Getting clips from the Browser Panel onto a track is almost identical for the Clip Launcher Panel and the Arranger Timeline (see Inserting Clips). The only difference is where you drop the clip off.

And if the clip is dragged between two tracks, a new track will be created automatically as well.

Additionally, an empty Launcher clip slot has a + icon appear when the slot is hovered over. As in most other situations, clicking + opens the Pop-up Browser, in this case with a special configuration that offer clips and samples within your preset library, as well as any defined music locations.

	Note
	For more information on working with the Pop-up Browser, see chapter 4: Browsers in Bitwig Studio.

Copying a clip from one sequencer to the other follows the same pattern as all other movements that we have made.

To copy an Arranger clip to the Launcher: click and drag the clip from the Arranger Timeline to the desired slot on the appropriate track.

If multiple Arranger clips are selected, the clips will be copied into successive slots.

To copy a Launcher clip to the Arranger: click and drag the clip from the Launcher to the desired timeline position on the appropriate track.

If multiple Launcher clips are selected, the clips will be placed into the Arranger consecutively.

Scenes can also be copied from the Launcher to the Arranger Timeline. And conversely, any combination of Arranger clips can be copied to a scene by dragging them over.

All of these copy functions can also be done into new tracks.

The content of one or multiple clips can also be shifted left and right from the Clip Launcher Panel. Sliding content in this fashion preserves the length of each clip, simply sliding the contained note or audio events (including any associated expressions) earlier or later in time.

To slide the content of a clip: mouse over the top half of the waveform. Then ALT-click (CMD+ALT-click on Mac) and drag horizontally.

You can optionally add the SHIFT key while dragging to toggle the snapping behavior.

When working with group tracks in the Arranger, we encountered the idea of meta clips (see Meta Clips and Group Tracks in the Arranger). In the Launcher, a similar idea exists in the form of sub scenes.

Each group track has its own row of sub scenes. Each sub scene uses color blocks to identify which contained tracks have clips that fall within that sub scene. Just as a scene allows you to trigger a set of Launcher clips across your project, a sub scene allows you to trigger Launcher clips contained by that group track's component tracks. And while clips within a sub scene are playing back, miniature clip playheads are shown within the sub scene to indicate the current playback position of each of its clips.

Also similar to meta clips in the Arranger, sub scenes act as aliases for the clips they contain. Sub scenes can be moved by dragging and dropping, they can be cut or copied or pasted in the normal ways, they can be deleted, and they can even be sources or destinations for dragging clips between the Launcher and Arranger.

	Note
	Like regular scenes, sub scenes can also have colors assigned to them. These color stripes will be shown on screen when you navigate into that group track (see Meta Clips and Group Tracks in the Arranger).

The Arranger Timeline had a convenient graphical view for visualizing the length and loop settings of a clip. While the Clip Launcher Panel does not have its own graphical editor, we will always have the Inspector Panel.

Launcher clip parameters are generally similar to Arranger clip parameters with a few important differences. In order to see how the Inspector Panel represents Launcher clip information, let's revisit the Arranger clip looping example from the last chapter.

In this case, I have copied the example Arranger clip into a Launcher slot. The resultant Launcher clip gives us these settings in the Inspector Panel.

We can see that the Signature, Loop, Mute, Shuffle, and Seed sections are identical to their Arranger clip counterparts, and that we have also seen all the functions available here already (see The Inspector Panel on Arranger Clips).

We can also see that the initial Start/Stop section differs from the Arranger clip's Time (Position) model, and that the Launch and Next Action sections are completely new.

Launch Section

The Launch section controls how and when Launcher clips are triggered, and what should happen when a clip is released. Clips are usually triggered with a performance gesture, such as a click of the mouse or the push of a button, so quantization can be crucial here to keep clips in time around the Global Playhead.

When any of the parameters in this section are set to Use Project Setting, the same value from the Settings page of the Project Panel is in control (see Settings Tab). When in this state, the icon of the current project setting will appear here so you know the behavior, but it will be slightly dim, hinting that the value is being set elsewhere. In a new project, the launch parameters of clips are set to Use Project Setting, allowing you to control the whole project's behavior in the Project Panel.

A cluster of three parameters define each launch behavior.

• Launch Q(uantization) sets the interval at which this particular clip will be triggered. This forces the clips we trigger to enter at the next appropriate beat grid. Since things that have already started cannot be shifted backwards in time, we must trigger the clips ahead of time so they can land on the next beat. (You can think of launch quantization as a performance-based version of absolute grid snapping.)

  	Note
  	While we can't go back in time, we can slightly delay the entire sequencer, giving you a window within which to trigger things "on time". This amount of delay / margin for error is set in the Dashboard under Behavior > Sequencer > Latency.

  A beat-level setting (for example, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, or 1/16) will play all newly triggered clips when the Global Playhead reaches the next grid line of that interval.

  A bar-level setting (for example, 1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars, or 8 bars) will play all newly triggered clips when the Global Playhead reaches the next bar of this interval. For example, a setting of 1 bar would wait for beat 1 of the next bar to play, while a setting of 4 bars would wait for the next fourth bar (e.g., bar 1, bar 5, bar 9, etc.) to be reached.

