Linked Repetitions vs. Link To Original Clip(s) for MIDI clip

[Starship Krupa]

I think I know the answer to this, but I'm not 100% sure, and the manual is vague.

Quote

Linked Repetitions

Checking the Link Repetitions check box causes all the new clips to be linked clips with the clip you copied.

Link to Original Clip(s)

Checking the Link to Original Clip(s) check box creates a linked clip.

Okay, great. I have a MIDI clip. I want to copy it 10 more times along the timeline. I want all 10 copies to be linked to the original clip.

I can choose Linked Repetitions or Link to Original Clip(s) or even both.

Both choices sound like they'll do what I want, so what's the difference?

Linked Repetitions would cause the copies to be "linked with the clip copied." I want that.

Link to Original Clip(s) would create a linked clip. "A" linked clip, singular, as in only one of them would be linked to the original?

What about checking both?

Aha, closer inspection of The Reference Guide says on p. 485:

Quote

Linked Repetitions.
If you choose this option, only the new copies of the original clip are linked together. Edits you make to
the new copies do not affect the original, and vice versa.

Link to Original Clip(s).
If you choose this option, the new copies and the original clip are linked together. Edits you make
to any of the linked clips, including the original, affect all other linked clips in the group.

So with the first, the original is left out? The description in the online documentation seems wrong.

If these two are exclusive, why can I select both of them?

I'll try the second option first, by itself, and see what happens.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Starship Krupa
Clarified that this is MIDI

[tecknot]

Hi Erik,

It comes down to do you want edits to affect all linked clips or do you just want the clips to be linked?

Kind regards,

tecknot

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, tecknot said:

Hi Erik,

It comes down to do you want edits to affect all linked clips or do you just want the clips to be linked?

Kind regards,

tecknot

Thanks.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that this is a MIDI clip, not audio.

What you say seems to imply that there are different kinds of "linked clips." To me, "linked" means that what I do to one affects all the others. What is the point of making linked clips if edits don't affect all of them?

[tecknot]

On 10/1/2021 at 10:24 AM, Starship Krupa said:

...To me, "linked" means that what I do to one affects all the others. What is the point of making linked clips if edits don't affect all of them?

Hey Eric,

There are two different kinds of linked clips.  Say you want to edit some notes in one clip and want that same change in other copies of that clip, then you are wanting to choose Linked to Original clip.  On the other hand, if you want to make a change to one clip without affecting other copies of the clip, then choose Linked Repetitions in the case you only want to change the note(s) in one clip without affecting the others, but say you want to move the linked clips by only moving one clip (or you want to mute them by changing the state of only one).  All linked clips will follow.

Kind regards,

tecknot

[Starship Krupa]

I decided to just go ahead and do it the hard way and try all 3 permutations and see what I got.

Here's what happened:

First, I tried making 3 repetitions, and chose only "Link To Original Clip(s)." This resulted in having 4 clips (the original plus the 3 repeated ones). I'll call them 1-4.

Clips 1&2 had the dotted line around the outside to indicate they are part of a linked group, and only clips 1&2 (the original and the first copy) showed any of the linked behavior I expect. If I moved notes around in 1, they moved in 2 and vice versa. Clips 3&4 showed no linked behavior, each of them seems to be independent of the others. If I moved notes in clip 4, that move didn't propagate to any other clip. Also, when I selected clip 3, no other got selected, if I moved it to another lane no other got moved, same with muting and unmuting. That's consistent with the definition I understand of "linked" vs. "grouped."

From this, it looks like selecting this option gets you one clip that is linked with the original and then the rest are not.

Second I tried the same thing, but with only "Linked Repetitions" selected. Clips 2-4 appeared with dotted outlines.

This time, clips 2-4 behaved as if they were linked. Event changes in any of them were reflected in the other two. Moves and mutes/unmutes had no effect on fellow linked clips. Clip 1 was not affected.

Third, I tried checking both boxes. Again, the result was a row of 4 clips with dotted outlines.

This time, however, all event changes in the clips propagated to the other clips in the group. Change the pitch or length of a note in clip 1 and it changes in 4 and vice versa. Still no propagation of moves or mute state.

Conclusions:

Although the use case seems thin, "Link To Original Clip(s)" by itself gets you only the original and the first copy linked. The rest are not linked, to the original or each other.

"Linked Repetitions" is, intuitively, what you want if you want only the copies to be linked with each other. The original clip will not be part of the linked group.

Selecting both gets you what I initially wanted, which is that all copies are linked to the original and to each other.

In none of the cases were mute and unmute linked, nor were moves or slip edits, so maybe you were mixing up the two terms? The behavior you described is the difference between Grouped clips and Linked clips. There seems to be only one kind of Linked clip, the only difference in all of these options is which ones end up being linked when you create them.

I guess I'll submit my findings to the writer of manuals so that he can use them as he sees fit, if he thinks, as I do, that the documentation on this is vague.

[Xoo]

There are some other issues here I've just discovered (with MIDI) - it's a long time since I used this feature so I'd forgotten how it works:

- Deleting notes doesn't propogate

- Inserting notes doesn't propogate

- Dragging one note up/down PRV propogates; dragging multiple notes doesn't

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, Kevin Perry said:

There are some other issues here I've just discovered (with MIDI) - it's a long time since I used this feature so I'd forgotten how it works:

- Deleting notes doesn't propogate

- Inserting notes doesn't propogate

- Dragging one note up/down PRV propogates; dragging multiple notes doesn't

I just tried all of those operations and they worked. Given the oddities, are you sure the clips you were testing with were linked? It was hard for me to know until I figured out the options, as shown above. The documentation is misleading. The dotted outlines are hard for me to see.

To get what we normally think of as a string of linked clips that link to each other and the original, you have to tick both boxes.

[Xoo]

Yes, I'm sure, as moving notes worked fine.  I can retest, but...

[Xoo]

Nope, works fine now.  Go figure.