Loopy's capabilities hands off, and non quantised.
Hi, I am thinking of getting an ipad and Loopy, for use with a double bass;
Iv'e read through quite a bit, and REALLY like what I see.....But this all seems to be in 4/4.
I play a mixture of arco and pizzicato / contempory and a lot of classical...and in whatever time signature / interpretation is appropriate (including silence). So Before I go ahead and buy stuff on my bountiful student income (!) I would like to know the following:
Does loopy ALWAYS automatically quantise? (I think I have read you can turn it off - which I wiould need to do).
Dose Loopy play nicely in anything other than 4/4? (IE: is it purely based on whatever I decide is "a loop"?).
And whilst I have my attention:
I was thinking of controlling it with a Behringer FCB 1010...I need 2 hands for the bass. Can I select loops via the pedal? Select tracks for new loops etc etc?
Hopefully I can use this for performance, and encourage in others the playing of this majestic instrument.
Sorry if this is covered here, I just need a better idea.
Thanks boys and girls, and greetings from Remote Australia!
Comments
Hi @Will,
1° answer: Tempo signature
You can set the main tempo signature on the Tempo panel (appear with some swipe at the bottom of the orange window). You can set tempo signature from 1/4 to 32/8.
2° answer: Quantize
Loopy not quantize, but synchronize the track with tempo and other track, is not the same thing. The "quantize" slide in the setup panel, indicates how much time must elapse between the time when I tap on the track and which start the recording (or mute).
3° answer: FCB1010
Yes, I and other users play Loopy with FCB1010 and a external MIDI interface CoreMIDI compatible (I use the Cakewalk/Roland UM-2G and Apple Camera Connection Kit, so I can connect the interface to my Mac also, for pedalboard setting with FCB1010 MIDI Editor x Win).
If you have not understood what I wrote, don't worry, it's for my bad English... ;-)
Hey Will,
Technically speaking, you can disable synchronisation (which disables quantisation too), but for rhythmic musical performances that can get a bit hairy, as timing has to be 100% perfect in order to avoid drift.
But Loopy will work fine in any time signature - as you say, it just works with what you decide is a loop. Most of the time, regardless of the actual time signature, one's usually working in powers of two - 1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars. See the addendum below for more information than you probably need.
You can indeed select loops via the pedal - either by moving forward/backwards through all the loops with each press, or hard-code a jump to a particular loop (that last one's in the next update, not the current version). Not sure what you mean by "select tracks for new loops", but there's a large number of things you can control via MIDI, including punch in/out, mute/unmute, solo/unsolo, pan, volume, clear and re-record, etc.
Cheers,
Michael
Addendum:
It only gets technical when you want to subdivide one bar in time signatures other than 4/4 - say, have a loop one crotchet long in 3/4 time.
When you have sync turned on (which it is by default), every track you record will be quantized to either an integer multiple (1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, etc) of the master clock length, or a power-of-two divisor (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc).
So, if you want a loop of only a crotchet in length, in a 3/4 piece, then you'll need to start your session with that length and work up from there, as there's presently to way to specify a 1/3 master clock length.
Thanks Thore for the excellent info - that really helps, your English is just fine!
Michael, The addendum is good, because it relates to things I am thinking about.
I have just realised I could save myself alot of questions and put it on my iphone for a test drive. I'll do that shortly. (doh moment)....
Anyhow, good info. I'm very taken with it.
I will be teaching music at some point soon, so this stuff is gold.
I Shall return with hopefull good news (and sounds).
Also, Thanks Michael for your Technomads blog, which I looked at yesterday and got rather homesick.
regards,
Will.
Cheers Will, glad that was helpful
If you do get into it, I'd be interested to hear how you fare; it is rather tailored for 4/4 time at present, but I'm open to exploring how to make it work more nicely with other time signatures, for those who want to subdivide below the one-bar level. Perhaps, for example, Loopy could take more cues from the time signature setting, and when quantizing below a bar, divide by multiples of that, instead of dividing by twos. Same with the master clock length controls.
Ah, homesick? You're from the UK/EU, then? I guess we've switched places