Importing audio

Audio comes into a project as WAV files. Drag one or several from your computer onto the timeline, onto a track, or onto the empty workspace, or choose Import audio / MIDI… from the File menu. Each file becomes an audio clip at the drop position, snapped to the grid, on the track you dropped it on or on a new track of its own. The song keeps playing while the files are read, and the clips appear together as one edit.

When to use it

Use it for stems from another session, a vocal recorded elsewhere, a loop, a field recording. For a drum hit or a note you want to play from a keyboard, drop the file on a Sampler pad instead; for a MIDI file see MIDI file import. A .drtape file dropped on the workspace opens as a project rather than importing.

Controls

Dropping files

Dropping on an existing track places the clips there, starting at the pointer. Dropping on empty space, or on the empty project’s invitation to drop WAV or MIDI files, creates a track per file. A mixed drop of WAV and MIDI files is prepared as one batch and lands as one undo step; if a later file turns out to be invalid, the valid files before it are kept and the error is shown.

Formats

WAV, mono or stereo, at any sample rate. A file at another rate than the project’s is converted as it comes in, and the file you dropped is kept unchanged inside the project; see project sample rate.

While the song plays

Files are read and scanned off the main thread. When they are ready the arrangement switches over with a short fade and continues from where it was. If you pause during preparation the clips still land, but playback stays paused; a failed read leaves the song exactly as it was.

After the drop

The clip shows its waveform at every zoom, down to a few samples per pixel. Trim, split, fade, loop and reverse it like any other clip; the source audio is never changed, and it travels inside the project file.

Tips

• Stems at 44.1 kHz and files at 96 kHz can share one project; each is converted once, and the clip’s tooltip names the original rate.
• Long files are fine: waveform detail is read only for the part of the clip you can see, so scrolling stays smooth.
• Recording into the project produces the same kind of clip; see Recording.