Chapter 7 Working with Tracks

This chapter covers advanced track features including using clips, track effect chains, track envelopes, groove mapping™, and stereo panning modes. You’ll also learn more about track types, track properties, track folders, and rendering tracks to new files.

Using clips with tracks

In previous versions of ACID®, each track in your project corresponded to a single media file. If you’re comfortable with the track-equals-media model, this version of ACID can behave in much the same way: when you add media to your

project, a new track is created for the media file. You can use the Draw and Paint tools to create events using the track’s media.

In this version of ACID, you can now add multiple media files — or clips — to one track. Think of clips as the palette you can dip your paintbrush in when you paint on the timeline. For example, if you want to use one track for all the guitar loops in your project, you can create a single guitar track and add each guitar loop as a separate clip. When a track has multiple clips, the Draw and Paint tools create events using the active clip.

A single audio track can contain any combination of loops, one-shots, or Beatmapped clips. MIDI tracks can contain only MIDI clips. For more information, see Understanding clip types on page 34.

On a track with a single clip, events are always created using the track's media.

On a track with multiple clips, each event can point to a different media file. In this example, each event represents one of the track's three clips.

The banner at the top of each event (i.e. Bongo 01, Bongo 02, and Bongo 03) displays the name of the event's source clip.

Adding clips to tracks

Drag a file from the Windows Explorer, Explorer Window, or Media Manager window to an existing track in the timeline to add a clip to the track and add an event where you drop the clip. The new clip is set as the active clip for creating events

with the Draw or Paint tool.

You can also record into a track to create a new clip.

Notes:

•You can drag single-stream MIDI files to a track to add clips. When you drag multistream MIDI files to a track, tracks and events are created.

•You can also drag events across tracks. When you drag an event to a new track, the event is added to the new track where you drop it, and a clip is added to the track’s clip pool.

•You can use the Chopper window to create new clips from the track’s existing media. For more information, see Using the Chopper on page 95.

•If you want to add a clip to a track without creating an event, drag a file from the Windows Explorer, Explorer Window, or Media Manager window and drop it on the Paint Clip Selector button.

•Hold Shift while clicking the Paint Clip Selector button to display the Open dialog, where you can add a new clip.

WORKING WITH TRACKS 101