Arrange Mode

Signals & Sorcery has two rows. You compose scenes on top and arrange them into a song at the bottom. The arrangement is a horizontal timeline: you drop scenes onto it, repeat them, switch layers on and off bar by bar, copy and paste parts, add fades and effects, and export the result. It plays your real mix, with your faders, pan and panel bus effects applied live.

Arranging is manual and literal: what you place is what plays. Nothing is added between sections for you, and nothing is filled in automatically.

Each project has one arrangement, built from its scenes. It needs no account and no connection, and it is saved in the project file whenever you save (⌘S or Save As…): sections, track edits, clips, fades, effects, the arranger's own mute and solo, and the loop all travel with the file. Its rendered audio doesn't; that is rebuilt automatically when you open the arranger.

The short version

Compose a few scenes (a verse, a chorus, a breakdown).
Press Arrange in the bottom row. You get one of each scene, in order, with every layer playing.
Drag scenes from the palette to build the song, click or paint layers on and off, and press Play.
Keep composing. Mix changes are heard instantly; sound changes re-render only the layers you touched.
Press Export… for a mix, a master, stems or an Ableton hand-off.

How to think about it

Picture a big mixing desk:

Every layer of every scene is a channel that runs for the whole song, each in its own horizontal lane.
Arranging is switching channels on and off over time. Placing the chorus is a stretch of the song where the chorus layers are on.
A fade is a gradual switch, and a gain is that channel's level for that stretch.
Each channel always feeds its own scene's panel bus. A bus compressor only hears what is switched on in that bus, and reverb and delay tails on the bus ring out naturally when the layers feeding it stop.

The rest of this page is that idea, one gesture at a time.

Words used on this page

Word	Meaning
Scene	What you compose on top: a verse, a chorus. In the arranger each scene gets a letter (A, B, C…).
Section	One placement of a scene on the timeline, like "the second chorus". It is labelled with its scene's name ("Chorus"), numbered when the scene repeats ("Chorus (1)", "Chorus (2)"). The app sometimes calls a section an instance.
Layer	One track. It has a fixed lane that runs the length of the song, grouped under the scene it was composed in.
Clip	A continuous stretch of bars where a layer plays. Every section boundary is a clip edge, and a piece you paste or duplicate is its own clip.
Guest	A layer playing inside another scene's section, for example scene A's kick under a section of B.

The layout

The window has two rows with a divider between them:

Top: the composer. Your scenes, tracks and panels.
Bottom: the arranger. The timeline, with its own header.

Drag the divider to resize the rows. Entering arrange mode gives the arranger the larger share.

Folding a row

Either row can fold down to a thin strip when you want the room:

Press the chevron in the row's header (the composer's is at the right end of the Scenes header; the arranger's is at the far right of its header). The row folds to a strip labelled Composer or Arranger. Click the strip to reopen the row at its previous size.
Or drag the divider all the way to the edge to fold that row, and drag it back out to reopen it.
Or use the keyboard: ⌘⌥↑ folds the composer (or reopens a folded arranger) and ⌘⌥↓ folds the arranger (or reopens a folded composer). On Windows use Ctrl+Alt+↑ and Ctrl+Alt+↓.

One row folds at a time. A folded row reopens by itself only when you need it: pressing Arrange or starting the arrangement reopens the arranger, and opening a section's scene for editing reopens the composer.

The arranger header

From left to right:

Arrangement and Cloud tabs (see The Cloud tab);
Arrange / Arranging: switches arrange mode on and off;
Play / Stop, and the position;
⧉ and what is on the clipboard, after you copy something;
a small progress indicator while the arranger prepares audio (see Preparing);
the stem status: ● arrangement up to date, or a Render stale (N) / Render pending (N) button;
Match scene levels (see Scene levels);
Takes in order, only while a section has a pinned take (see Takes);
the sync badge (see Cloud sync and your phone);
◆ Save when one section is selected (see Saved sections);
↶ and ↷ for undo and redo;
Export… (see Exporting your song);
the fold chevron.

Notes and errors appear in a bar under the header, each with a Copy button.

Inside the arranger

The palette (top): one chip per scene, and your saved sections (marked ◆).
The ruler and section strip: bar numbers, then one block per section, each with its time range (for example "Chorus · 0:30–1:00"). Hover the ruler for the exact position, like "17.3 · 0:42.6" (bar 17, beat 3, at 42.6 seconds); while the song plays, the same readout follows the playhead. Click the ruler to move the playhead, or drag across it to set a loop (see Looping).
The lanes: one row per layer, grouped by scene, with each stem's waveform drawn in it. The gutter on the left shows the layer's name, its M and S buttons (see Mute and solo), a small status dot for its audio, and a level meter while the song plays.
The corner above the gutter: the tool button, Select or Draw (see Select and Draw), and the ⟲ Loop switch.

Zoom with ⌘ + mouse wheel (Ctrl on Windows) over the lanes.

Start arranging

Press Arrange in the arranger header (or Start arrangement, shown the first time). The first time, the arrangement is created with every scene once, in scene order, all layers on. You rearrange from there.

