Reference Manual

277 Clip Envelopes
We depart from the clip we just set up to fade out over eight bars. Activate the clip volume
envelope’s Loop switch. Now, as you play the clip, you can hear the eight-bar fade-out repeat-
ing. You can draw or edit any envelope to superimpose onto the sample loop. This, of course,
not only works for volume but for any other control as well; how about a filter sweep every four
bars?
Note that you can create as much time as needed in the Envelope Editor, either by dragging the
loop braces beyond the view limit, or by entering values into the numeric region/loop controls.
You can choose an arbitrary loop length for each envelope, including odd lengths like 3.2.1. It
is not hard to imagine great complexity (and confusion!) arising from several odd-length enve-
lopes in one clip.
The Sample (Left) and Envelope (Right) Start Marker.
To keep this complexity under control, it is important to have a common point of reference. The
start marker identifies the point where sample or envelope playback depart from when the clip
starts.
Note that the start/end markers and loop brace are subject to quantization by the zoom-adap-
tive grid (page 82), as is envelope drawing.
20.5.3 Imposing Rhythm Patterns onto Samples
So far, we have been talking about imposing long envelopes onto small loops. You can also
think of interesting applications that work the other way around. Consider a sample of a song
that is several minutes long. This sample could be played by a clip with a one-bar volume en-
velope loop. The volume envelope loop now works as a pattern that is repeatedly “punching“
holes into the music so as to, perhaps, remove every third beat. You can certainly think of other
parameters that such a pattern could modulate in interesting ways.