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Issues recording a triplet feel?

chesterisdeadchesterisdead
in Loopy Pro

Hey all,

I'm having issues recording loops that aren't in regular sub-divisions of the clock, namely a quarter note triplet feel on top of a 4/4 tempo. Here's a video explaining:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2brel2hkbkmhy06ufwex2/Loopy-Pro-Triplet.MP4?rlkey=893vegsghla6kz4cz82q6faf2&dl=0

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks!

Comments

  • jebnijebni
    edited February 16

    You're overthinking this. You're not doing a complex polyrhythm, you're recording threes over fours, in a sequence that's exactly the same length for each. The latter is the key factor. Therefore:

    1. With the default settings, (all the usual quantisations on), and any time while the first loop is playing, you can simply tap the second loop to prime it to record , and it'll start recording at the correct time (the beginning of the first loop) to make it synchronise. This is what quantisation means in this context — it doesn't mean that Loopy expects your beats all fit within quarter note subdivisions. It simply allows you to synchronise your recordings.

    2. Perform your triplet feel over the original loop, and then tap the second loop again to stop as the original loop hits the "one" (you don't need to be super accurate, because Loopy will figure it out). So if your first loop was one bar, your second loop is the same length as the first (or multiples thereof, if need be). Sure, you can pre-define the length, too, so the recording ends without you needing to do anything dextrous, but if you do, measure the length in bars, not beats.

    Eveything should work if you let Loopy start and end recording in sync with the first loop.

  • chesterisdeadchesterisdead

    Hey jebni,
    Thanks for the quick reply. I _think _ I get what you're saying. Is this what you mean?
    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dr539y0ieant0btphjl3g/Loopy-Full-Phrase.MP4?rlkey=oxenf4ef9vdx2zzy4y4ull5n4&dl=0

    In this example, the pattern works when the 3 over 4 lands back on the 1 of the main loop. But I guess I'm wondering if it's possible to record just 1 cycle rather than a full phrase and have that be in sync with the main loop.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @chesterisdead said:
    Hey all,

    I'm having issues recording loops that aren't in regular sub-divisions of the clock, namely a quarter note triplet feel on top of a 4/4 tempo. Here's a video explaining:
    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2brel2hkbkmhy06ufwex2/Loopy-Pro-Triplet.MP4?rlkey=893vegsghla6kz4cz82q6faf2&dl=0

    Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

    Thanks!

    Without seeing your recording settings , it isn’t clear why you get the results you do in the last part if your clip.

    As long as your clips are identical (truly identical) lengths or (or appropriate multiples) they will stay in sync. Count-out determines loop length (possibly with an assist from length quantization). As long as you set recording count-out, you will be fine. You may want to turn phase preservation off…depending on the use-case.

    It seems that you probably didn’t have the count out set to make sure that last loop was a length that guaranteed that it was an appropriate division.

    What length did you want it to be?

  • jebnijebni
    edited February 16

    @espiegel123 He wants the second loop to be 1/3 the length of the first, if I’m following correctly. @chesterisdead that’s technically possible, but

    1. I don’t know why you’d want to work that way, unless you were going to do something else with that unit of time (1 1/3 quarter note) as a building block for your musical piece in a genuinely polyrhythmic way. If you’re just doing it for the sake of mathematical elegance, I think you might be tilting at windmills here. 😂
    2. Unless Michael introduces “1/3 bar” as an option in the loop length slider (currently, “triplet” means 1/12 bar), or tweaks the loop detection mechanism to somehow guess 1/3 bar as a probably target length in a 4/4 project, you either (i) have to be a living drum machine to tap on and off a loop that measures exactly 1.3333 beats, or (ii) have to edit the loop length manually after the fact.

    I’ve done the latter in this video. Since Loopy can’t currently zero in on the unlikely event that someone would want a whole loop that was merely 1.333333 beats long, it was the only way. (I say it’s unlikely because I could imagine it creating a whole bunch of false positives.) And it would have been flatly impossible (especially with my sense of timing and eye-hand coordination) to manually do that in actual live performance. It would have gone out of sync within two bars, like it happened to you. I did this instead:

    1. Before recording the second loop, I changed the time signature to 3/4 but preserved the bar length.
    2. I used the awesome audio sequencer known as the metronome 😆 to record the 3/4 rhythm for the entire bar, because my timing would have been shuffly.
    3. I then reverted the project back to 4/4, because that’s the real time signature of the piece, right?
    4. I then edited the length of the loop to exactly 1.33333333 beats by specifying that as 0.666666 seconds at 120bpm.

