Recording

Recording puts a performance on the timeline. Arm an audio track and Record captures the input chosen in Audio settings; arm an instrument track and Record captures what you play on a MIDI keyboard. Audio retakes collect automatically behind one result, ready for comping. MIDI recordings become editable note clips. Each recording session has its own undo step.

When to use it

Record a vocal or a guitar over an arrangement that is already playing, lay down a chord part on a synth with the pedal, or capture an idea quickly before it goes. Takes are kept dry, so the sound you shape afterwards with effects is a choice you can still change.

Controls

Arming

Each track header has an Arm button; one track records at a time. Arming an audio track also reveals its speaker button for live input monitoring. Frozen tracks cannot be armed.

Audio takes

Record starts from the cursor. The transport shows the microphone’s peak level so you can see clipping before you hear it. The take is mono and dry: effects on the track are heard through monitoring but not printed, so you can change them later. Stop recording ends the take and places it as an audio clip on the armed track, starting where you pressed Record. The input device comes from Audio settings; a missing device stops with a message rather than silently switching to the laptop microphone.

MIDI takes

With an instrument track armed, Record plays the song from the cursor and listens to the MIDI input. Notes, velocities and sustain pedal presses are timed on the audio clock. The transport keeps running past the last clip until you stop, so you can record into empty space. Stop closes any held notes, turns pedal presses into sustain regions and creates one clip named MIDI take. A take with no notes leaves the project unchanged. Timing is not quantized on the way in; the piano roll’s Q does that afterwards.

What stays fixed during a take

Set the loop before recording audio to collect one take per pass. The first pass supplies the result; later passes become alternatives without replacing it. Partial passes are kept too. Recording again over existing audio also adds an alternative, even when its start and end differ. Audio extending beyond the existing result fills that previously empty time.

MIDI recording runs forward without looping. Seeking and changes to the loop or region wait until recording stops. Takes are moved earlier by the recording latency, so they land where you played; measure it once with a loopback cable in Audio settings to make it exact.

Takes kept on disk

An audio take is also written to the browser’s storage while it records, so a crash or a closed tab does not lose it: the next time the studio opens, project recovery puts it back on its track. The copy is written away from the audio, and the take you get at Stop is exactly the same with it or without it. Settings › Keep takes on disk while recording switches it off. When the browser cannot keep takes, because it has no storage for them or too little free space, Audio settings says so under the recording input, and after Stop the status line says the take was not kept on disk. Recording itself is never held up.

Tips

• A take can become an instrument. Record while the song plays, cut the take into clips, and send them to a Sampler or a Single Sampler from the clip menu, or drag them onto one.

• Use headphones and turn off your interface’s direct monitoring when you listen through the software chain, or you will hear the input twice.

• For a MIDI part, set a loop over the section first and play it through a few times while the song loops; then record once you know the part. Recording itself does not loop.

• Open the audio clip’s takes badge to compare performances. New recordings keep the choices you already made.