Entering arrange mode:

stops the composition (compose and arrange never play at the same time);
prepares the audio of each layer in the background (see Preparing and rendering);
loads your panel bus effects into the arrangement.

Press Play (or the Space bar) whenever you like: background preparation steps aside when you press Play. Click the ruler to jump.

Sections: drop, move, copy

Drop a scene

Drag a scene chip from the palette onto the timeline. A marker shows where it will land.
Or click the chip to add it at the end.

A fresh drop plays every layer of its scene. You switch layers off from there.

Select, move, delete

Click a section's block to select it. Shift-click selects a range, ⌘-click adds or removes one, and dragging across empty space in the section strip selects several. ⌘A selects every section. Escape clears the selection.
Drag a section (or a selection of several) left or right to reorder.
Delete or Backspace removes the selected sections, and the song closes up. The scene itself is never touched.

Copy or linked copy

There are two kinds of copy, and the difference matters:

	How	What you get
Copy	⌘-drag a section, or ⌘C then ⌘V, or ⌘D	An independent copy. It starts with the same layers, fades, gains and effects, and from then on editing one never changes the other.
Linked copy	Alt/Option-drag a section, or ⌘C then ⌥⌘V	A copy that shares its arrangement with the source. It shows a 🔗 badge. Edit one chorus and every linked chorus changes.

Linked copies are the fast way to keep repeated sections identical. When one of them needs to be different, select it and press Make unique (also in its right-click menu): it keeps its current arrangement but stops following the others.

Resize

Drag a section's right edge. Lengths are whole bars (1 bar minimum).

Longer than the scene's loop: the loop keeps playing in phase. 16 bars of a 4-bar scene is four passes; 6 bars is one and a half.
Shorter: the loop is cut at the new length.
Linked copies share their length, so resizing one resizes all of them. Hold Alt/Option as you let go to resize just this one (it becomes unique).

Double-click a section's label (or press F2) to rename it; Enter saves and an empty name goes back to the default. Double-click anywhere else on the section to edit its scene in the composer.

Right-click a section for its menu: Rename, Edit this scene, Loop this section, Make unique (linked sections), Take ▸ (scenes with takes, see Takes), Fade in section and Fade out section (see Fades), Copy section name, Copy section ID, and Delete.

Takes

Some scenes hold takes: layers that are alternatives of one part, of which only one plays at a time. The Synth V panel makes a set of takes when your lyrics have several verses, one take per verse on the same melody (see Lyrics per verse); drum fills grouped as alternatives, and any layers an agent groups with track_alternatives, work the same way.

In the arrangement each section plays one take, by its position: the first section of a scene plays take 1, the second plays take 2, and so on, starting over when there are more sections than takes. Verse 1 sings the first verse's words and verse 2 the second, with nothing to set. The take follows the section's number in the timeline, so moving sections re-numbers them, and a linked copy sings the take of its own position.

The takes resting in a section are drawn faint and dashed where they would play. They are kept, and you can still edit them; they are just silent there.
Pin a take: right-click the section and open Take ▸. Auto (by position) is the default and says which take that is; pick a take (1, 2, …, each named after its layers) to pin the section to it, for example to sing the first verse's words again at the end. Each pin is one undo step, and it stays with its section when you move it. A scene with several sets of takes gets one Take: … menu per set.
Takes in order, in the header, clears every pin in one undo step. It only appears while a section is pinned.
On your phone, Take ▸ is in a section's long-press menu.

If an arrangement had a set of drum fills, every section used to play all of them; now each section plays one fill, in turn.

Layers and clips

Every lane is one layer. Everything below works inside any section.

Select and Draw

The arranger has two tools. The button in the corner shows which one is on; press B to switch.

Select (the default) works like a DAW:

Click a playing part of a lane to select that clip, for example the whole 16 bars of the kick in the chorus.
Click an empty cell to set the insertion point: a thin line at that bar, where pastes and splits go.
Drag to select a box of bars across one or more lanes.
Shift-click extends the box; ⌘-click adds or removes a clip.

Draw paints layers on and off:

Click a cell to switch that layer on or off for the whole section.
Drag across bars to paint them. The brush paints the opposite of the bar you start on, so starting on a playing bar paints bars off. "The bass comes in at bar 5" is just bars 1 to 4 painted off.
Paint straight across section boundaries in one stroke. It is one undo step.

You can also paint without switching tools: hold ⌘ while you drag in Select.

A layer that is on at the end of one section and at the start of the next plays straight through: one continuous run, with no restart and no cut. Between sections the default is a hard cut; if you want a transition, add fades (below).

Copy, cut, paste and duplicate

These work on whatever is selected, bars or sections, from the keyboard or the Edit menu:

Key	Does
⌘C	Copy
⌘X	Cut (copy, then delete)
⌘V	Paste
⌥⌘V	Paste sections as linked copies
⌘D	Duplicate right after the selection
Delete	Delete

How bars paste:

Pasted bars land on the same lanes they came from (tracks never leave their lane), starting at the insertion point. If there is none, they start at the beginning of your selection, or at the playhead's bar.
They replace what those lanes played in those bars, and they sound identical: the same loop bars, fades, gain and effects as the original.
Into another scene's section, a pasted layer plays there as a guest, through its own scene's bus.
Deleting bars leaves silence: the song keeps its length. Deleting sections removes them and the song gets shorter.

