Copying Arranger sections is yielding unexpected results

[Starship Krupa]

Background:

On my own songs I've mostly used Arranger Track to mark sections and not for much else.

However, at the moment I'm transcribing a more traditional folk song that sticks pretty close to intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus variation/verse etc. and I'm trying to use the feature to copy and paste sections.

I have the main verse, which is 5 measures long, then the first chorus, 3 measures long, then the verse again, then second chorus, which varies slightly from the first one. The third chorus is the same as the second one, so there are 3 unique sections and then these repeat in different orders.

I actually got 6 parts of the song entered in before I created arranger sections. I duplicated data using basic copy and paste.

Now that I have the Arranger Track set up I'm doing some tweaking of the MIDI velocities and note lengths and want to copy and paste the similar verses and choruses around to make changes.

The project has 4 tracks, in the form of 2 MIDI and 2 synth tracks. Track 1 is MIDI, Track 2 is a synth track, Track 3 is a synth track, and Track 4 is a MIDI track.

Where it goes sideways (literally):

I adjusted the notes in the first 5-bar verse and now wished to copy and paste it in place of the other existing 5-bar verses.

I clicked on a later arranger section (a 5-bar verse) to select it, then hit Del to get it out of the way. This worked as expected, the section was deleted.

I then clicked on the first 5-bar arranger section to select it, then right-clicked while holding Ctrl, and dragged the section to where I had deleted the other one.

I expected this to work like similar operations on clips, where the dragged copy just plops right down, but instead, everything to the right of the target space got scooted over by 5 measures.

Next I tried clicking on the arranger section, then Ctrl+C to copy it, click in the empty space to move the Now Time, and then Ctrl+V to paste it. This resulted in the section being pasted in at the correct place along the timeline, without moving things to the right, but it failed to copy and paste the correct content.

Instead, it created 3 new tracks below the original tracks, 2 synth and 1 MIDI. 5 empty measures were pasted into Track 4 and 5 measures with the data from Track 4 were pasted into the newly-created Track 7. On playback, the notes of Track 4 play back through the wrong synth. See attached screencap for these results.

For anyone able to follow this, am I doing something wrong? No, I don't have ripple edit turned on.🙂

 

[Sock Monkey]

Are you using the Arranger list in the inspector? 
 

Generally you simply create an intro, verse, chorus and a bridge. Ending. 
You open the arranger list and drag the parts to the lower window and “Arrange “ the song. 
 

Edited 16 hours ago by Sock Monkey

[msmcleod]

In your first example, where you'd deleted the section and wanted to copy the other section in its place... use CTRL + ALT instead.  By default, the arranger automatically shifts things along as you go.  If you don't want this, use the ALT modifier when moving, or ALT + CTRL when copying.

The CTRL + C / CTRL + V - the issue here was due to the active track not being the first track.  Paste always starts at the active track, regardless of where you copied from. 

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

By default, the arranger automatically shifts things along as you go.

After I posted this, I dug more deeply into the Reference Guide and discovered that it matters exactly where you drop the section. If I drop it in the center of the blank space, it behaves as I expected it to. If I drop it at the left edge, it slides everything to the right.