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Loopy Pro long count in for recording guitar
hello Forum, I have a Loopy Pro question. I am busy with the one week trial mode.
I want to arm a donut for recording guitar, with a reasonable amount of time to prepare. I don't have a foot pedal.
First I record an 8 bar drum loop, by recording a Lumbeat drummer. This is easy and sets the tempo.
When I try to record a new 8 bar donut with guitar sound when the donut with the drums is running, I want a long count in (or suspended start of the recording, like 2 bars or more).
When I press the donut it starts too soon. I tried a lot of settings but I cannot get it right (tresshold, count in, other settings).
What setting do I need for a longer time between arming the donut, and recording?
A work around would be a first empty or dummy recording, let it run, and overdub this one, but I do hope there is a proper setting for this.
Comments
There are more than one way to do this.
One is to set the Master loop length in the metronome/tempo settings to the number of bars you want for count-in and enable the metronome. Now set recording count-in quantization to Master. If the clip is going to be longer than the Master length, then you can set a loop length and set recording count-out quantization to Loop.
Another is to set count-in quantization on the clip to "Custom" and set the number of bars there.
Another is to use the sequencer. Place an empty clip at the number of bars you want for a count-in, then arm the clip for recording in the sequencer. Make it as long as you need. Playback will proceed until playback reaches the clip position, then it will punch-in and punch-out record for the duration of the clip.
Another is to record a "count-in" loop of the number of bars you want and set a "Play" follow action to trigger recording on the clip you want to record. Once added, then you can tap the open circle at the left of the action to set a number of bars for the "quantization" of the action.
I'm sure there are other ways.
Okay, thanks! I will try all these methods tomorrow, I will report my result.
By tomorrow you'll have some better suggestions from others as well. 😎
@raabje : if you haven’t done so, read the description of record count in and count out in the manual. count in determines the time between when you tap an empty donut and when it starts recording. Count out determines how long recording continues after you tap to stop.
@espiegel123, @wim, thanks guys, I am gonna try it, I hope I have some time this afternoon an no people around me.
I have to say Loopy Pro is pretty clever! I can see myself being more productive with this. I mainly build instrumental guitar songs in some kind of A/B format.
It is still theory but my approach in Loopy Pro would be to record two 8 bar Lumbeat loops, one with low intensity (A part), and one with higher intensity (B part).
Bass lines parts I can play real time with my guitar and an octave pedal, or with midi keys and a good bass guitar sample or synth. Sequencing is possible too with LK or Atom but I want to keep the live feeling as much as possible. Should make me a better player too.
The A and B part guitar chord structure is captured in 8 bar loops, and for lead lines I can record longer loops, start with shorter bars, 8 or 16, and when there is real musical development, I can redo this in 32 bar loops or a linear recording (I think this is possible? A "loop" that runs one time, as long as the total song structure).
And when the structure is complete, I can redo the guitar chords in a linear recording or a couple of 32 bar loops, to get rid of the looped or repetitive effect and for more dynamics in the recording.
But this is theory yet, I hope it works out this way.
Okay, the update is, I set in the clip setting menu, count in = 8 bar (this is in my case equal to the 8 bar drum beat)
Count out is the preferred length of the recording, for example 8 bar.
I did had a moment of confusion. When I arm the donut too soon, directly after a new round, the recording starts instantly. If I wait a bit more, and the round turning marker at the border of the donut is approx. at the end of bar 1, the 8 bar count in works as it should.
When I press the donut when the others are not playing yet, the recording also starts immediately without count in.
I will explore the other methods too, but this is pretty good already.
@raabje : count-in/out quantization is about alignment with the clock. So, if count-in quantization is 8, it means something like:
When tapped, count-in so that recording begins at the beginning an 8 bar cycle. If the clock is at the top it is aligned with an 8 bar cycle and so begins right away. If you tap a little later, the clock won’t be aligned and count-in will happen.
If you tap in after one beat the count-in last 7 beats. If you tap in after four beats you get 4 beats of count in.
If you are playing to an eight-beat loop, this will mean recording will always start at the loop’s beginning.
I hope that made sense.
