That’s exactly how I use to do it. I don’t use MIDI for clips, but it is much easier to use the performance pads in this way. To use Audio Clips nicely you have to have a note referencing the instrument pad you put the sample on that is the same length as the sample. It’s cumbersome.
To get around that I reworked a Kontakt script (because HALion doesn’t have MIDI out!!!) that quantizes to bar or more. But at that point using Groove Agent wasn’t as tidy as making a list of Sampler Tracks, which are easier to drag and drop into. I set it up so that the samplers are always in the upper region, and always align with a macro/PLE for a given Channel, so when I record there, it automatically skips the upper region to the group of clips.
I was well off on this example because the click was off, and I just did it to make the screenshot. Still, it’s aligned just right. Drag and drop, but then click continuous and zero crossing. Those do not save with the lock, but audio warp does.
The arrangement can be recorded as the midi triggers, and it is all controllable from the launchpad. including versioning the last recording. It’s nice to have the original performance for mixing later, especially with guitar.
I find samplers just easier to work with, but harder to set up. But once you have an arrangement recorded to midi (and to audio), you have that midi note to drop into the performance pad in GA. But I don’t do that anymore. I never find that midi clips/loops are needed unless I notice something off at some point, maybe I will, but which take it was is apparent in the sampler which matches the version, so I can go back and get it and fix it, and dub new audio for that clip. But I prefer to just record the take over. Still, the midi is useful for pulling sheet.
I’m willing to share the setup. Still working out a few kinks here and there. The overdub feature was buggy, and it only has one pass now, where it use to have multiple, and I don’t have the volume changes worked in any more. That is what is being worked on in this screen shot. Thing is, you can ignore the whole bottom section and just use the clip part. Nothing in the lower track configuration is important for making the clips work, other than the “MIDI Looper ~Synth” track to record the trigger performance, and the associated audio track and bus(group) to record the audio, but you can render in place so you don’t even need those.
Anyway, the functionality is all there, it’s so close. Mostly just UI task for Steinberg engineers.