Importing & the Library

Every project has its own Library — the collection of audio you've brought in, ready to drag onto the timeline. This page covers getting audio into a project and working with saved clips and samples.

Importing audio

Open the Library tab in the bottom panel and click Import, then choose one or more files. You can also import from File ▸ Import to Library… (Ctrl+I), or drag files straight from Windows onto the Library. When the Library is empty, the word Import in the panel's hint is a shortcut you can click to open the same file picker.

You can also drag files straight from Windows Explorer onto the timeline. One file dropped on a track is imported and placed on that track. Drop one file on empty timeline space to create a new track for it. When you drop several files, Silverdaw creates one new track per file at the same timeline position.

Silverdaw imports these audio formats:

• WAV
• AIFF
• FLAC
• MP3
• M4A

As soon as a file is imported, Silverdaw analyses it in the background to work out its key, tempo (BPM), and beat positions. This is what lets clips line up musically when you tempo-match them later. You can keep working while analysis happens — it never blocks you.

Imported files are grouped in the Library so they're easy to find and reuse, and the panel shows how many items the project contains. Each tile shows the item's name, and — where the details are known — its length, detected key, and detected tempo (BPM). Tiles also show the track's cover art, or a simple icon when there's none. You can hide the artwork for a denser, text-only Library with Show images on library tiles in Preferences ▸ General.

A small type badge in the bottom-right corner of each tile marks what the item is — a Track (imported audio), a Stem from stem separation, a saved Sample, or a Scratch — so its kind reads at a glance. The tile shows the badge as an icon. Show Information identifies a Scratch item's baked audio as a Sample.

Finding audio

Use the Filter library field beside Import to find items by their name, artist, or BPM. Click its Clear filter button, or press Esc while the field is focused, to clear the filter.

Sample rate check

Each project has a sample rate (44.1 or 48 kHz). When you import a file recorded at a different rate, choose Convert to the project's rate, or Switch Project to the file's supported rate.

Adding audio to the timeline

To use a Library item, drag it from the Library onto a track. It becomes a clip you can move, trim, and edit. You can drag the same item onto the timeline as many times as you like. You can also drag one Explorer file directly onto a track to import and place it in one step.

If an item's tempo varies across the file, its BPM is shown with a ~ to show that it is a rough average. Auto-warp clips to project tempo applies one uniform stretch, so a variable-tempo recording can still drift. Split it into steadier sections and refine their beat grids when you need a tighter result.

If you drop a Library item onto the empty area below the tracks, Silverdaw shows a new track drop lane (marked with a ＋ badge) and drops the clip onto a freshly created track — all as a single, undoable step.

Saved clips and samples

The Library isn't only for imported files — it also holds material you create as you work:

• Save Clip to Library — right-click a clip and choose Library ▸ Save Clip to Library to keep a reusable copy of it (with its current edits) for use elsewhere in the project. Saved clips are grouped under the source they came from; use the small chevron on a source to Show saved clips or Hide saved clips. Copies you drag onto the timeline stay linked to the saved clip; to detach one, use Unlink from Library.
• Save as Sample… — right-click a clip and choose Library ▸ Save as Sample… to "bake" it down to a fresh audio sample that commits its current sound. This is useful once you're happy with a clip and want to treat it as a finished piece of audio. Each time you do this you get a new, independent sample.

Music and Simple samples

When you save a sample, Silverdaw asks which kind you want:

• Music — keeps the tempo, beats, and key, so the sample lines up with the project and can tempo-match when you drop it in — just like an imported song. Choose this for loops and musical phrases.
• Simple — a plain one-shot that ignores tempo and key and never tempo-matches. Choose this for hits, stabs, and sound effects.

Choose Music or Simple in the Save as Sample… dialog.

Slicing a clip can also produce new samples — see Slicing loops.

Linked clips

When you drag a saved clip onto the timeline, each copy stays linked to that saved clip, and shows a small chain badge on its title strip. You can drop the same saved clip onto the timeline as many times as you like, and every copy stays connected to the original. Duplicating a linked clip, or copying and pasting one, keeps the new copy linked too.

A clip you drag straight from an imported file — or one you've unlinked (below) — is a plain, unlinked clip. It's completely independent: you can trim, chop, split, and edit it however you like without affecting anything else, but there's no automatic way to keep several copies of it in step.

Why use linked clips

Linked clips let you edit once and update everywhere. If you reuse the same loop throughout a track — a chorus, a drum break, a bassline — you can perfect it in one place and have every copy follow along, so they all stay consistent without you editing each one by hand.

What's shared, and what isn't

Editing a linked clip's sound changes every linked copy together, in step. The shared properties are:

• the trim — which part of the source the clip plays,
• Warp (tempo matching),
• Pitch,
• Reverse,
• Brake and Backspin, and
• the volume envelope.

You make these changes in the Clip Editor (they apply when you click Save) or from Transform ▸ Warp, Transform ▸ Pitch, and Effects ▸ Reverse, Brake, or Backspin in the clip's right-click menu. Either way, Silverdaw warns you that saving updates the saved clip and every linked copy. If a shared trim or tempo change would make any linked copy overlap a neighbour on its track, Silverdaw refuses the save and names the track (or tracks) that would clash — so editing a linked clip can never quietly shuffle your arrangement.

Everything else stays independent for each copy, so the copies never disturb one another:

• where each copy sits on the timeline, and which track it's on,
• its Colour and name, and
• whether it's locked.

What you can't do to a single linked copy

Because the sound is shared, a few per-clip edits are held back on a linked clip:

• You can't drag a linked clip's edges to trim it on the timeline. Edit the shared trim in the Clip Editor instead, or unlink the copy first.
• Transform ▸ Chop to Grid and Edit ▸ Split at Playhead aren't available on a linked clip.

Unlinking a copy

To make a one-off change to just one copy, right-click it and choose Library ▸ Unlink from Library. The copy keeps its current trim, warp, pitch, and effects, but becomes an ordinary independent clip: you can now trim, chop, and split it freely, and editing it (or the saved clip) no longer affects the other. Unlinking one copy leaves the rest linked.

Removing a saved clip from the Library also unlinks every copy automatically — each one keeps playing from the original source as an independent clip.

Working with Library items

Right-click a Library tile for the actions available to it (which vary by the kind of item):

• Show Information — a read-only summary: file details, detected key, tempo, and beats, cover art, the item's type, and which tracks currently use it.
• Rename — give the item a clearer name. You can also double-click a tile's name text to edit it in place.
• Reanalyse File — run the key, tempo, and beat detection again, for example after you've corrected something.
• Auto-classify / Treat as Music / Treat as Simple — control whether an item is treated as musical (tempo-matched) or as a plain one-shot. If a loop isn't lining up with your project tempo, right-click it and choose Treat as Music.
• Update Image… — set your own cover picture for the tile.
• Open in Scratch Editor — create or continue a scratch pattern from the item. See Scratch Editor.
• Remove Image / Restore Image — hide or bring back a tile's cover art, without deleting the picture file.
• Remove — take the item out of the project. Sources still in use by a clip can't be removed until the clip is gone; saved clips can always be removed (any clips using them keep playing from the original source).

WARNING

If you turn on Clean up project files on remove in Preferences ▸ Project, removing a stem or sample also deletes its generated file from disk, which can't be undone. Your original imported files are never deleted. This setting is off by default, so normally Remove only unlinks the item from the project.