OMNi

Music Creation · 4 min

Arrangement View, Bounce & Warp

A guide to timeline operations, bouncing clips (Bounce to Audio), freezing tracks (Freeze Track), 5 fade curve types, and 5 warp modes.

🎼 Arrangement View, Bounce & Warp

The Arrangement View displays your track in a classic timeline perspective running from left to right. This is where you lay out recorded tracks, assemble audio and MIDI clips, bounce instrument performances to ready-made audio files, and draw parameter automation.


1. Clip Operations and Timeline

  • Tracks and Clips: Each track contains clips arranged along the bars. Clips display an audio waveform or a preview of MIDI notes.
  • Basic Operations:
    • Split: Divides the selected clip at the time cursor location.
    • Resize / Trim: Dragging the clip edge shortens or lengthens its playback section.
    • Duplicate: Quickly copies clips along the timeline.
    • Mute: Temporarily disables playback of a specific clip without deleting it from the track.
    • Clip Gain: Independent volume adjustment of a single audio clip.
  • Loop & Markers: The loop bar on the top timeline allows for continuous looping of a selected section of the track.

2. Bouncing Clips and Freezing Tracks (Bounce & Freeze)

Omni DAW features a dedicated Live & Background Clip Bounce engine:

A. MIDI to Audio Bounce (Freeze / Bounce Clip)

  • Live and Background Rendering: You can render a selected MIDI clip (from a built-in synth or a VST3/CLAP/LV2/VST2 plugin) directly to a new .wav audio track.
  • Tail Render: The engine automatically captures reverb and delay tails, preventing the sound from cutting off at the end of the clip.

B. Freezing Tracks (Freeze Track)

  • Freezing temporarily disables CPU-heavy synthesizers and external VST3/CLAP/LV2/VST2 plugins, replacing them with a rendered audio buffer in the background.
  • It frees up 100% of the CPU processing power without losing flexibility – you can freeze or unfreeze a track at any time and return to editing MIDI notes!

3. Fade Curve Selector (Crossfade)

Omni DAW is equipped with a cohesive smooth transition engine (Fade in / Fade out / Crossfade). At the edges of an audio clip, you can select one of 5 fade curve characters:

Curve TypeName / ShapeApplication in Audio Processing
LinearLinearSimple volume change. Ideal for sterile transitions of non-phase-correlated signals.
Equal PowerEqual PowerStandard in audio mixing. Prevents an unwanted volume drop at the intersection point of two samples!
S-CurveS-CurveVery gentle rise at the beginning and end, prevents clicks and signal pops.
ExponentialExponentialFast drop and slow decay. Excellent for decaying percussive instruments.
LogarithmicLogarithmicRapid volume increase at the very beginning of the transition.

4. Time Stretching Modes (Warp Modes)

Warp algorithms allow you to match the tempo of an audio loop to the project tempo without altering pitch, or to creatively time-stretch samples:

  • Repitch: Classic tape stretching. Changing the tempo affects the pitch.
  • Beats: An algorithm optimized for percussive material (preserves transients).
  • Tones: Dedicated to monophonic instruments (bass, vocals, brass).
  • Texture: Dedicated to dense textures and ambient pads.
  • Complex: A higher-order algorithm for stretching full polyphonic mixes.

5. Parameter Automation Lanes

Each track in the Arrangement View has collapsible automation lanes, added from a list via the "+ Lane" button in the track header. Automatable parameters include: track volume, panning, and trim, built-in synth parameters, effect parameters (insert/master/return), VST3/CLAP/LV2/VST2 plugin parameters, and MIDI CC messages. Send Levels are not currently automatable via lanes — they are adjusted manually on the channel strip in the mixer.