Sections paste after the selected section. After a paste, what you pasted is selected, so you can paste again or move on.

What is on the clipboard shows in the header (⧉ and a short description, like "Kick (16 bars)"). It stays there while the app is open. If a change also affects linked copies, a note says so.

Split and join clips

Splitting a clip lets you select, copy or delete one part of a run on its own. It doesn't change the sound.

⌘E Split: splits at the insertion point (click a bar first), or at the playhead if it is inside your selection, or at the edges of your selection.
⌘J Join: removes the splits inside your selection. Section starts always stay clip edges.

Both are in the Edit menu and in the right-click menu of a clip (Split at bar N, Join clips).

Drag a clip's edge

Grab the start or end of a clip and drag it to extend or trim the clip, as in any DAW. This works with the Select tool.

Grab the lower half of the lane at the clip's edge (the top corners are the fade handles). The pointer becomes a resize arrow, and hovering says which edge you are on.
The edge snaps to whole bars. While you drag, the bars the clip gains or loses are shaded, a line shows where the edge will land, and a readout says where the clip will start or end, for example "Kick: starts at bar 5 (+4 bars)".
Extending reveals what was hidden. Dragging the start earlier brings back the music that leads into the clip, and dragging the end later lets it carry on. The bars you already had sound exactly the same, and nothing is stretched. Trimming switches the cut bars off.
Where an edge stops: at its own section's start or end (a clip never crosses a section boundary), and at the next clip on the lane (they can touch, but they stay separate clips). A clip keeps at least 1 bar. At a limit the readout adds "the edge stops here".
An effect that starts on a bar you trim away goes with it.
Each drag is one undo step. In a linked section it changes every linked copy, and the undo step's name says how many.

For example: split an 8-bar part at bar 5, delete bars 1 to 4, then drag the start of what's left back to bar 1. The first four bars come back, in step with the rest.

From the keyboard: select a clip, then press ⌥⇧← or ⌥⇧→ to move its start by a bar, or ⌥← or ⌥→ to move its end (Alt on Windows). At a limit, a note says why the edge stopped.

On your phone: tap a clip to select it. A grip appears at each end; drag a grip.

Layers from other scenes (guests)

Every layer of every scene has a lane, and you can play any layer inside any section. Keep scene A's kick running under the next two sections of B, or bring the chorus pad into the last verse.

A layer playing in another scene's section is a guest. Guest parts are drawn more faintly, with an outline, and hovering one says which scene it comes from.
A guest keeps its own lane, its own fader and pan, and its own scene's panel bus, with that bus's effects. Scene A's kick under B still goes through scene A's drum bus, never scene B's.
Guests start off everywhere. Paint them on, or paste them in, where you want them.
A guest painted across several sections keeps its loop running rather than restarting at each section boundary.
Click a scene's group header in the gutter to collapse its lanes. A guests strip stays visible, so you can still see where that scene's layers visit other sections.

New tracks

A track you add to a scene plays in every section of that scene, because a fresh drop plays all of its scene's layers. It is highlighted in the gutter with a new badge and two small buttons (both also in the track's right-click menu):

Turn off in arranged sections (the crossed-circle button) switches it off in the sections you have already arranged, so it doesn't barge into parts you finished (fresh drops keep it);
✓ Mark reviewed hides the badge.

Tracks from the Stems panel, recordings and voice tracks appear as lanes too.

Mute and solo

Each track has M and S buttons beside its name. They work across the whole arrangement: everywhere the track plays, in its own sections and as a guest.

M mutes the track.
S solos it: while any track is soloed, only soloed tracks sound (and a muted track stays muted). To solo that track alone, unsoloing the others in one step, Alt- or ⌘-click S on macOS (Alt- or Ctrl-click on Windows). On macOS, Ctrl-click opens the menu instead.
Silenced tracks are drawn dimmed. Changes are instant, with no rendering.
Mute and solo are per view: the arranger's own M and S alone decide what plays here, and what an export contains. Muting or soloing a track, or muting a panel bus, in the composer affects only the composer. Levels, pan and effects are shared between the two.
When you first open an arrangement made before mute and solo became per view, the tracks the composer was silencing are muted here instead, so it still sounds the same. A note says how many (Muted N rows that were silent because of Compose), with Undo.
M and S are saved with the arrangement, and each click is one undo step.
Exports follow what you hear.

Right-click a track's name for its menu:

Copy track ID and Copy track name. Hovering a name also shows its ID, with a copy button. IDs are handy when you work with an agent or the sas CLI.
Restore (it shows the track's name, for example Restore Kick) clears every arranger edit to that track (bars switched off, clips and splits, gain, fades, gain envelopes, effects, phase), so it plays again in every section of its scene. Mute, solo and your sections are left as they are, and sections you deleted don't come back. It is one undo step, and it is greyed out when there is nothing to restore.
For a new track: Turn off in arranged sections and Mark reviewed.

