Sound Design > Sound Design > Daw Instructions > Duplicating

Duplicating

The Duplicate action essentially combines the Copy and Paste actions and intelligently places the pasted selection based on the musical timing of the selection in the Song. Choose Duplicate in the Edit menu or press [D] on the keyboard to duplicate the current selection. The duplicated Event is always placed after the original Event, and it is automatically selected once duplicated. As with the other editing actions, Duplicate can apply to any number of currently selected Events.

A good use of the Duplicate command is to quickly create copies of a loop across a region in a Song by selecting an Event and repeatedly pressing [D] on the keyboard. Another interesting use involves selecting very short regions within a loop, using the Range tool, and duplicating them several times, consecutively, in order to create a stutter effect that is popular in electronic music.

If you would like to duplicate an Event and push existing material to the right across the timeline to make room for the duplicated Event, press [Alt]+[D] on the keyboard to use the Duplicate and Insert command.

Duplicate Shared

When you duplicate an Event normally, each duplicate is treated as a separate Event, and edits made to one duplicate are not reflected in the other copies. If you want to duplicate an Instrument Part and link the content of the duplicates to that of the original Part, select the Part and choose Duplicate Shared from the Edit menu, or press [Shift] + [D] on the keyboard. A ghost icon appears on the original Part and any Shared duplicates, to alert you that those copies are now Shared. Any edits made to the original Part or a Shared copy are applied to all instances of that Part.

If you later decide you wish to edit one of the Shared copies of a Part individually, select it and choose Separate Shared Copies from the Event menu. The ghost icon disappears from that Part to alert you that the copy is no longer Shared, and can be edited without affecting the other copies.