It’s taken quite a while to understand what I’m really needing here. Hope it makes sense...
The working conditions:
I need the following feature to work when Count-in/out mute is turned ON as I don’t want my (already-recorded) loop to start playing as soon as I tap it.
The feature (By way of example):
Currently:
* I have a 1-bar loop (‘LoopA1’) playing and a 4-bar loop (‘LoopB4’) playing and I have another 4 bar pre-recorded loop (‘LoopC4’) that is not currently playing.
* I tap on ‘LoopC4’ and it starts playing once ‘LoopB4’ reaches its 12 o’clock point (start of the next 4-bar period). Depending on when I tapped ‘LoopC4’, it could take say 3 bars before it starts playing.
What I would like to do:
* Same scenario but when I tap on ‘LoopC4’, it doesn’t wait until the ‘LoopB4’ reaches the 12 o’clock point. Rather, it starts playing from its beginning (See Note1) at the start of the very next bar. Ie when ‘LoopA1’ reaches its 12 o’clock point.
I realize this means that LoopC4 won’t be playing in 4-bar synch with LoopB4. However, it will still be playing and sychronised to each _song _bar.
ALSO, I don’t want this mode to be exclusive of the normal operating mode. Hence, I need a way to choose which type of ‘Play’ action I want....
_As far as the GUI goes: _ At the moment when you down-swipe on a pre-recorded track that is not playing you get the menu: Re-record/Clear/Cancel. Perhaps this could become Re-record/Clear/PlayOnNextBar/Cancel. Or replace the Re-record with PlayOnNextBar? (controversial I’m sure).
Why? Umm, I guess the easiest answer is that I find that I need this for some songs when I’m playing live.
If you’re happy with that answer as to ‘why’, then don’t read on or you may explode. But, if you really want to know more detail as to ‘why’, here goes:
- By way of example again: If have a song with two distinct elements. Let’s say for example the Verse and the Chorus (but it might not be - it could be a bridge and a chorus, a pre-chorus, an instrumental break or whatever...)
- Let’s say the VERSE has some 1-bar loops and some 8-bar loops. I record them live. All good so-far.
- Then, to record the CHORUS live, I leave some of the 1-bar loops from the verse playing (eg the percussion and maybe a drone sound depending on the song).
- At this point, because I’ve recorded the 8-bar loop from the VERSE, that loop has its own 12o’clock set in stone.
- OK, now the verse 8-bar loop is not playing and I’m about to record an 8-bar loop for the CHORUS.
- I have the count-in quantize set to 1-bar and I start recording the 8-bar CHORUS loop as soon as I can. (I don’t want to wait until the verse-8-bar loop has reached it’s 12 o’clock because I need to keep things ‘snappy’ as I can).
- Once I’ve finished recording the 8-bar CHORUS loop, no matter when I started recording it, Loopy very cleverly lays it down in synch with the VERSE’s 8-bar loop marker. This is GREAT as that’s often what you want Eg. if the loop you are recording is part of the same song-element as the other 8-bar loop.
- But, in my-case, my second 8-bar loop is not related the first. It’s part of a different song element which I may need to start synchronised to the song-BAR but not synchronised to the VERSE’s 8-Bar loop.
- This may sound strange but it’s true
- This may sound strange but it’s true
Note 1: This next bit is probably just for @Michael: When I say 'from its beginning', this actually needs some clarification I think: There are two possible meanings of a loop's 'beginning'. (1) The point in time where it changed colour and started recording or (2) the start of the recorded loop's memory segment. As you'd know, these are not the same thing in Loopy (which is how it should be ). Let's say you have an 8-bar loop already laid down and muted and you have count-in quantize set to 1-bar. If you arm another 8-bar loop for recording say in the middle of the existing 8-bar loop's 4th bar, then you are actually starting to record the new loop at the start of the new loop's 5th bar. Which _is _what you want. Loopy lays down the _new _loop in the loop's memory segment as if the memory pointer has been locked to the _existing _8-bar loop that isn't currently playing. Again - this is a good thing and I wouldn't want this to change. So, in the above discussion 'from its beginning' in the sense of (2) above, without changing the way you record the track into memory currently
My head hurts a little. Hope yours doesn't
Cheers, Paul