Editing Clips
The Edit view timeline is where you arrange and refine your audio. This chapter covers selecting, moving, trimming, fading, splitting, and the tools and modes that make editing fast — including ripple edit and the cursor tools.
By design: AnalogDAW's editing tools shape and arrange what you actually played — they trim, fade, gain, slip, split, and comp. There is no pitch correction and no timing quantization or time-stretching. If the tuning or the timing isn't right, the fix is another take, not a slider. This keeps the human feel of your recordings intact — see What AnalogDAW is — and what it isn't.
The timeline toolbar
At the top-right of the timeline ruler are the editing controls:
| Control | Icon | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Edit Tool | cursor | Choose the active cursor tool (see below). |
| Ripple Edit | signpost | Toggle ripple mode — moving/deleting shifts later clips. |
| Snap | lock | Toggle snapping to the musical grid. |
| Follow Playhead | arrow-to-line | Auto-scroll the view to keep the playhead in sight. |
| Zoom − / % / + | magnifiers | Zoom out, reset to 100% (tap the percentage), zoom in. |
The cursor tools
The edit tool changes what clicking and dragging on a clip does. Pick one from the Edit Tool menu:
| Tool | Icon | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Pointer | arrow | The default. Select, move, and trim clips; drag edges for trims and fades. |
| Marquee | dashed box | Drag a selection box across tracks to grab every clip it touches. |
| Range Select | viewfinder | Drag over clips to select a time range inside them without holding Command — then click the range to split the clips at its edges. |
| Pencil | pencil tip | Draw — used for adding automation points on automation lanes. |
| Move | hand | Pan/scroll the timeline by dragging anywhere — even over clips (handy on a trackpad or touch). |
| Slice | scissors | Click a clip to split it at that point. |
| Slip | left/right arrows | Slide the audio inside a clip without moving the clip's position — re-time what you hear within the same window. |
| Gain | up/down arrows | Drag on a clip to change its gain (loudness). |
| Eraser | eraser | Click a clip to delete it. |
On iPad & iPhone, a one-finger drag on a track lane pans the timeline (the natural touch gesture), so the rubber-band selection lives on its own Marquee tool — switch to it when you want to drag a selection box. On macOS, a Pointer drag on empty lane space marquee-selects directly.
Tip: The Pointer handles the vast majority of editing on its own — reach for the specialized tools when you want that behavior to be the default for every click.
Selecting clips
- Click / tap a clip to select it (with the Pointer).
- ⌘-click (macOS) to add/remove clips from a multi-selection.
- Right-click a clip to select it and open its context menu. If the clip is already part of a multi-selection, the selection is preserved for batch actions.
- Marquee-select across tracks:
- macOS — drag on empty lane space with the Pointer, or hold Shift and drag anywhere on the timeline, including over clips.
- iPad / iPhone — switch to the Marquee tool, then drag a box (a plain one-finger drag pans instead). The box sweeps over clips, so you can start it right on top of one.
- Select All —
⌘A. - Clear selection — from a clip's context menu.
Selected clips move, copy, delete, and process together.
Moving and arranging
- Drag a clip along its lane to reposition it in time, or to another track's lane.
- Option-drag a clip to leave the original in place and move a duplicate. When you release the drag, the duplicate becomes the selected clip.
- Command-drag across a clip to make a time-range selection inside the clip. The selection can cross multiple tracks; click the selected range to split the clips at the range start and end.
- Choose the Range Select cursor tool to make the same time-range selection without holding Command.
- To paste onto a different track, copy the clip, select the destination track
in the timeline, move the playhead, then press
⌘V. A multi-track clipboard preserves its source lanes starting at the selected destination track, creating additional destination tracks when needed until the track limit is reached. - Right-clicking a track lane and choosing Paste starts the paste from that lane, even when another track is selected.
- On iPad & iPhone, tap to select a clip first, then drag it to move. Dragging an unselected clip pans the timeline instead — so your finger can land anywhere while scrolling without nudging a clip out of place. (On macOS, any clip drags directly.)
