How to Change the Length of a Song Section

You can't resize a section directly in Pliris. Move the relevant boundary locator in Ableton Live — its own to change the start, the next section's to change the end — save, and drop the updated .als back onto the arrangement to sync it.

Want the Chorus to run 10 bars instead of 8, or a Verse to start two bars earlier? That's a length change, not a rename — and it isn't something you can do directly on the Pliris arrangement timeline today. Section boundaries come from your Ableton Live Set, so the length change has to happen there first.

What you can't do in Pliris

Edit mode on the arrangement page lets you right-click a section to rename it or change which Ableton template cue it maps to (see Renaming Song Sections and Changing Cues in Pliris). There is no way to drag a section's start or end point on the Pliris timeline to make it longer or shorter — that control doesn't exist in the app.

How to actually change a section's length

Section boundaries are read from the cue markers (Locators) on your Ableton Live arrangement timeline, so that's where the change needs to happen. A section runs from its own start locator to the next section's start locator — there's no separate "end locator" — so which locator you move depends on which boundary you're changing, and moving either one also changes the adjacent section to match:

  • To move where a section starts (e.g. make the Verse start two bars earlier): move that section's own locator — the section before it shrinks or grows to fill the gap. If it's the first section in the song (e.g. the Intro), there's no earlier section to affect instead: moving its locator just moves where that leading section — and the arrangement's first counted section — begins.
  • To move where a section ends, which is how you change its length (e.g. make an 8-bar Chorus run 10 bars): move the locator that starts the section after it — that section shrinks or grows to match. If it's the last section in the song, there's no next section to move instead: move the song-end marker, which changes the overall song/arrangement length rather than any adjacent section.
  1. Open the song in Ableton Live.
  2. Move the relevant boundary locator to the new point, per above.
  3. Save the Live Set.
  4. Open the song's arrangement page in Pliris and drag the updated .als onto it (the Drop .als overlay appears).
  5. Review the summary Pliris shows you — it reads the new locator placement and rebuilds the section from it — then click Update arrangement.

Your stems aren't touched by this — Pliris re-reads the structure around your audio, not the audio itself. Full detail on exactly what a drop picks up: Updating an Arrangement from Ableton and What Gets Imported When You Update from Ableton.

Made a mistake? Every .als drop is captured in Snapshot History, so you can restore the version from before.

Don't confuse this with

Frequently asked questions

Can I drag a section marker to resize it directly in Pliris?

No. That's not a feature in the app today. Section boundaries come from your Ableton Live Set — move that section's own locator to change where it starts, or the next section's locator (or the song-end marker, for the last section) to change where it ends — save, and drop the updated .als on the arrangement page to sync the new boundaries into Pliris.

Will changing a section's length in Ableton affect my stems?

No. Dropping an updated .als re-reads structure, tempo, mix, and clip alignment — it doesn't touch or re-analyze your stem audio.

I don't see the length change after dropping my updated file — what happened?

Check the review summary before you click Update arrangement — if the locator move didn't land the way you expected in Ableton, cancel and fix it in Live before dropping again. You can also compare against a previous version in Snapshot History.

Where to go next

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