Reorder the rows

The lanes start in the order of your scenes and their tracks. You can put the rows in any order you like:

Move a scene group: drag its header in the gutter up or down. Its tracks move with it.
Move a track: drag its name up or down. A track stays inside its own scene's group.
A line shows where the row will land, and dragging near the top or bottom of the list scrolls it.
Menus: right-click a track's name, or a scene group's header, and choose Move up or Move down. The group header's menu also has Collapse (or Expand).
Keys: with a clip selected on a track (or an empty cell clicked), ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ move that track, and ⌥⇧↑ and ⌥⇧↓ move its whole scene group (Alt on Windows).
On your phone: tap a track's name and choose Reorder rows…. Every row gets a ≡ handle: drag the rows with your finger, then tap Done.

The order only changes how the arranger looks. It never changes the sound, the composer's order, or the scene letters (A, B, C…). Each move is one undo step and syncs to your other devices, and the Ableton hand-off lists its tracks in this order.

Fades, gain and the wave editor

Fades

Right-click a clip and choose Fade in or Fade out, then a length: 1 beat, 2 beats, 1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars or Custom… (in beats). The same menu has Remove fade in, Remove fade out and Remove fades.
Fade a whole section: right-click the section and choose Fade in section or Fade out section. Every layer that starts at the section's first bar fades in (or ends at its last bar fades out). Layers that carry on across that edge keep playing; a note says so.
Drag a fade handle: each clip has small square handles at its top corners. Drag inward to set the fade (it snaps to quarter beats; hold Alt/Option for fine control); drag back to the corner to remove it. There are no handles where a layer carries on into the next section.

Fades sit at the real start and end of a layer's run, and fade curves are drawn over the waveform.

The wave editor

Double-click a clip (or right-click it and choose Edit fades & gain…) to open the wave editor under the timeline. It shows that clip's waveform and lets you:

choose the fade shape for the fade in and fade out: Equal power, Linear, Exponential or S-curve;
draw a gain envelope: click to add a point, drag to move it, press Delete to remove it (up to ±24 dB);
tick Normalise view to see quiet parts clearly (it changes only the picture, not the sound);
press Reset to clear the envelope and fade shapes.

Close it with × or Escape.

The waveforms in the lanes are drawn at a comfortable height for each stem, so quiet parts stay visible; that doesn't change what you hear.

Gain and phase

Right-click an empty cell (or choose Fade & gain settings… on a clip) to open the lane settings for that layer in that section: Fade in (beats), Fade out (beats), Gain (dB) (up to ±24 dB on top of the fader), Phase, and Back to defaults.
For quick level changes, hold Alt/Option and turn the mouse wheel over a cell: each notch moves that layer's gain in that section by 0.5 dB.

Phase decides where a layer's loop is when a section starts:

with the instance: the loop starts at its first bar when the section starts. This is the default for a scene's own layers, so a bass that enters at bar 5 plays loop bar 5, in step with its drums.
continue the run: the loop carries on from where the layer's run began. This is the default for guests, so a kick running across three sections never restarts.
default: use the rule above.

If a run continues into the next section but its loop jumps there, the lane shows a small ▼ marker; hovering it explains the jump. Resize the first section to a whole number of loops, or set that layer to continue the run, if you don't want it.

Fades, gain envelopes and settings belong to the section, so linked copies share them.

Scene levels

When you compose scene by scene, the chorus can end up louder than the verse. Match scene levels, in the arranger header, evens them out in one click:

It measures every scene from the layer stems, then gives each scene one level (a scene gain, on top of your faders and lane gains) so every scene plays at the same perceived loudness, exactly. The balance between the tracks inside a scene is never touched: you mixed that already.
It makes them as loud as they can all go: no scene is raised more than 6 dB or lowered more than 12 dB, and no scene's peaks go above −1 dBTP (or above the loudest peak your song already has, if that is higher). Nothing plays hotter than it does today.
The whole change is one undo step. The result appears next to the button, for example Matched overall loudness: 6 scenes at −14.2 LUFS, with Details and Undo. Running it again replaces the previous match; it never adds up.
Each scene's level shows on its sections' headers, such as +2.0 dB. Hover it to see how it was set.
Any out-of-date layer stems render first, and rendering waits for silence: if the song is playing, the button asks you to stop playback and press it again.

Details opens a table with a row per scene: its loudness (LUFS), the level it got, its headroom and a note (such as the limit that stopped it). From there you can:

choose what to Match on: Overall loudness (the default) or Kick. Kick matches the kick's loudness instead, so the kick hits equally hard in every scene that has a clear kick; scenes without a kick, or where it isn't clear which layer is the kick, are matched on their overall loudness and flagged. The table then lists each scene's kick layer, and its level column reads Kick instead of Loudness;
tick excl. to leave a scene exactly as it is;
reset a scene's level;
change Max boost and Max cut (6 dB and 12 dB to start); the match runs again right away;
tick Hear without to play the song without the scene levels and compare. It changes only what you hear; the arrangement stays as it is.

The levels apply wherever the arrangement plays, including the bounce you export and your phone, and a layer playing as a guest keeps its own scene's level. If some layers couldn't be measured, Details lists them. A loop from a scene you haven't opened since you opened the project isn't loaded yet: open that scene, then match again.

