Reference Manual

271 Clip Envelopes
20.2.3 Muting or Attenuating Notes in a Sample
Select “Clip” in the Device chooser and “Volume Modulation” in the Control chooser. By draw-
ing steps in Draw Mode or creating shapes with breakpoints, you can impose an arbitrary vol-
ume shape onto the sample.
Imposing a Volume Envelope on a Sample.
The volume envelope’s output is interpreted as a relative percentage of the clip volume slider’s
current value. The result of the clip envelope’s modulation can therefore never exceed the abso-
lute volume setting, but the clip envelope can drag the audible volume down to silence.
20.2.4 Scrambling Beats
One very creative use of clip envelopes is to modulate the sample offset. Sample offset modula-
tion makes the most sense for rhythmical samples, and is only available for clips that are set up
to run in the Beats Warp Mode.
Try sample offset modulation with a one-bar drum loop: Make sure Beats Mode is chosen; in the
Envelopes box, choose “Clip“ from the Device chooser and “Sample Offset“ from the Control
chooser. The Envelope Editor appears with a vertical grid overlay. In envelope Draw Mode, set
steps to non-zero values to hear the loop scrambled. What is going on?
Imagine the audio is read out by a tape head, the position of which is modulated by the enve-
lope. The higher a value the envelope delivers, the farther away the tape head is from its center
position. Positive envelope values move the head towards the “future,“ negative values move it
towards the “past.“ Fortunately, Live performs the modulation in beats rather than centimeters: A
vertical grid line is worth a sixteenth note of offset and the modulation can reach from plus eight
sixteenths to minus eight sixteenths.