Change background colors to distinguish clips in the Piano Roll

[Starship Krupa]

Something that has long bothered me is how when I have View/Show Clip Outlines enabled in the Piano Roll View, there would be shading for clips, but no indication where one clip left off and the other started.

By accident, I discovered a way to tell clips on the same track apart from each other. It may be obvious to others, but it took me 3 years of using this program to stumble on it, so maybe not everyone knows.

First, ain't this lovely?

That's a single track with the clips showing up in different colors. Great for working with linked clips or just to know where one leaves off and the other starts.

How to do it? It's the Inspector. Just select the clip you want to color, open the Inspector, click on the "Clip" tab at the top, and choose a Background color. The background color you choose for each clip will show up in the Piano Roll View.

That's all there is to it. It may look a little different on your screen depending on whether you're using a custom theme. My themes use dark backgrounds for selected clips.

I hope this helps someone, it's really helped me with keeping track of clips in the PRV. It also helps distinguish them in Track View. Foreground color will change the color of the data, or events in the clips but only in Track View.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Starship Krupa

[Jim Fogle]

Thanks for sharing this.  I had not thought of coloring clip backgrounds but it make a huge difference when working on clips, doesn't it?