Effects

An effect sits on one layer for a bar or more. Effects already placed on a lane are part of the arrangement:

They play with the song and follow the lane's level and fades.
Click an effect to select it and edit its settings. Its settings also say whether it replaces the layer's sound for those bars or plays on top.
Drag it to another bar or section on the same lane to move it.
Press Delete to remove the selected effect.
In a linked section, an effect applies to every copy.
Each effect is rendered once and cached, so it plays after its render is ready (see Render pending).

Nothing is ever placed automatically.

Preparing and rendering

Arrange mode doesn't run your instruments. It plays a rendered audio stem of each layer, which keeps it light: no synths load between sections, however long the song. The arrangement is always built from your current scenes, tracks and mix, so it can't drift from the composition.

What is live, and what needs a render

The stems carry each track's own sound: its notes, its instrument, preset or sample, and its own insert effects. Everything after that is applied live, once:

Instant, no rendering (the mix):

track faders and pan;
the arranger's own mute and solo (see Mute and solo);
panel bus levels and the panel bus effects themselves. A bus plugin has one setting for the composer and the arranger: tweak it in its plugin window on either side and the other follows. The plugin window opens on whichever is playing;
everything you do in the arranger: layers on and off, copying and pasting, fades, gains, moving, copying and resizing sections.

Mixing is often easiest in arrange mode: move a fader in the composer while the whole song plays and you hear it straight away.

Needs a re-render (the sound):

the notes, the instrument, preset or sample, and the track's own insert effects;
the scene's loop length or time signature;
the project tempo (every layer re-renders).

Tweaks you make inside a plugin's own window count too, even before you save the project: they are picked up when you enter arrange mode, press Play, or export.

The header indicators

Preparing n/m… (also "Preparing edges", "Preparing effects" or "Building") means the arranger is rendering what the arrangement needs in the background. It never blocks you: playback and edits carry on, and background preparation steps aside when you press Play. If you press Play while the arrangement is still preparing its audio, playback starts by itself when it is ready; a note under the header says so, and the button reads Starting… (cancel) until then (click it, or press Space, to cancel).
Render stale (N): N layers' sounds changed since their last render. Until they re-render, those layers keep playing their previous render, so playback never stops for them. Stale layers refresh on their own when you enter arrange mode and whenever the app is idle and stopped; press the button to do it right away.
Render pending (N): the exact starts and stops of layers that come in or leave mid-loop, and your placed effects, are waiting to render. Until then those edges are close approximations and placed effects are silent.
● arrangement up to date: everything matches.

Renders happen while stopped

Rendering briefly takes over the audio engine, so it only happens while nothing is playing. While the song plays, the header says how many layers will refresh when stopped, and they keep playing their old version until you stop.

Layers start and stop cleanly

When a layer comes in halfway through its loop, it starts from silence, with no leftover reverb or delay from bars you didn't hear. When it stops halfway through, its reverb and delay ring out naturally instead of being cut off. Audio loops let their effects ring out when they stop too. This is what Render pending prepares.

Status dots

The dot next to each layer's name:

Dot	Meaning
fresh	The stem matches the composition.
stale	The sound changed; the previous render plays until it refreshes.
rendering	Being rendered now.
missing	Nothing rendered yet. It renders before the song plays.

Undo and redo

The arrangement has its own history, separate from the composition's undo. Every action is one step with a name: hover ↶ or ↷ to see what it will undo or redo.

With the arranger focused, ⌘Z undoes and ⇧⌘Z redoes (Ctrl on Windows); the Edit menu does the same. Undo in the arrangement never touches your scenes or tracks, and with cloud sync on it undoes only the edits made on this computer (see Cloud sync and your phone).

Saved sections

When a section is arranged just right, save it to reuse:

Select one section.
Press ◆ Save in the header, type a name (for example "breakdown") and press Enter.

It appears in the palette as a ◆ chip. Drag it onto the timeline to insert a copy, or hold Alt/Option as you drop it to insert a linked copy.

Compose and arrange

Edit a section's scene

Double-click a section (or right-click it and choose Edit this scene) to go straight to its scene in the composer. Arrange mode stops, the composer shows that scene (and reopens if it was folded), and a line under the arranger header lists which layers play in that section. Press Arrange to come back.

Compose and arrange never play at once

There is one output, and one of them has it at a time. Starting the arrangement stops the composition, and starting a scene in the composer stops the arrangement.

Looping

By default the whole arrangement loops. The loop markers on the ruler show where the loop starts and ends.

Turn looping on or off: the ⟲ Loop switch in the corner above the gutter, or L.
Loop part of the song: drag across the ruler, or drag the loop markers (they snap to bars).
Loop a section: double-click it on the ruler, press ⟲ on it, or right-click it and choose Loop this section. ⇧L loops the selected sections.
Back to the whole song: press ⟲ on the looped section again (or right-click it and choose Loop the whole arrangement).

Setting a loop turns looping on. The loop stays put while you edit, and it is saved with the arrangement on this computer; it isn't part of undo, and it never affects exports. With looping off, playback stops at the end of the song.

