewalk.ini file:

[WinCake]

CreateNewGroupsOnPaste=1

 

The values are as follows:

0 = The pasted clips will belong to the same clip group as the clips that were copied.

1 = A new clip group is created for the pasted clips. This is the default behavior.

To view and edit the Cakewalk.ini file, go to Edit > Preferences > File - Initialization File.

For more information about the Cakewalk.ini file, see Initialization files.