Arrangement Views — User Manual
Kiwisonic gives you two ways to lay out your song. Pick the one that matches how you think — you can switch any time without losing a note, because both views work on the same tracks and patterns underneath.
To switch, click the ⇄ button in the top-left corner of the arrangement. Your choice is remembered between sessions.
Sections
The default view. Your song is a grid of sections (Intro, Verse, Chorus…) across the top and tracks down the side. Each cell holds one pattern for that track in that section.
This view keeps everything aligned to the song's structure, so it's the fastest way to sketch a song that follows a clear form. Drag a section header to reorder it; double-click a cell to edit its pattern; right-click a cell to copy a part to every section of the same kind.
Free-form timeline
A continuous timeline with no sections at all — just a plain bar grid and your tracks. Each pattern is a clip you place exactly where you want it. It's the better choice when your arrangement doesn't fit a neat grid: a fill that lands half a bar early, a one-off riff, a pad that runs wherever you like.
bar 1 5 9 13
┌────────────────────────────────────
Lead │ [██ riff ] [███ hook ]
Bass │ [████████] [████████]
Drums│[beat] [████████████████████]
└────────────────────────────────────
Working with clips
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| **Create a clip** | Double-click an empty spot in a track row. A new clip is added at that bar and its editor opens so you can add notes. |
| **Edit a clip** | Double-click the clip to open its editor. |
| **Move a clip** | Drag it left/right. It snaps to the nearest **bar**. |
| **Stretch a clip to repeat it** | Drag the clip's **right edge**. It grows one bar at a time and the pattern loops to fill the new length. |
| **Copy a clip** | Hold **Alt** while dragging — drops an independent copy and leaves the original in place. |
| **Rename a clip** | Right-click → *Rename…*. New clips are named after their track until you rename them. |
| **Duplicate / delete** | Right-click a clip. *Duplicate (right)* drops a copy straight after it. |
| **Set where playback starts** | Click the bar ruler at the top, or drag the playback cursor line. |
Clips never overlap: if a move would land on top of another clip, it snaps back. A new clip defaults to four bars, trimmed to fit if there's a clip soon after.
Design a short pattern, play it for longer. Grab a clip's right edge and drag right — the clip extends a bar at a time and your pattern repeats to fill it, so you don't have to copy it over and over. You can't drag it shorter than the pattern you wrote, and it stops before it would run into the next clip. The repeats show as tiled previews inside the clip; to change the part, edit the clip once and every repeat follows.
Switching views
Both views are just two windows onto the same song. Build a sketch in Sections, click ⇄ to switch to Free-form and place clips freely, then switch back — the music plays back identically either way. (Sections you made still exist; the free-form view just doesn't show them.)
**[Image: The same three-track song shown twice side by side — left in the Sections grid (cells aligned to Intro/Verse/Chorus columns), right in the Free-form timeline (the same patterns as clips on a plain bar grid, one clip placed mid-bar). Highlight the ⇄ switch button in the top-left corner of each view.]**