Exporting your song

Press Export… in the arranger header (in arrange mode, with at least one section). Everything is rendered offline from the arrangement, never recorded live, and the monitor-only Master FX is never included. You don't need to stop or save first.

Name

The Name field at the top names the export: its folder and the files inside it. It starts as your project's name followed by Bounce (a project called Night Drive exports as Night Drive Bounce), and you can change it. The project remembers the name you export with, so its next export starts with the same name. Characters a file name can't hold, such as / or :, become spaces.

What to export

Tick any of:

Option	What you get
Mix (32-bit float, no processing)	The reference: your song exactly as it plays, at 32-bit float and your device's sample rate, never normalized, limited or dithered
Master	A release-ready file: brought to a loudness target, held under a true-peak ceiling by a limiter, and dithered
Stems (one per panel)	One file per panel bus, plus one per layer that isn't on a panel bus
Editable stems (pre-bus)	Each bussed layer on its own, before its panel's bus effects
Ableton hand-off	Stems ready to open in Ableton Live's Arrangement view
Include played notes (MIDI)	Adds the notes each layer plays to the score in `export.json` (see below), for visual and analysis tools. No extra files

The Mix and the Master are ticked to start with; Include played notes (MIDI) is off.

The export follows what you hear: tracks muted (or left out by soloing others) in the arranger are not in the Mix and get no stems. The dialog lists them under Left out, so nothing goes missing by surprise. In an Ableton hand-off, the arranger's muted tracks arrive as muted tracks.

Master settings

Preset: Streaming (−14 LUFS, −1 dBTP, the default, right for most streaming services), Loud (−9 LUFS, −1 dBTP) or Custom (a Target LUFS from −60 to −1 and a Ceiling dBTP from −20 to 0).
Bit depth: 24-bit (the default) or 16-bit, both with TPDF dither, or 32-bit float (no dither).
Sample rate: Device rate (the default, no resampling), or 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz or 96 kHz for delivery. The master is resampled from the 32-bit Mix at the best quality before mastering. This setting applies to the master only; the Mix and stems stay at the device rate.
Stem format (for stems and the Ableton hand-off): 32-bit float (recommended) or 24-bit.

If some layers' stems are out of date, a box (ticked by default) renders them before the export, so what you export always matches your composition.

Tail

Every file is the song plus a tail, so bus reverbs and delays can ring out after the last bar. Choose how long under Tail:

Auto (until silent, ≤ 10 s), the default: the tail runs for up to 10 seconds and is trimmed where the sound ends.
Fixed: a length you enter, from 0 to 30 seconds. Every file ends exactly that long after the last bar, which helps when the files must have a precise length. 0 ends them right at the last bar. A fixed tail is a clean cut: anything still ringing at that point stops there.

All files have the same length, so they line up.

Where the files go

Choose a Destination (the default is ~/Music/Signals & Sorcery Exports). Each export makes a new folder there, named with the export's name and the date and time, such as Night Drive Bounce 2026-10-04 1530. An export never overwrites an earlier one: a second export with the same name in the same minute goes to Night Drive Bounce 2026-10-04 1530 (2), then (3), and so on. Inside, where <name> is the export's name:

<name> - Mix (32f).wav
<name> - Master (Streaming -14 LUFS, 24-bit).wav (the name records the preset and format)
Stems/01 Drums.wav, Stems/02 Bass.wav, … and Editable stems/…
<name> - export.json: a record of the export (its name, the settings including the tail, the song's tempo and sections, every file with its checksum and peak, the loudness report, the stems check, the bus effects used and any warnings). It also holds the song's score: its bars and sections, and which layer plays when, with its level, fades and placed effects; with Include played notes (MIDI) ticked, the notes each layer plays too. Its format is published, so other tools (a visualizer, a game engine, your own scripts) can read it: see The arrangement export format.

A progress bar shows each step. Cancel stops the export and removes its folder, so nothing half-written is left behind, and an export that fails cleans up the same way. Only that export's own new folder is removed; earlier exports are never touched. When it finishes: Reveal in Finder, Export again or Close. One export runs at a time.

Reading the loudness report

When the master is done, the report compares the Mix (in) with the Master (out):

Row	What it tells you
Integrated loudness (LUFS)	How loud the whole song is on average. Streaming services turn songs down to about −14 LUFS, so a master louder than that gains nothing there.
Loudness range (LU)	How much the loudness moves between quiet and loud parts. Needs at least 3 seconds of audio.
True peak (dBTP)	The highest peak, including peaks that appear between samples on playback. The master stays under your ceiling.
Peak-to-loudness (dB)	The gap between the peaks and the average loudness: bigger means punchier, smaller means more squashed.
Gain reduction (peak / mean, dB)	How hard the limiter worked, at its most and on average.

A value that can't be measured shows —. If the master was resampled, a line says from which rate to which.

Warnings, in plain words:

Heavy limiting: reaching the target took more than 6 dB of peak gain reduction, so expect audible limiting. A lower target, or a quieter mix, keeps more punch.
Target missed: the master came out more than 0.2 LU away from the target, because the ceiling caps how loud this material can go.
Mono content: both channels are identical; the file is delivered as stereo.
Others you may see: the limiter needed a small overall trim to hold the ceiling; the song is shorter than 400 ms (measured without gating); or a few edges or effects failed to render (those play with approximate edges or without the effect).

