Recording & editing

Audio recording from input to comped take, then the timeline tools in the order you are likely to reach for them. MIDI has its own page. Shortcuts are the OpenStudio default keyboard profile; Primary (and the Ctrl below) is Ctrl on Windows and Linux and Cmd on macOS.

Inputs, arming, and monitoring

1. Confirm the device in View → Audio Settings…. Its channels are what the track input dropdown offers.
2. On each track, pick the input in the track header and choose Stereo (a channel pair) or Mono (one channel).
3. Click the red Record Arm circle, or press Ctrl+Shift+R with track controls or the mixer focused to arm/disarm selected tracks. The transport's Record button stays disabled until at least one track is armed; arm several to record them together.
4. Toggle Monitor to hear the live input through the track's input FX and track FX, at a delay set by your buffer size.

Buffer size, drivers, and the macOS microphone permission are in Audio setup.

Recording, record modes, and loops

1. Position the playhead where recording should begin; 1 or Home goes to absolute time zero, independent of the time selection.
2. Press R, Ctrl+R, numpad *, or the transport Record button. The status reads [Recording].
3. Press Record again, Space, or Stop to finish; there is no separate stop key in the default profile.
4. The new clip appears on the armed track. Audio is written as WAV into OpenStudio/Audio inside your Documents folder and referenced by the project.

Options → Record Mode decides what happens when you record over existing material. The mode shows as a transport badge whenever it is not Normal.

For loop recording, make a time selection and choose View → Set Loop to Selection, which also enables looping. Then arm and record. Looping is not punch recording; a separate punch control is not exposed in the current UI.

Takes and comping

Multiple loop passes within one recording session become takes on one clip. Only the active take plays; switch it from the clip's take menu.

1. Record as many takes as you need over the section.
2. Run Edit → Explode Takes to New Tracks to lay them out on separate tracks. Neither take command has a default key; both are in the Edit menu and Command Palette.
3. Split or razor-edit the best pieces from each track.
4. Select the pieces and run Edit → Implode Clips into Takes to fold them back into one clip.

Selection, moving, and nudging

• Click a clip to select it; Primary+click adds or removes one. Drag on empty space to marquee-select. Ctrl+Shift+A selects every clip, Esc clears.
• Click a track header to select the track; Ctrl+Click multi-selects, Shift+Click selects a range, Ctrl+A selects all tracks.
• Primary+drag on the timeline background creates an edit time selection; Shift+drag on the ruler sets or extends it. It drives selection-based render bounds and editing operations and can be copied to the loop range. Plain horizontal ruler dragging changes the separate project/loop range and leaves the edit selection unchanged.
• Drag a clip to move it in time or to another track. Hold Alt/Option to bypass snap for one drag, Primary to copy instead of move, Shift to lock to the first axis you cross.
• Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V cut, copy, and paste at the playhead. Multi-clip pastes keep their relative track positions.
• Ctrl+D duplicates the selected clips using one offset: the latest selected end minus the earliest selected start. The copied group follows the original while retaining clip spacing across tracks, including selections with unequal durations.
• Hold Primary and drag a selected clip to copy the entire clip selection across tracks. A 50% opaque preview follows the pointer while the originals stay in place. Dropping creates one undoable copy operation; cancelling creates none. If new compatible destination tracks are needed, preview and committed copies use the same appended span, preserving source row order and gaps.
• Hold Primary while dragging a selected track header to copy complete selected track rows, including settings, FX and audio/MIDI content. Copying a folder includes its complete subtree, even when children are collapsed. A normal header drag reorders rows.
• Plain vertical dragging from the ruler changes horizontal time zoom: up zooms out and down zooms in. The direction locks after a small threshold. + or = zooms in and - zooms out, including numpad +/-; Ctrl++/Ctrl+- remain aliases. Track height is unchanged. Explicit ruler actions in the active mouse profile or custom overrides take priority: selection, loop-range and zoom-range gestures retain their roles, and disabled mappings remain inactive.

Split, trim, slip, and fade

• Split at playhead: select a clip and press S, or Edit → Split at Cursor. B picks the Split tool for click-to-cut. Edit → Split at Time Selection cuts every clip at both selection edges.
• Trim: in the Select tool, hover a clip edge until the resize cursor appears and drag. Inward hides content, outward reveals it. The source file is untouched.
• Slip: hold Primary+Shift and drag inside a clip. The boundaries stay put while the audio slides within them.
• Fades: hover the top-left or top-right corner for the handle and drag inward. Auto-Crossfade in the main toolbar or View menu crossfades overlapping clips on one track.
• Gain envelope: Shift+click an audio clip to add a point, drag a point to move it, right-click to remove it.

All of it is undoable with Ctrl+Z and redoable with Ctrl+Shift+Z. View → Undo History (Ctrl+Alt+Z; macOS: Cmd+Ctrl+Z) lists every operation; click one to jump back to it.

Time selection, razor, and ripple

With a time selection active, the Edit menu offers Cut within Time Selection, Copy within Time Selection, Delete within Time Selection (later clips ripple earlier), Insert Silence (later clips push later), Split at Time Selection, and Set Loop to Selection (Ctrl+L).

Razor editing cuts a region out of several tracks at once. Hold Alt/Option and drag on the timeline background, then press Delete or Edit → Delete Razor Edit Content. Clear Razor Edits in the Command Palette dismisses the area without deleting.

Ripple mode, set from Options → Ripple Editing or Preferences → Editing, decides whether later clips close a gap. The active mode shows in the transport bar as Ripple: Track or Ripple: All.

Clip properties, grouping, and transients

• U toggles clip mute. Edit → Toggle Clip Lock stops a clip being moved, resized, or deleted.
• F2 opens Clip Properties, including per-clip volume in dB. Edit → Normalize Selected Clips raises the peak to 0 dB; Edit → Reverse Clip reverses the audio.
• Ctrl+G groups selected clips so they move and edit together; Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups.
• Edit → Quantize Selected Clips to Grid snaps clip starts to the grid.
• Edit → Dynamic Split… splits a clip at transients or silence; set threshold and minimum duration in the dialog.
• With an audio clip selected, Tab jumps the playhead to the next transient, Shift+Tab to the previous one.

Markers and regions

Press M to drop a marker at the playhead, or Shift+M to name it as you add it. For a region, make a time selection and press Shift+R (or Insert → Region from selection). Regions have a name, start, end, and colour, and double as render bounds.

View → Region/Marker Manager lists everything in time order with controls to rename, delete, and jump. Rendering by region is in Rendering & export.