Loopy Pro Quick Overview For Beta Testers

Loopy Pro can be very deep, but out of the box it is as straightforward as the classic Loopy. This guide is here to get you up and running with the basics. We'll get deeper elsewhere.

This article is to help beta testers get oriented since the docs and tutorials that will get new users oriented are not yet available.

The default setup is very much like Loopy and Loopy HD with a few differences we talk about below.

Out of the box, you have the familiar tap to start recording, tap to stop recording. Once a loop is playing, tapping will toggle between stopping (muting) the loop and playing it. Whether the action happens immediately or not depends on the Play/Stop Quantization setting. See Settings and Menus below for more about the Settings.

Colors. More information below. Loopy maps audio sources (instruments, audio interfaces) to tracks (donuts) by color. When you set up an audio source, you select which color or colors it sends its audio to. Colors can even feed other color which is handy for resampling.

Here are a few essential gestures as initially configured (you can override some of these,)

• Tap - Record/Start/Stop Tap an empty track to start record. Tap again to end recording. Tap a playing loop to stop (mute) it.

• Two Finger Tap - Overdub Two finger tap a playing track to overdub on it.

• Circle Gesture - Volume Change. To change the volume of a playing loop, you can use the mixer by tapping the mixer icon [need picture of icon here] or by making a circle gesture to initiate changing the volume. To use the circle gesture, place your finger in a playing track's donut and move your finger to describe a circle that stays within the donut's bounds. After 180 degrees, the volume change gesture will kick and the appearance will change while you change the volume. Making a clockwise circle will start you off increasing the volume and a counter-clockwise motion will start by decreasing the volume.

• Track Swipe Up - Track Quick Settings - Swiping up on a track brings up a panel with some quick settings for that track: volume, balance, pitch, speed, trim points. It also lets you export the track or import audio into a track. You can scroll down in the quick settings to access more properties and also global and color group settings.

• Pencil hold. Layout elements all have properties you can inspect and set. You can hold down the pencil icon to have instant access to the item properties without having to switch into layout edit mode.

• Scene - Long Press (and more) While Loopy is playing, long-pressing on a different scene's button will switch to the other scene at a time determined by Loopy's quantization settings, start the new scene playing and stop playback of the old scene.Long-pressing the current scene's button will toggle its tracks' play state. These actions can be mapped to MIDI actions and widgets, too.

Almost all behaviors and gestures can be re-defined to your preferences and mapped to MIDI.

[IF YOU THINK SOMETHING SHOULD BE ADDED HERE - LET US KNOW]

Audio Sources. Choose Audio Sources in the utility menu (with the cog icon) to set up your project's audio sources. Audio sources can be the internal mic, attached audio interfaces, AUv3 instruments and color groups. When you add an audio source, color buttons appear below the source and determine which color groups the source feeds. By default, a new audio source is aimed at all colors. Tap Open to open the source's user interface. You can set the source's MIDI source from that window. After you add an Audio Source, an icon for it will be visible (unless you choose to hide it) in the main u.i. that you can use to enable/disable it and to get to its user interface.

Auto Looping. Loopy Pro has some amazing AI built into it to simplify the process of creating perfect loops. You can, of course, turn these options off

Colors. Color groups are tracks that share properties. They are like instrument buses. All tracks of th same color share the same audio source (which can even be another color) have a group volume, pan and effects settings. They also share properties such as quantization. They aren't simply cosmetic. The paint bucket tool can be used to change the color group to which a track belongs. Tapping on the color's pencil brings up panel to edit the properties associated with a color. These can override global settings. Assigning Colors The quickest way to change a loop's color assignment is to flick up on a loop, Tap on the color to pop up the color picker. You can also assign colors with the layout editor. Tap the pencil to get into layout edit mode. Tap on the the paint bucket icon to get to the color assignment page. Tap a color to activate it. Tapping its pencil brings up the properties associated with the color. Tapping an audio element (a track or one shot) will assign it to the activated color. Color groups don't apply to widgets that don't contain audio. The user interface and workflow are currently being refined to streamline audio source assignments

Pages/Scenes. Loopy can be set up with different scenes that can be used for song sections. Tapping a scene's button switches to the scene's page. Long-pressing the scenes label during playback will switch to that scene and start it playing (and stop the other one playing) at a time determined by the playback quantization settings.

Sequencer. The sequencer provides a way to sequence loops. Normally, it runs as a linear timeline, but you can turn looping on for the sequencer by tapping the loop icon that appears in the top icon row. When loop mode is on, a selection bar appears in the timeline to set the portion that loops. You can set up sequenced recording of loops by dragging out empty events in the timeline and arming them for recording.

Record - The record button at the top of the screen lets you choose whether to record audio (in order to record a performance) with options about what to record. Record Sequence records your actions (turning loops on and off) as a linear sequence in the sequencer.

Long-tap on the Pencil icon (at the top right of the screen) to pop down a menu to access the important Loop Pro settings menus.

• Effects
• Audio Sources
• Settings - this item provides access to key settings:
  • (Global)Track Settings - this menu lets you change global track settings and settings by color. For individual track settings, see Track Settings below
  • MIDI Control
  • Synchronization
  • Metronome
• MIDI Learn
• Bluetooth Devices

Loopy Pro is highly configurable. There are global settings shared by all tracks. Settings shared by tracks of the same color. Settings specific to an individual track.

The global settings and settings by color are accessed through the Track Settings (see Settings and Menus). Pretty much all of the global settings can be overridden by the color settings. For example, you can set up the global track settings to be phase-locked (synchronized) and set the Yellow tracks to be unsynchronized or to have different quantization, and so on.

Individual track 'quick' settings. Swipe up on any track to get a convenient subset of the settings for a particular track. These are things like the volume, balance, pitch and speed. They also include the trim points so that you can play only a portion of the loaded audio. You can also import audio into the track or export the track from here. There is a deeper set of Individual Track settings available when you are in Loopy's Edit mode which is turned on by tapping the pencil icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

Individual track 'deep' settings. Individual tracks can be set up with Follow Actions and gesture particular to the particular track. To get to these settings, tap on the pencil icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to enter edit mode then tap the pencil in the middle of any track.

• Drag/Drop from Files onto tracks
• How to move projects between standalone and AUv3
• Record Audio / Record Sequence
• Multiple selection export (layout page). In layout mode (tap the pencil then the layout tool), you can drag a rectangular selection to around multiple items to select them. A menu pops up with relevant actions.
• The Record Button - this is for recording your performance. This can capture the output of your loops (as heard by the audience) and also (on separate tracks) any inputs (audio sources) and color groups.
• Sequencer Page
• Resampling (set a track color as an audio source aimed at another color)- track colors can be added as audio sources. Set the track color to target a different color and you can record resampled audio into the other color's tracks.
• Exporting tracks - an individual track can be exported (or copied to the clipboard) from its “Quick Settings” popup or its edit panel. Multiple tracks can be exported by switching to the layout edit, drawing a selection rectangle around the desired tracks and tapping Export in the menu that pops up.
• "Choke" within a color using Solo actions