  Off disables clip quantization, meaning the clip will begin playback the moment it is triggered.

• Play Mode determines where this clip will begin playback from. All "legato" modes aim to move from any already playing music's position to the same relative position in this clip — like jumping from beat 3 of the playing clip straight to beat 3 of this clip.

  Four options are available:

  • Trigger from Start - Plays the clip from its beginning

  • Legato from Clip (or Start) - Starts relative to the playing clip's position (or when nothing was playing, starts from clip start)

  • Legato from Clip (or Project) - Starts relative to the playing clip's position (or when nothing was playing, starts relative to the global transport's position)

  • Legato from Project - Starts relative to the global transport's position

• on Release defines what you want to happen once you let go of your triggering gesture, whether it was the mouse you clicked or the controller pad you pressed. Four options are available:

  • Continue - Let the clip play and do nothing

  • Stop - Stops the clip

  • Return - Returns to the previously playing clip, or to the Arrangement if it was playing last

  • Next Action - Trigger the clip's Next Action immediately on release

You will notice that these three settings exist twice, once in a column labeled Main and again right after, labeled ALT. By defining two behaviors for how clips are launched (and released), you can create a more compelling performance by deciding how clips should play in the moment (see Triggering Launcher Clips).

	Note
	Scenes also have this identical layout, of the three Main launch settings and their twinned three ALT launch settings. When the scene's Override Launch Settings option is enabled, then triggering the scene will force its settings on all clips being launched. But when you directly trigger a clip, its own settings are always used.

One additional parameter lives in this section.

• Q(uantize) to Loop toggles clip quantization to be based on the loop start point instead of the clip start. This allows you to trigger a clip with a lead-in that plays once, like musical pick-up notes.

Next Action Section

Next Action is the option to determine what should happen after this clip has played for a set amount of time. The Next Action Function is set by the drop-down menu (all options are described in the next section), and if the Enable Next Action toggle is turned on, the function will be executed at a set time after the clip started playing.

	Note
	Even if the Enable Next Action toggle it disabled, the Next Action Function may still be used if set as one of the clip's release actions (see Launch Section).

The timing of the next action is set in one of two ways, with its row offering a toggle to tie timing to the length of the clip. When enabled, a parameter called Loop Count before Next Action appears, letting you set a number of whole times that the clip should loop before its next action is fired. (If the clip is not set to Loop, the next action will simply fire when the clip finishes playing back once.) And a dim display will appear at the right, indicating the effective number of bars and beats.

And if the clip timing toggle is disabled, you get a simple Next Action Time parameter for manually setting the bars, beats, etc. before the next action fires.

Local and Global Next Action Functions

The following Do actions are listed at the top of the action list. They relate either to the clip itself or any clip on the same track:

• Stop simply stops the clip.

• Return to Arrangement resumes playback of the Arrangement Timeline for this track.

• Return to Last Clip resumes playback of the Launcher clip that was playing immediately before the current clip. If no clip was playing when this one was triggered, the clip is stopped.

• Play Next triggers the next available Launcher clip. If the current clip is the last clip on the track, the clip is stopped.

• Play Previous triggers the previous available Launcher clip. If the current clip is the first on the track, the clip is stopped.

• Play First triggers the first Launcher clip on the track.

• Play Last triggers the last Launcher clip on the track.

• Play Random triggers a Launcher clip from the track at random, which could potentially retrigger this clip.

• Play Other triggers a different Launcher clip from the track at random. The current clip will not be retriggered.

• Round-robin triggers the next available Launcher clip. If this is the last clip on the track, the first Launcher clip on the track is triggered.

Using Clip Blocks with Next Actions

The second half of the Do actions list makes use of clip blocks, which are groups of clips that sit side by side with blank slots around them.

In the image above, the Drums track has three clip blocks (which I have manually colored), each containing two clips. The number of clips in a block is completely up to you, and each block needn't contain the same number of clips.

These functions include:

• First in Block triggers the first Launcher clip in the current clip block.

• Last in Block triggers the last Launcher clip in the current clip block.

• Random in Block triggers a Launcher clip from the current clip block at random, which could potentially retrigger this clip.

• Other in Block triggers a Launcher clip from the current clip block at random. This clip will not be retriggered.

• Round-robin in Block triggers the next available Launcher clip in the current clip block. If the current clip is the last in the block, the first Launcher clip of the clip block is triggered.

• First in Next Block triggers the first Launcher clip in the next clip block. If the current clip is within the last clip block, this will act like the Stop function.

• Random in Next Block triggers a Launcher clip from the next clip block at random. If the current clip is within the last clip block, this will act like the Stop function.

• First in Previous Block triggers the first Launcher clip in the previous clip block. If the current clip is within the first clip block, this block's first clip will be triggered.

• Random in Previous Block triggers a Launcher clip from the previous clip block at random. If the current clip block is the first block, a clip will randomly be triggered from this block.

• First in Other Block triggers the first Launcher clip from a different clip block.

• Random in Other Block triggers a Launcher clip at random from a different clip block.