Ableton Forum

Hi,
Im probably missing something but I just can't get the logic behind the :2 *2 buttons of the clip view...

In an audio clip, I press the *2 button, the orig bpm doubles and the clip plays twice as slow....

In a midi clip, I press the *2 button, the orig bpm is divided by two and plays twice as fast....

In other words, the same button had two opposite effects, depending if the clip is audio or midi. Am I the only one to find this totally illogical and confusing???

Benshik wrote:Hi,
Im probably missing something but I just can't get the logic behind the :2 *2 buttons of the clip view...

In an audio clip, I press the *2 button, the orig bpm doubles and the clip plays twice as slow....

In a midi clip, I press the *2 button, the orig bpm is divided by two and plays twice as fast....

In other words, the same button had two opposite effects, depending if the clip is audio or midi. Am I the only one to find this totally illogical and confusing???

its confusing initially, but makes sense when you think it thru:

*2 doubles the bpm of the clip... in relation to the master tempo.

so:

if the master tempo is 130 - and the clip tempo is 130 ...

when you double the tempo of the clip, it becomes 260

what happens when you play a 260 bpm clip at 130?

it slows it down to half speed.

conversely:

if you play a 65 bpm clip at 130, it doubles the speed.

so cutting a 130 bpm clip to half speed will double the speed vs the master tempo.

its important to get your head around this for a lot of reasons. but once you do, dont sweat it... just remember to click the button on the right to slow the clip down, and click the one on the left to speed it up
\

No, what he was asking is, why does it seem that the *2 button does exactly the opposite when working with MIDI clips vs. audio clips. If you record a MIDI clip at 120 BPM and push *2, the BPM value changes to 60 and the clip runs at double speed relative to the project. If you record audio at 120 BPM and push *2, the value goes up to 240 and the clip runs at half speed respectively.

It's essentially a GUI issue: a consistent "click the button on the right to slow the clip down, and click the one on the left to speed it up" would indeed be logical from a GUI design standpoint if it actually affected the playback of a clip inside a project this way. Currently the outcome is the opposite depending on whether you deal with MIDI or audio.

Nokatus wrote:No, what he was asking is, why does it seem that the *2 button does exactly the opposite when working with MIDI clips vs. audio clips.

exactly!