Stems that sum to the mix

Stems (one per panel) gives one file per panel (Drums, Bass, Pads, Synths and so on). Each sums that panel's bus across every scene, through its own chain, with faders, pan and bus effects included. A layer that isn't on a panel bus gets its own stem, named "Track (Scene)". Added together, the stems equal the Mix: the report's Stems null test line shows how closely they match, and passes when the difference is at or below −60 dB (in practice it is far lower).

Editable stems (pre-bus) gives each bussed layer on its own, before its panel's bus effects (fader and pan included), so you can redo a bus chain elsewhere. They are extra material and are not part of the null test.

Ableton hand-off

Tick Ableton hand-off to send the song to Live. In Live, right-click a scene and choose Import S&S mix…: the song lands in Arrangement view with the tempo set, one track per stem at 0 dB and centred (your mix is already in the audio), a locator at every section, and any editable stems muted and ready to swap in. The tracks arrive in the order of your arranger's rows (see Reorder the rows); the numbered files in the export folder keep their usual order. It needs the S&S Ableton extension 1.4.0, which Signals & Sorcery installs for you. See Ableton Integration for details.

Cloud sync and your phone

Your arrangement lives on your computer and works without a connection. When you are signed in, it also syncs to the cloud in the background, so you can open it on your phone, keep arranging there, and find your edits back on the desktop.

Cloud sync

Sync is one switch, Auto Sync Arrangements. You find it in Settings → Arranger and in the sync badge's menu (it is the same switch). It is on by default when you are signed in; turn it off and nothing leaves this computer.

Your edits sync right away.
The audio uploads gently, in the background. Each layer's stems go up only while your computer is idle: never while you play, render or export, and not on battery or in Low Power Mode. It never slows the app down, so for a big project it can take a while.
Sync now (in the badge's menu) uploads everything right away, at full speed.
Pause until restart pauses the background uploads until you restart Signals & Sorcery; Resume carries on.

The sync badge at the right of the arranger header shows what is happening, for example Synced, Syncing…, Uploading in the background · 12 of 65 files (180 MB left), Syncing now · 34 %, Waiting for idle, Paused while you play, Waiting · on battery, The cloud is busy · trying again shortly, Offline · saved, will sync, Local only (signed out), Sync off, or Needs attention with the reason. Click it for:

Auto Sync Arrangements, and the upload's Pause until restart or Resume.
Sync now, and any notes. When both devices change the same thing, your newest edit wins, and the other device shows a note with Undo.
Open on web ↗, and a QR code to scan with your phone: both open this arrangement on the web.
From the cloud (not applied): versions saved elsewhere that couldn't be merged automatically. Use this version applies one, as a single undoable step.

Changes from another device arrive on their own, with a quiet note such as 3 changes from your iPhone · Undo these 3. Undo on each device undoes that device's own edits: ⌘Z here takes back what you did on this computer, and the note's button takes back the other device's changes.

If the two copies ever drift too far apart to merge, Signals & Sorcery saves your desktop version in History, switches to the cloud version, and re-applies the edits that hadn't synced yet. You never get stuck, and nothing is lost.

For the web

Your phone plays the audio your computer prepares. With Prepare every scene for the web on (it sits under Auto Sync Arrangements, and is on by default while sync is on), Signals & Sorcery prepares every scene's audio in the background: one scene at a time, smallest first, only after you have been away for a couple of minutes and never while anything plays. It stays within your plan's storage and waits if your disk is nearly full. The badge shows the progress, like "For the web: 3 of 12 scenes ready". Pause until restart pauses it until you restart Signals & Sorcery (the badge says Paused); Resume carries on.

On your phone

Open signalsandsorceryapi.com/arrangeropen in new window on your phone (or scan the QR code from the sync badge) and sign in with the same account. Each project has its arrangement, the same one you see on the desktop.

Turn your phone sideways. The timeline needs the width. On iPhone, for the full screen, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, and open the arranger from there.
Tap to select, long-press for menus (on a section, a track name, or the lanes), drag one finger to scroll, pinch to zoom, and double-tap a clip for the wave editor. Long-press, then drag, to select a box of bars.
The rail on the right holds the tools: Select, Draw, Add (the scenes), Paste, Loop and Fit. With something selected it switches to Split, Join, Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Loop this and Delete.
Mute and solo are in a track's menu: tap its name.
Play with Live: your arrangement as it is on the phone, edits included, played right there (without your panel bus effects). You can also play the mix your desktop made. On iPhone, the ring/silent switch mutes web audio, so flip it if you hear nothing.
History (🕘) lists earlier versions to restore, next to undo and redo.
Scenes appear as your desktop prepares them. One that isn't ready yet shows greyed out in the scene list.
Reorder the rows: tap a track's name and choose Reorder rows…, drag the rows by their ≡ handles, then tap Done.
Extend or trim a clip: tap it, then drag the grip at either end.
Some things stay on the desktop: levels (gains, gain envelopes and scene levels show on the phone, but you change them on the desktop, including Match scene levels), panel bus effects, reviewing new tracks, and exporting.

