waveform: moving the start of a clip TO THE LEFT

[Liz Gupton]

How do you move the start of a clip to the left?

I can move the end of a clip to the right, and I get a bracket cursor at the start of a clip that makes me think I can move it, but I can only move it to the right.

I do this often: I create a few measures and then decide I need to start the melody 1/8 note before the start of my clip. Or a note at the beginning of my clip has a slow attack and I want to start it a fraction of a beat into the previous measure.

Surely those are common things, right? How do you do it?

I'm having to create another clip and then merge them. It works, but someone thought to implement dragging the start of the clip, but didn't allow it to be moved to the left?

What am I missing? Why does both waveform and REAPER make this particular thing hard to do?

[pough]

Why does both waveform and REAPER make this particular thing hard to do?

I don't know about Reaper, but I think in Waveform the start of a clip is zero. Move the left edge doesn't just open up space, it changes the start point of every note and CC within the clip. Maybe that's why. I don't really know.

One thing you can do is add a new empty clip, put it to the left of the clip you want to expand leftward, select them both, and merge them together (Alt-M).

[Peter Widdicombe]

There are multiple things to be aware of with both MIDI and audio clips - and I think they work the same way. There may be some variations...

1. If you drag the title bar of the clip itself, it moves left and right, or moves the contents to another track. This moves the clip and contents as a chunk. Note if the clip starts right at the beginning (0,0,0) you can't drag it left, as it would be before the start time. One reason you MAY want to always have a 1 or 2 bar initial gap at the start of a piece, so you can add a leadin later? This one's fairly easy to understand.
2. You can drag the CONTENTS of the clip back and forth within the WINDOW of the clip. That initial square block center top of the clip does that. Note that the clip stays in it's original place, but all the notes/content are shifted within the clip.

Note that these are non-destructive. If you shift contents LEFT, the notes dragged off on the left won't play, but are still there, so you can drag contents back.
Also note you can drag the end of a clip left or right to either add space or add additional content; or "cut off" junk at the end of the clip. If you play 3 bars, you can shorten it to 2; and then click the L at the top for a loop, and drag the > top right and loop the 2 bars as long as you like. It's apparent as the visual of the "core portion" of the looped section and the repeated contents are visibly different. In THIS manner you can adjust what's in the first part of the loop (easier if midi) to repeat.

... or you can simply copy and paste that 2-bar section where you like and have REAL copies you can manipulate, or LINKED copies that are "live replicas" of that initial part... but that's a whole other topic. I'm sure there's a video explaining the variations.

[Liz Gupton]

the start of a clip is zero. Move the left edge doesn't just open up space, it changes the start point of every note and CC within the clip.

The same thing happens if you select everything in the clip and move it. From a data perspective, not only is there a solution, there is already functionality that needs to do that. REAPER shows everything as offsets from measures, and I'm assuming waveform does, too, but from a data perspective, I'm sure both store evens as offsets from the beginning of their container, plus a position of their container. Moving the start of the container, left or right (and remember Waveform does let you move it right) moves the position of the container, and the contents would need to be repositioned.

One thing you can do is add a new empty clip, put it to the left of the clip you want to expand leftward, select them both, and merge them together (Alt-M).

As I mentioned, that's what I'm doing. In REAPER you can drag the start left and it loops and duplicates the contents, so you have to "glue" the contents and then delete the stuff it added. Or you change a property of the container and then just move the start point the way you wanted to. You just had to be aware that you could do that.

[Liz Gupton]

You can drag the CONTENTS of the clip back and forth within the WINDOW of the clip. That initial square block center top of the clip does that. Note that the clip stays in it's original place, but all the notes/content are shifted within the clip.

This doesn't work. I can reproduce the problem on a brand new project. I can drag the contents left but not right, even if I've left room to move it right. The offset displaying in the box above the clip tells me it is moving right, but it is not.

One of the things I tried to resolve my initial problem is to move the whole clip one grid to the left and then use that first drag box to move the contents right one grid, and that didn't work.

So it seems that with both dragging things AND dragging the start of the clip, you can decrease the space before events but not increase it. Why?

[pough]

The same thing happens if you select everything in the clip and move it. From a data perspective, not only is there a solution, there is already functionality that needs to do that.

Agreed. I would like to have the ability to extend the left edge of MIDI clips. And some have mentioned in other threads that it would also be nice to extend the left edge of audio clips (adding blank audio.) I don't know if there are technical limitations, if the idea was never considered, or it was considered and rejected.

Moving the start of the container, left or right (and remember Waveform does let you move it right) moves the position of the container, and the contents would need to be repositioned.

Waveform Edit files are XML and the MIDI clips are stored within them, so you can look for yourself. The clips have a position relative to the track, a length, and an offset (which changes when the left edge is moved to the right from its zero point.) Events have a position relative to the entire clip. Moving the right edge of a clip in any direction does not change the event positions. Moving the left edge to the right does not change event positions. If you could move the left edge of a clip to the left beyond its zero point, it would change the start position of every event within it. It seems (to me) that this could be done, and I hope that one day it will happen.