Recording loops

Arm, record, overdub, undo and clear. How the loop lifecycle and quantization work.

The track lifecycle

A track is always in one of these states, shown on its card:

Empty: nothing recorded yet.
Armed: ready, waiting for sound before it starts recording.
Recording: capturing your first loop.
Overdubbing: layering more on top of an existing loop.
Playing: the loop is looping back.
Stopped: the loop is kept in memory but silent.

Tap to do the obvious thing

The track's ring is the main control. A tap does whatever makes sense for the current state:

On an empty track: arms it to record.
On a playing track: starts overdubbing a new layer.
On an overdubbing track: commits the layer and goes back to playing.
On a stopped track: queues it to start again, locked to the master loop.

You can also tap a track with its number key (1 to 9).

Synchro-record: it waits for you

By default Loopylicious uses synchro-record. When you arm the first loop it does not start the moment you tap, it waits until it actually hears something (audio above the noise floor, or a MIDI note). That means no rushing to play on the click. You can turn this off in Settings under the Controls tab if you would rather record the instant you tap.

Quantized loop length

When you close your first loop, Loopylicious snaps the end to the nearest beat so the loop length is musical. Every loop after that is quantized to that master length, so layers always line up. There is also a little timing grace if you hit the loop button slightly early or late.

Tracks you have stopped can be tapped to re-enter, and they wait for the next master-loop boundary so they come back in phase rather than halfway through a bar.

Overdub, undo and redo

Tapping a playing track starts an overdub layer. The track's undo button mutes the layer you are working on, and pressing it again (now showing redo) brings it back. Starting a fresh overdub replaces that layer, so you can keep trying a part until it feels right.

Stop and clear

Stop halts a single track without erasing it (it goes to the Stopped state, ready to bring back in).
Clear erases a track's audio and MIDI. To avoid accidents you have to hold the clear button: a fill sweeps across the button and the track only clears once it completes.

Use the transport's Stop all (default Backspace) to stop every track at once, and Play all (default Space) to start them together.