- Pan the timeline by dragging an empty lane on touch, by trackpad/mouse scroll, or with the Move tool (which pans even over clips).
- With Snap on, edges snap to the bar/beat grid for tight, musical edits. Turn snap off for free placement.
- Nudge the playhead with the arrow keys (← / → move by a bar); jump to the
start (
Returnor⌘←) or the end (⌘→).
Trimming, fades, and gain
With the Pointer tool, hover a clip's edges and corners:
- Trim — drag the left or right edge to shorten or reveal more of the clip. Trimming is non-destructive; the underlying audio is untouched.
- Fades — drag a clip's top corner inward to create a fade-in or fade-out. Fades smooth the start/end and prevent clicks; crossfade two clips by overlapping their fades.
- Gain — use the Gain tool, or the clip's gain handle, to set the clip's level.
Other handy clip commands (from the clip's context menu):
- Rename Clip
- Reset Position & Trim — clears all trim and fades (revealing the full source file) and moves the clip to the very start of the timeline (position 0).
- Bounce in Place — select two or more clips on the same track and merge them into a single new audio file, with each clip's trim, fades, and gain printed in. This consolidates a chopped-up region into one tidy clip. (It renders the clips' own audio — it does not print the channel strip's EQ, compression, or inserts.)
Splitting and joining
- Split at Playhead —
⌘Tcuts the selected clip(s) at the playhead into two. (Or use the Slice tool to click-split anywhere.) - Join Selected Clips —
⌘Jreunites clips back into one. Join works on adjacent clips on the same track that came from the same source file (with no gap between them) — so it's the inverse of Split, rejoining pieces you cut apart. It won't merge unrelated clips or close a gap.
Copy, paste, duplicate, delete
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Cut | ⌘X |
| Copy | ⌘C |
| Paste (at the playhead) | ⌘V |
| Duplicate | ⌘D |
| Delete | Delete |
Paste drops clips at the current playhead position.
Ripple Edit
Ripple Edit keeps everything in sync when you remove or move material — later clips slide to follow, instead of leaving a gap.
- Ripple off (default): deleting a clip leaves an empty gap; moving a clip leaves the others where they are. Good for free-form arranging.
- Ripple on: deleting a clip closes the gap by pulling later clips on the track earlier; edits ripple down the timeline so timing stays continuous.
Turn it on with the signpost button in the timeline toolbar. Ripple is ideal for editing spoken word, podcasts, and any arrangement where removing a section should tighten everything that follows.
Note: Watch the ripple indicator before deleting — with ripple on, a delete shifts the rest of the track, which is exactly what you want for tightening, but a surprise if you forgot it was enabled.
Snap and zoom
- Snap locks edits to the bar/beat grid derived from your tempo and meter — toggle it for precise musical edits vs. free placement.
- Zoom in/out with the toolbar buttons,
⌘+/⌘−, or a pinch gesture (two fingers on a touchscreen, or a trackpad/Magic Mouse pinch); tap the zoom percentage to reset to 100%. Zoom keeps the centre of the view fixed, so the spot you're looking at stays put. Zoom in for sample-accurate edits, out for the big picture. - Follow Playhead auto-scrolls so the playhead stays visible during
playback and recording. It pauses automatically if you scroll manually; toggle
with
F.
Automation
Automation lets a control (like volume or pan) change over time. On the timeline, open a track's automation lane to draw moves:
- Toggle the lane with the "A" button in the track header — it lights purple when the lane is showing.
- Use the Pencil tool (or the Pointer) to add and drag breakpoints that the value glides between.
- Automation has playback modes (Read, Write, Touch, Latch) that decide whether moves are followed or recorded as you adjust the controls live — see Mixing.
The parameters you can automate are volume (fader), mute, pan, each aux send level, native processor parameters, and supported plug-in insert parameters. Long processor lists are grouped by processor family in the Automation menu.
Undo / Redo
Every edit is undoable. Undo is ⌘Z, Redo is ⇧⌘Z; both are also in
the main menu (☰) and clip context menus. Edit fearlessly.
Next: Mixing →