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. A row dragged from the Files tab works the same way. As you drag, a marker shows exactly where the audio will land.

To find audio on your drives without leaving Silverdaw — and listen to it before you commit — use the Files tab beside the Library. See Browsing Files.

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.

Importing from another project

Use File ▸ Import from Project… to reuse generated material from another saved project. The dialog lists the other saved projects in your configured project folder; it does not list the project you already have open.

1. Choose a project to see its available Stems and Samples.
2. Tick the files you want.
3. Click Import.

Silverdaw copies the selected files into the current project, so the copy is independent and the source project is never changed. A Scratch sample also brings its linked Scratch pattern and source-audio snapshot, so it remains usable in the Scratch Editor. Missing or unreadable files are shown as unavailable and cannot be selected.

Tracks, timeline clips, markers, automation, and settings are not imported. Use Ctrl+Z to remove the imported items from the project.

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 file directly onto a track — from Windows Explorer or from the Files tab — 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 — see Beat markers and how they are worked out.

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, key, tempo, and beats, cover art, the item's type, and which tracks currently use it. The tempo is shown as BPM, and an Edit button beside it opens the Edit BPM dialog (see Correcting a tempo). Opened from a warped clip on the timeline, the row instead reads Warped BPM — the tempo that clip is playing at — and offers no Edit button, because that number is a product of the project tempo rather than a fact about the file.
• Edit BPM… — correct the tempo when it was detected wrongly. This appears only on items that have a tempo to correct, so you won't see it on a Simple sample or on a file that hasn't been analysed.
• Rename — give the item a clearer name. You can also double-click a tile's name text to edit it in place.
• Reanalyse File — listen to the file again and work out its key, tempo, and beats from scratch. This replaces whatever tempo the item currently has, so a tempo you corrected by hand is detected again along with everything else.
• Separate Stems — split the item into Vocals, Drums, Bass, and Other. The stems are added to the Library only; drag them onto tracks yourself. See Stem Separation.
• 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.

Correcting a tempo

Silverdaw works out each file's tempo by listening to it, and sometimes it reads the wrong number — most often half or double the real tempo, or a few BPM out on busy, live material. When the BPM on a tile is simply wrong, correct it at the source and everything that uses the file follows.

(If the tempo is right but the markers sit early, late, or on the off-beat, the grid needs moving rather than correcting — see Fixing the detected tempo.) Right-click the item and choose Edit BPM…, or open Show Information and click Edit beside the BPM. Both open the Edit BPM dialog:

1. Type the correct tempo in the Tempo field — anything from 20 to 300 BPM. Tempos are shown to two decimal places.
2. Click Save. Cancel (or Esc) leaves the tempo as it was.

Save stays greyed out until you've typed a valid tempo that differs from the one shown, since there's nothing to correct otherwise.

The dialog explains what the correction does: "Set the tempo of this file when it was detected wrongly. The beat markers respace themselves to the new tempo; nothing on the timeline moves." That is the key idea — you are telling Silverdaw it misread the file, not asking for anything to play faster or slower. Your original audio file is not changed — only the tempo Silverdaw believes it has.

What a correction changes

The file's beat markers respace themselves to the corrected tempo, and everything you placed by hand stays exactly where you put it: clip starts, markers, automation points, your selection, and the playhead all hold their positions on the timeline.

Some things do follow the new tempo, though, and it's worth knowing before you save:

• Clips that are tempo-matched to the project re-stretch, so they can get longer or shorter on the timeline.
• A clip's volume envelope stretches or squashes with it, so it keeps shaping the same part of the audio.
• A crossfade between two clips is removed if the clips no longer overlap.
• A clip can end up extending past the project length, which you can change in Project Properties.

Silverdaw tells you exactly what happened once you save — how many clips were re-warped, and what it deliberately left alone. Clips you have pinned to a fixed tempo, or that have warp switched off, are left as they are, because you chose those settings on purpose.

The whole correction is a single step, so Ctrl+Z undoes all of it at once.

TIP

Correct a file's tempo before you drag its first clip onto the timeline and there is nothing to reconcile — and if the project is taking its tempo from that first clip, it starts from the corrected number.

Correcting a stem or a saved clip

Stems and saved clips take their tempo from the file they were cut from. Choose Edit BPM… on one of them and the dialog names that file — "This tempo comes from … , so the correction is applied there and fixes everything cut from it." One correction therefore fixes the original and every stem, clip, and sample taken from it, rather than leaving them disagreeing with one another.

Two cases to watch for

WARNING

If the item's tempo was measured from a recorded musical length, the dialog warns that correcting it discards that measurement, which can change the item's bar length. Only override a measured length when you're sure it is wrong.

If a file's tempo varies across its length, the dialog says so: the number detected is a rough average, and a corrected number is still a single tempo for the whole file. For material that speeds up and slows down, working in shorter sections gives a much better result — see When the beat markers drift.

The project tempo is separate

Correcting a file never changes the project tempo. The project tempo is your choice for the arrangement, not a fact about any one file, so it stays put and you set it yourself in the transport bar — see Changing the project tempo.

A corrected file whose old, wrong tempo happened to match the project will now tempo-match to the project properly, which can make it sound stretched compared with before. That is warp doing its job: if you want the arrangement to run at the corrected tempo, set the project tempo to match.