Adding and Changing Song Sections

You can rename a section and set its cue directly in Pliris. Adding, merging, deleting, reordering, and resizing sections all happen in Ableton Live — move the locators, save, and drop the .als back on the arrangement.

Sections are the coloured blocks on the arrangement timeline — Intro, Verse, Chorus, and the rest. They come from one of two places: the analysis Pliris™ runs when you upload stems, or the locators in your Ableton Live Set.

Here's the short answer to the question most people ask first: you can't add, merge, or delete a section inside Pliris. There's no right-click Add section, and there's no drag handle to make a section longer or shorter. Section structure lives in your Live Set, and you change it there. What you can do on the arrangement page is rename a section and set which cue it fires.

What happens where

What you can change in Pliris

Both of these live behind Edit on the arrangement page.

1. Open the song's arrangement page (see How to Use the Song Arrangement Page).
2. Click Edit in the header — it becomes Done while you're editing.
3. Right-click the coloured section block on the timeline.
4. Choose Rename section to change its label, or Edit cue to change what it fires.
5. Click Save, then Done when you've finished.

Rename section changes the label you see on the timeline and the label that goes out in Ableton exports — see How to Rename Song Sections. Edit cue maps that section to an Ableton template cue (an "All-in" on the Chorus, say), or to No cue for this section — see How to Change Cues in Pliris.

Everything you change in one Edit session batches into a single Snapshot History version, so a bad change is always recoverable.

Adding, merging, or deleting sections — do it in Ableton

Pliris reads your section structure from the locators (the cue markers along the top of the Ableton arrangement timeline). One locator starts one section, and that section runs until the next locator — there's no separate "end" marker. Once you know that, every structural change is just a locator move:

• Add a section — drop a new locator where you want it to start. The section before it shortens to meet it.
• Delete or merge sections — delete the locator that starts the second one. The section before it absorbs the space, which is exactly what a merge is.
• Split a section — add a locator part-way through it.
• Move a boundary — drag the locator. See How to Change the Length of a Song Section for which locator to move for which edge.

Then push it back:

1. If you don't already have a Live Set for this song — common when sections came from stem analysis rather than an Ableton import — open the arrangement and click Download → Ableton Set. That needs manage access on the band (band admin, or permission to manage arrangements or create setlists); see Band Access Levels. Open the downloaded .als in Ableton Live.
2. Make the locator changes in Ableton Live and save the set.
3. Open the song's arrangement page in Pliris.
4. Drag the updated .als anywhere onto the page — a Drop .als overlay appears.
5. Review the Update arrangement? summary. It lists the section count before and after, plus Added sections and Removed sections by name, so you can check the change landed before committing to it.
6. Click Update arrangement.

Your stems aren't touched — Pliris re-reads the structure around your audio, not the audio itself, and nothing is re-uploaded or re-analyzed. Full detail in Updating an Arrangement from Ableton and What Gets Imported When You Update from Ableton. To push edits across a whole show at once, see Updating Your Set's Arrangements from Ableton.

Every drop is captured in Snapshot History before it applies, so you can restore the previous version if the change isn't right.

If your song has no sections at all

An arrangement with an empty timeline usually means analysis hasn't run on it yet, not that it ran and found nothing. Sections are written by Analyze, which is a separate step from uploading your stems.

Open the arrangement and look for the Analyze card on the Lyrics or Chords tab. If it's there, analysis hasn't run yet — start it, and sections, tempo, key, lyrics and chords all come back together. See Uploading and Analyzing Your Stems.

Two things worth knowing:

• Analyze needs a full mix to listen to. Pliris builds one from your stems automatically, so this normally just works — but a song uploaded as a handful of separated stems with no click or guide track may also show a tempo of 0 until analysis has run.
• A song imported from Ableton doesn't need it. If the song came in as a Live Set, its sections come from your locators, and dropping an updated .als is the way to change them.

If you'd rather not wait on analysis, the Ableton route above will populate sections on its own.

MIDI cues are a different thing — and those you can add in the app

Don't let the word "cue" run the two together. Section cues are the export labels described above. MIDI cues are the timed messages that fire your external gear mid-song — a patch change on the Helix, a scene change on a mixer — and those are fully editable inside Pliris.

They live on the MIDI cues tab under the player on the arrangement page. You don't need Edit mode for them.

• Add — set the type (Preset, Program Change, Control Change, or Note) and value, then click Add. Or just press C while the song is playing.
• Edit — hover the cue row, click the ⋮ menu, choose Edit cue.
• Delete — same ⋮ menu, Delete cue.
• Re-time — the ◀ ▶ nudge arrows on the cue row.
• Record live — click Record, pick your input and output, then change patches on your gear while the song plays and each change lands as a cue.

You'll need at least one output first (name it after the device, e.g. "Helix"). Full walkthrough: How to Change Cues in Pliris and Programming MIDI Cues for External Gear.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add a section in the Bands app?

Not today. There's no Add section in the right-click menu and no way to draw a new one on the timeline. Add a locator in your Ableton Live Set where you want the section to start, save, and drop the .als onto the arrangement page — Pliris reads the new locator and creates the section.

How do I merge two sections?

Delete the locator that starts the second section in Ableton Live, save, and drop the updated .als on the arrangement. The first section extends to cover both, which is what a merge is. The review summary shows it as a removed section before you commit.

Can I delete a section I don't want?

Yes, but in Ableton — remove its locator and re-drop the .als. Deleting a locator doesn't delete any audio; it just means that stretch of the song is no longer labelled as its own section.

Why can't I right-click and add sections like the app suggested?

You can right-click a section to rename it or edit its cue, and those are the only two options in that menu. Adding, merging, and deleting aren't in the app at all — the Ableton round-trip is the supported route.

My song analyzed with no sections — is that a bug?

Usually it means analysis hasn't been run on that song yet, since uploading stems and analyzing are separate steps. Check the arrangement for the Analyze card on the Lyrics or Chords tab. If analysis has genuinely run and still returned nothing, that's worth reporting.

Where to go next

• Rename a section → How to Rename Song Sections.
• Change a section's length → How to Change the Length of a Song Section.
• The full .als round-trip → Updating an Arrangement from Ableton.
• MIDI cues for external gear → Programming MIDI Cues for External Gear.
• Undo a change → Snapshot History.

Stuck at any point, click the support bubble in the bottom-right corner of any page, or email support@fromstudiotostage.com.