I’ve been loving playing with the Looperlative LP3 basic plugin. It’s ALMOST perfect but for one issue that makes it very frustrating for my use-case. I wonder if I’m missing something, or whether a small tweak could sort this out.
I’m trying to perform a song that has two sections (verse & chorus, surprise surprise!), but with a rhythm track that plays for both sections. What I’d like to do is:
Record the percussion part (by hitting my instrument!) on Track 1 A
Swap to Track 2 and record the verse section on Track 2 part A
Switch to Track 2 part B to record the chorus
Continue switching between the verses (in 2A) and choruses (2B) during the course of the song, adding extra layers here and there, with the rhythm from 1A playing throughout.
I’m imagining the above is quite a common scenario.
This is SO close to working apart from one really annoying problem. Having recorded the rhythm to 1A, I switch to track 2A to record the chords for the verse.
The trouble is that there’s a “feature” that causes me a problem. I think the idea is that having recorded track one (with track 2 sync’d to track 1), if you record on track 2 for more than the length of track 1, it assumes that you want to keep adding additional loops of track 1 until the track 2 recording is finished. This is a nice idea in a way: you can just record 1 bar of percussion on track 1 and then keep looping that around while you record 8 bars on track 2.
The trouble comes when you want track 2 to start and finish at exactly the same time as track 1. If you need to start playing on bar 1, beat 1 of track 2 you really need to hit the record button slightly early so that you catch the first few milliseconds. Trouble is if you do this, the looper assumes you want to record the LAST few milliseconds of one cycle of track 1, and then add ANOTHER cycle of track 1 to record the main part in. If you’re also slightly late stopping record, it runs into a THIRD iteration of track 1. So when you play back you get 1 cycle of track 1, then another cycle containing the part you actually wanted to record, then another cycle where you were late stopping recording. If you try to keep everything within one loop you end up chopping off the start and end of your recording. Very frustrating!
I can think of two ways of fixing this (and having the option of either would be useful!)
Have a setting that limits the length of track 2 to be the same as that of track 1.
Have a setting that says effectively “if I click the record button less than (say) one second from the end of the loop, don’t start recording until the loop begins again”. Similarly if you click “stop record” less than, say, a second into the loop it should truncate the recording at the previous loop boundary.
Sorry for the long post. Hope that makes sense - does this resonate with others or am I missing something?
I realise that it’s a very early version of the product so I’m hoping a fix for this will be coming along soon - then I can actually perform my song!
If I get you correctly I think the trick is for track 2, first just set the length of the track without recording anything (so you dont care yet about bar 1 beat 1): clicking the Loop button to start and a second time just a few seconds later to end and set the length the same as track 1. Then record the actual chords with overdub…
Hmmm…well I’ve had another go following your suggestion @fer it but it’s still not really doing what I need it to do to record a song fluidly for several reasons.
As I mentioned earlier my intended workflow is:
Lay down percussion on track 1A as intro to song (2 bars).
Switch to track 2A and lay down the verse. 2bars recorded then looped to end of verse.
Switch to track 2B and lay down chorus - 2 bars.
Switch back to verse, add more layers etc.
The trouble is that I can’t seamlessly switch from step 1 to step 2 - I have to switch to track 2A, click record, wait a few seconds then click it again (doesn’t work if you do it too rapidly), THEN wait until the loop has completed before I can record the 2A loop - this adds 2 empty bars between the intro and the verse.
Going from 2A to 2B it automatically goes into record mode so I have to come out of record to make sure it’ll limit the loop to 2 bars (as recorded on 1A), THEN wait until the end of that cycle before I can actually record the chorus section - adding another 2 empty bars to the performance.
Worse still, once I’ve done all this, I’m finding that 2A and 1A aren’t staying in sync, even though I’ve set it to “self-sync”. Unfortunately that makes it a complete showstopper at the moment.
I dare say @looperlative will iron out the wrinkles before the full product is released, and I’ll continue to use it for simple looping, but it doesn’t yet seem to be capable of what I was hoping to use it for. Or if I’m still missing something maybe somebody can put me straight.
Thanks @looperlative - that’s very helpful, and having had a quick go your workflow seems to be working much better.
I’ll try to give it a proper go over the weekend.
I think the main difference is that, having switched to track 2 I was then using REC/DUB button to record, rather than the Part button
OK I’ve just had another go and using Rec/Dub to record 2A (step 5 above) seems much less tolerant if you push the button slightly before beat 1 - I’m getting much better results using the PART button instead.
Here are some observations regarding the rest of the process:
Set sync mode to Self Sync
Record track 1 using Rec/Dub
Stop recording using Rec/Dub
Change track to track 2
For some reason I have to press the track button twice to get to track 2: First press the display goes from “Track 1/2” to “Track 1/1” but web UI doesn’t change, then have to press again to get to “Track 2/2” - not sure why this is?)
Press PART to start recording 2A. I find I can press PART while still in the last fractions of the previous loop and it still only takes the recording from beat 1 of the next loop - this is GREAT!
Press PART - this ends the recording of 2A (but doesn’t begin recording 2B)
If I press it before the end of the loop it stops recording at that point so it cuts of the end of what I’m trying to lay down.
If I press record just after the end of the loop it will add another loop into the sequence, which is a big problem.
Neither of these are ideal - I’d prefer it to record to the end of the current measure (i.e a multiple of 1A) after you press the PART button, and then revert to play mode. OR if I’ve pressed Part a second time I’d like it to move to part B at the end of the loop and go straight into record mode on that
Press PART again to begin recording 2B (2A won’t be playing in this instance because my understanding is they’re mutually exclusive)
8.Press PART to complete recording 2B when it reaches a multiple of length of 1A.
In the case of my particular song I’d really like to be able to tell it to switch back to playing 2A as soon as it’s finished recording 2B but this doesn’t seem possible.
Press PART to switch between 2A and 2A.
This generally works but several times now when I’ve pressed PART 2A has started playing but completely out of sequence with 1A. I’ve also had it then subsequently be out of sync going from 2A to 2B