    Which is ridiculous. If there’s an easier way to do that, please somebody jump in! But yeah, I really recommend making your loops the same length if there’s no pressing reason not to.

    Edit: I guess I could have edited the loop length when I was still in 3/4, which would have been easier and more intuitive. But it’s not that much less involved!

  • chesterisdeadchesterisdead

    Hey thanks so much for all the feedback! Super helpful.
    I figured out what I was looking for! For starters, my record Count In/Out Quantization was set to none, so I changed that to 1/8th notes. Then I set Length Quantization per clip to off. Have a look for a more in depth explanation here:
    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gz49i09ocgdeximur7wc7/Triplet-Solve.MP4?rlkey=itd5qg7drajnz1owj853ejnnd&dl=0

    Maybe this can be helpful to others too?

  • michael_mmichael_m

    I’m still confused as to what is being asked.

    It might be worth clarifying what “a triplet feel” is as opposed to using triplets.

    If it is one set of quarter note triplets, then the measure should be half the length of a full 4 beat count, but I don’t know if that’s what is being asked.

  • chesterisdeadchesterisdead

    Hey @michael_m - I meant quarter note triplets over a 4/4 quarter note beat.

    I think I figured it out based on the video I posted above. Hope it's helpful to others too!
    Thank you :)

  • jebnijebni

    I didn’t know LP could detect a 1/3 bar length! Why isn’t it in the loop length slider then? Anyway, enjoy!

    I still don’t know why you wouldn’t use a longer measure with more notes, tho.

  • jebnijebni

    I also think that 3 over 4 is never really 3 over 4 when people perform it. There’s almost always a deliberate swing that you can’t capture in a 1/3 bar loop. You do sound pretty good though 🤩

  • jebnijebni

    I have insomnia and am going insane. As you were.

  • michael_mmichael_m

    @chesterisdead said:
    Hey @michael_m - I meant quarter note triplets over a 4/4 quarter note beat.

    I think I figured it out based on the video I posted above. Hope it's helpful to others too!
    Thank you :)

    I think what was confusing is saying a quarter note triplet over one beat, as a quarter note triplet in common time would span 2 beats. Did you mean eighth note triplets?

  • jebnijebni

    Maybe we should just listen to his original example HAHAHAHA. Oh, WORDS. I do enjoy this place.

  • chesterisdeadchesterisdead

    I'd say it's for the same reason you might want to use a single 1/8th note high hat "stab" over and over rather than a phrase with multiple stabs. It's just a different sonic feel; can lend itself to making the voice sound rhythmically robotic, almost like a drum machine.

  • chesterisdeadchesterisdead

    @michael_m Yes I think what I meant was a quarter note triplet spanning 2 beats.

  • jebnijebni

    I still don’t know what we’re talking about exactly, but this is the territory I go to when such words are used:

    Hilarious. I recall for that tour they did a lot of that performative insanity.

  • michael_mmichael_m

    @chesterisdead said:
    @michael_m Yes I think what I meant was a quarter note triplet spanning 2 beats.

    Yeah, those can be hard to count. The temptation is to count “tri-ple-et” and find you have counted 3 full beats.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    I just want to say: I think we should be accepting that people have different ways that they like to work and think about things different ways -- even if we can't personally relate to that way of working.

    @chesterisdead : Great that you found a solution.

    Another solution is to set the time signature to 12/8. You could set up different count-outs on different colors to allow for loops that are subdivisions of twelve.

  • jebnijebni

    @espiegel123 said:
    I just want to say: I think we should be accepting that people have different ways that they like to work and think about things different ways -- even if we can't personally relate to that way of working.

    You’re right, I’m at my wit’s end without sleep but should watch my tone, and apologise if I sounded dimissive, @chesterisdead — the tool proved much better than I’d assumed possible.

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