Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Describe your looping workflow

Moderator: jesse

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devilsavocado
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:19 pm

Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by devilsavocado »

I've been working with the RC-50 for a bit to perform songs in a very simple way. I pre-record loops with drums, bass, etc. and then add live guitar and vocals. I switch between loops using the "LOOP END" mode of the RC-50 so that I can switch without having to precisely time the pedal presses. This way I can press a phrase pedal any time during the current loop, and the new loop will begin playing as soon as the current loop is completed.

Since the RC-50 is limited to three phrases and 49 minutes of recording time, I've been looking for a better solution. SooperLooper looks great, but I haven't seen a way to do what I need.

Is this the right tool for the job, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
jesse
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Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:46 am
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Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by jesse »

Well, SL doesn't actually make that particular workflow very easy to do. There are ways to do rough approximations but it isn't very convenient. Until the time comes when i have time to work on SL again, I would guess it isn't the right tool. But feel free to try it and see what else might come out....
devilsavocado
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:19 pm

Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by devilsavocado »

Are there any looping tools that might be more appropriate?
JeffHendricks
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue May 11, 2010 11:07 am

Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by JeffHendricks »

Actually, this wouldn't be hard to do. It's possible using solo and/or mute for individual tracks. Here's how I did it:

Set up an empty session with 3 loops. (Ctrl-2 adds stereo loops, Ctrl-D removes them)
Put checks on "sync" and "play sync" on all 3 loops.
If your first loop is the shortest, and the others are multiples of it's length, then set your "sync to" source to Loop 1 and quantize to "cycle". If they're all the same length, even better.
Put a check in "mute quant" at the top. This is the most important part... normally, mute/solo isn't synced to the end of the loops.

Now, to effectively switch loops without having to hit it exactly on the beat, you can map a key press to "solo_next" and "solo_prev". It will wait until the end of the cycle before soloing the next loop. If you want to use individual buttons to solo each loop, you can map a MIDI button to "[cmd] solo" and set the loop number to use. If you just want to mute loops without soloing, you can map MIDI buttons to "[cmd] mute" for each loop.
JeffHendricks
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue May 11, 2010 11:07 am

Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by JeffHendricks »

I just realized the only downside to doing it this way (using "mute quant") is that you won't be able to mute the track if you want to do a quick break in the music... to work around this, you could map a CC pedal or button to SooperLooper's "[ctrl] wet" parameter. It would effectively mute all output without having to use the "mute" command.
devilsavocado
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:19 pm

Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by devilsavocado »

Thanks for your suggestion. I've already written a quick application to do what I needed, but I think I'll give SooperLooper another try since it's likely to be more stable than my app.

Is it necessary that the loops be multiples of a base length or all the same size? This isn't true of the songs I've done so far.
jesse
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Re: Performing a song with multiple pre-recorded loops

Post by jesse »

No, they don't need to be multiples of anything, but the time at which it switches to the next one when quantize is enabled (set to cycle or loop) depends on the sync source (eg one of the loops). You could change the sync source at the same time you do the solo_next by doing multiple midi bindings.
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