Your phone's edits reach the desktop within seconds when both are online, and edits made offline are kept and sync when you reconnect.

The Cloud tab

The Arrangement tab is the arranger described on this page. The Cloud tab holds the older cloud arranger, which needs you to sign in; it is separate from your project's arrangement.

Coming soon

Share links, so anyone can listen to your latest synced mix, are on the way.

Keyboard and mouse

⌘ is Ctrl on Windows, and ⌥ is Alt.

Action	Gesture
Fold or reopen a row	The chevron in its header, or click the strip; ⌘⌥↑ / ⌘⌥↓
Add a scene	Drag its palette chip onto the timeline, or click the chip to add it at the end
Select sections	Click; Shift-click for a range; ⌘-click to add; ⌘A for all
Move a section	Drag it
Copy a section	⌘-drag, or ⌘C then ⌘V, or ⌘D
Linked copy	⌥-drag, or ⌘C then ⌥⌘V
Unlink	Make unique (button or right-click)
Resize	Drag the section's right edge (hold ⌥ as you let go to resize only this one)
Rename a section	Double-click its label, or F2
Edit a section's scene	Double-click the section
Section menu	Right-click the section
Switch tool	B (Select / Draw), or the corner button
Select a clip	Click it (Select tool)
Set the insertion point	Click an empty cell
Select bars	Drag a box; Shift-click to extend; ⌘-click to add or remove
Paint bars on or off	Draw tool, or hold ⌘ while dragging
Cut / copy / paste	⌘X / ⌘C / ⌘V
Duplicate	⌘D
Delete	Delete or Backspace
Split / join clips	⌘E / ⌘J
Extend or trim a clip	Drag its edge in the lower half of the lane (Select tool); with a clip selected, ⌥⇧← / ⌥⇧→ moves its start and ⌥← / ⌥→ its end
Fades	Right-click a clip, or drag its corner handles
Wave editor	Double-click a clip
Lane settings (gain, fades, phase)	Right-click an empty cell
Nudge gain	⌥ + mouse wheel over a cell
Edit a placed effect	Click it for its settings; drag it to move it; Delete removes the selected one
Zoom	⌘ + mouse wheel
Play / stop	Space, or the Play button
Jump	Click the ruler
Loop on or off	L, or ⟲ Loop in the corner
Set a loop	Drag across the ruler, or drag the loop markers
Loop a section	Double-click it on the ruler, or ⟲ on the section; ⇧L for the selected sections
Mute / solo a track	M / S beside its name; ⌥- or ⌘-click S to solo it alone (Alt- or Ctrl-click on Windows)
Track menu (move, copy ID, restore)	Right-click the track's name
Reorder rows	Drag a scene group's header or a track's name; Move up / Move down in their right-click menus; ⌥↑ / ⌥↓ moves the selected track, ⌥⇧↑ / ⌥⇧↓ its scene group
Match the scene levels	Match scene levels in the header (Details to match on the kick instead)
Pin a section's take	Right-click the section, Take ▸; Takes in order in the header clears every pin
Undo / redo	⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z, or ↶ ↷
Clear the selection	Escape
Collapse a scene's lanes	Click its group header

Arranging from an agent or a script

Everything on this page, apart from reordering the rows and dragging a clip's edge, is also available to agents and scripts, through the arrangement_* tools and the sas arrangement commands. They take plain names ("the second chorus", "Kick"), and an agent's edit and a gesture in the timeline land in the same history, so you can undo either from either side. What an agent copies shows on the clipboard in the header, and an agent's export asks for your approval first. An agent can also match the scene levels (arrangement_normalize_kick_levels, the same match as the button, with matchOn for the overall loudness or the kick), set one scene's level (arrangement_set_scene_gain), or pin which take a section sings (arrangement_assign_takes). See Arrangement tools for the tool list, sas arrangement for the commands, and the worked examples.

# Arrange Mode

# How to think about it

# Words used on this page

# The layout

# Folding a row

# The arranger header

# Inside the arranger

# Start arranging

# Sections: drop, move, copy

# Drop a scene

# Select, move, delete

# Copy or linked copy

# Resize

# Rename, and the section menu

# Takes

# Layers and clips

# Select and Draw

# Copy, cut, paste and duplicate

# Split and join clips

# Drag a clip's edge

# Layers from other scenes (guests)

# New tracks

# Mute and solo

# The track menu: restore, copy

# Reorder the rows

# Fades, gain and the wave editor

# Fades

# The wave editor

# Gain and phase

# Scene levels

# Effects

# Preparing and rendering

# What is live, and what needs a render

# The header indicators

# Layers start and stop cleanly

# Status dots

# Undo and redo

# Saved sections

# Compose and arrange

# Edit a section's scene

# Compose and arrange never play at once

# Looping

# Exporting your song

# Name

# What to export

# Master settings

# Tail

# Where the files go

# Reading the loudness report

# Stems that sum to the mix

# Ableton hand-off

# Cloud sync and your phone

# Cloud sync

# For the web

# On your phone

# The Cloud tab

# Keyboard and mouse

# Arranging from an agent or a script