Depending on how you record your guitar, the Audio Threshold setting might also be an option. If you record through an interface (rather than through the mic) this can be used to start recording automatically as you start playing.
@espiegel123 , yes that makes sense. If the "offset" is zero, the recording starts immediately. Thanks for the explanation. That is also the reason it didn't seem to work yesterday, I tried some settings and there was still no count in.
@Vip8888, threshold, that could work, but I have the feeling this is more useful if the (electric) guitar recording is the first recorded loop.
In my case I want the drum loop that is already running be my guide, or metronome. For rhythm guitar that starts on beat one threshold will work all right.
In the situation I want to play guitar after some beats first, so not directly on beat one, I think threshold will not work? I have to try that.
If you use threshold recording, auto count out and phase preservation is on, the loop will start recording when you cross the threshold and complete when the loop is the full length … and loopy will keep it aligned with the way it was when you recorded.
@espiegel123 said:
Okay, thanks for explaining this too! So much sophisticated settings and options in Loopy Pro, makes my head spin
@raabje : if you want to avoid recording starting when you tap if the clock is at 0, there are a few ways to do that. One way is to create a button widget which when tapped waits a beat then queues recording.
Here is an example:
@espiegel123 , thanks, I will dive in this too.
You and @wim know a lot about Loopy Pro, that is amazing.
I have one more practical question, I think I have seen this in a video from Michael. It probably will be a case of read the manual, but here is comes, is it possible, to continuously record (for example) 8 bar loops in a sequence?
So I have an 8 bar drum beat running, and a chords pattern and bass line. And then I record guitar lead lines in 8 bar segments, untill I hit stop. So then as a result if I have collected (for example) 5 or 6 recorded loops, I can pick the best one, or put them in series in the sequencer.
You could but even better there is retrospective recording . Loopy is always listening . You can play along with your drum loop and decide after a take- to capture the last 8 bars as a take.
I like the idea of creating template that has different donuts set to behave differently on record. For instance, have one or two donuts that do retrospective recording for 8 and 16 bars, so you can click either based on what you have just played if you are jamming and do something nice. But the whole project's recording doesn't necessarily have to match this, you can vary it up within the same template.
A convenient technique: set up buttons that retrospective record the next tapped loop. That way you don’t even need to dedicate loops retrospective recording.
Here is a quick demo using buttons to handle different retro recording lengths rather than having to pre-setup clips. I also have a Load Project follow action set to set the Master Length to 16 bars initially. I do this because you can change the retrospective recording length up to the largest number of measures used for the master length during a session. Since this starts out at 16, I can retrospectively record from 1 to 16 measures on the fly.
You can set a follow action on these loops so that when they finish recording they trigger recording on the next loop in the sequence without you having to touch the screen or tap a foot pedal. This is easy to set up.
Retrospective recording is great, but you have to decide on the fly if it's a good one, and either tap the screen or use a controller to dump it into a loop. I think what you're after is to gather a bunch of takes, then decide which is best later. To me retrospective recording isn't the best for this.
I go somewhere in the middle. I have a button set up on my BlueBoard to stop record, select the next clip, and start record. I have the quantization set to 1 bar. So, as long as I tap the foot switch within the last bar of the take, the next clip will start recording at the top of the bar.
Long-press on the same switch clears the clip and re-starts recording on the same clip rather than advancing, for when I already know the take is crap. I use that one a lot. 😂
@espiegel123 @FriedTapeworm @wim
Thanks, good input, and it got me thinking further. I will try to build a template or canvas with buttons for both methods, route a retro recording to a donut, and repetitive recording in a couple of donuts. And indeed a button for long press to cancel the current recording, that will be handy.
I think when I prepare mentally and record some stuff in series, I have a higher success rate than when I just noodle around and retro record it. But both ways are good to incorporate in a template.
Yeh, I think having a lane of clips that each trigger the next is a great way to go. I'm not that great with tap-dancing on foot switches. And I'm like you, I like to go back through takes to decide which are keepers and which to trash. Sometimes what you think you messed up is actually better than the takes you thought you nailed. It's also easier to mess around with different ways of stringing them together.
Adding pages and profiles dedicated to different workflows can be a convenient way to focus and to avoid clutter.