Using Loopy Pro in a live situation to trigger drum patterns

Background:

Following a bit of research and testing of a few options, I've decided to make a stab at using Loopy Pro (LP) as a platform for triggering drum patterns in live solo performances.  

I'm looking to get out more as a solo performer of my songs (and the odd cover) - singing and playing acoustic guitar. I don't want to play to backing tracks or clicks. If the groove in an instrumental section is feeling good, I don't want the backing track to force me to stop. I do want to record a backing loop "live" to play a second part over the top on occasions, but I'm not a looping guitarist, so I wasn't looking for a sophisticated looper, particularly. LP seems to meet my needs as a launcher of samples, record the odd loop and be flexible enough to adapt if I change things.

I already use a MIDI controller (MC6 Pro) to change effect pedal presets. Because I'm often singing, I don't have the time to get off the mic and look down to select specific effects. I use presets/setlists and the buttons on the MC6 reflect the song section I'm about to start. If I want tremolo in the verse, I don't look for the tremolo button, I press the "verse" button - and that button is usually in the same place for every MC6 preset. So, If I'm already pressing the button for "verse" it might as well start the drum pattern for the verse, too. 

Hardware:

This is just how things are at home today, for testing and setting up the drum parts.

1: iPad - LP runs on iOS (a macOS version is also in development). My iPad is the 32GB bottom-of-the-range model. 
2: Morningstar MC6 Pro - using a CME WIDI Jack to send Bluetooth MIDI to anything that can listen for it. The iPad can listen and it's been very reliable so far. My pedalboard setup uses MIDI cables and a Kenton MIDI Thru-5. I'm hoping (but haven't tested yet) that I can plug the WIDI Jack into one of the outputs from that. I'm also thinking I might build a small pedalboard just for solo acoustic stuff. My live band gig are on hold for a few months, so I can cannibalise rather than buy new stuff. 

I'm playing places that have a house PA or I'm supporting acts with their own PA, so all I do today is give a guitar signal (mono) to the sound engineer from the pedalboard, plus sing into one of their mics. I monitor using floor wedges if I even monitor at all.  I'm currently just putting a stereo signal out of the headphone socket on the iPad that can also feed the PA, so I'll leave it to the engineer to mix the sources into a decent sounds for the room. 

With an eye to maybe playing places that don't have a PA, I'm also thinking of getting a small mixer to mix myself and feed an FRFR setup, but that's not an issue right now. 

Next... How I'm using LP.

Related to that, I’m wondering if the MIDI latency (over Bluetooth, right?) is a problem…?

I've got Logic Pro on a Mac and I'm also using DM1 (a nice drum machine app) on my iPad. Both can create drum patterns and export them as audio WAV files suitable to be played as loops. Logic Pro can also export MIDI drum parts as MIDI files. The developer of Loopy Pro has got the playing of MIDI loops in his product roadmap, so it might be something I'd consider one day. 

LP template project:

Saved looping sessions inside LP are called Projects. LP also has the concept of Setlists, which is a list of Projects in playlist order. I've built a project that consists of 6 empty loops.

-intro
-verse
-chorus
-bridge
-solo
-ending

Not all songs will have audio loops for all 6 sections, but it doesn't hurt to have empty loops in your Project that do not get triggered. Moving your WAV files into your project is straightforward. Sometimes LP will get it wrong trying to assess the BPM of your clip. but it's easy to check and adjust before trying to use it. There's probably a setting for telling LP to not even try in the first place, but I haven't found it yet. All I've been doing so far is "proof of concept" not the finished product.

On a Project-based basis, I've set the template project up to play the -verse loop when LP hears the MIDI CC command 21 on channel 5. That's what the MC6 sends when I press the button assigned to Verse (as well as the other stuff for my guitar effects). Inside LP, I'm telling it to react to CC21 as follows...

- stop the clock (to reset the LP clock to be at the start of the loop)
- select the -verse clip
- start the clock (to start playing that clip from the beginning)

And it just works. There's no noticeable latency - Bluetooth MIDI is fast, direct and the messages are very short. Going from an -intro loop to a -verse loop to a -chorus loop is seemingly instantaneous. 

bloodandtears said:

my fear is that starting a drum beat mid song without any sense of context could be messy timing wise and lack fluidity..   ..unless there is a decent enough break in the song whereby you can pick up the beat naturally?

My timing is pretty solid, so I'm not worried about that. And I'm not planning on going from silence into a section with a drum pattern. I'll have something behind me all the time, even if it's just a hi-hat as a click with a snare roll on beat 4 to introduce the verse (for instance). 

TheBigDipper said:

Background:

Following a bit of research and testing of a few options, I've decided to make a stab at using Loopy Pro (LP) as a platform for triggering drum patterns in live solo performances.  

I'm looking to get out more as a solo performer of my songs (and the odd cover) - singing and playing acoustic guitar. I don't want to play to backing tracks or clicks. If the groove in an instrumental section is feeling good, I don't want the backing track to force me to stop. I do want to record a backing loop "live" to play a second part over the top on occasions, but I'm not a looping guitarist, so I wasn't looking for a sophisticated looper, particularly. LP seems to meet my needs as a launcher of samples, record the odd loop and be flexible enough to adapt if I change things.

I already use a MIDI controller (MC6 Pro) to change effect pedal presets. Because I'm often singing, I don't have the time to get off the mic and look down to select specific effects. I use presets/setlists and the buttons on the MC6 reflect the song section I'm about to start. If I want tremolo in the verse, I don't look for the tremolo button, I press the "verse" button - and that button is usually in the same place for every MC6 preset. So, If I'm already pressing the button for "verse" it might as well start the drum pattern for the verse, too. 

Hardware:

This is just how things are at home today, for testing and setting up the drum parts.

1: iPad - LP runs on iOS (a macOS version is also in development). My iPad is the 32GB bottom-of-the-range model. 
2: Morningstar MC6 Pro - using a CME WIDI Jack to send Bluetooth MIDI to anything that can listen for it. The iPad can listen and it's been very reliable so far. My pedalboard setup uses MIDI cables and a Kenton MIDI Thru-5. I'm hoping (but haven't tested yet) that I can plug the WIDI Jack into one of the outputs from that. I'm also thinking I might build a small pedalboard just for solo acoustic stuff. My live band gig are on hold for a few months, so I can cannibalise rather than buy new stuff. 

I'm playing places that have a house PA or I'm supporting acts with their own PA, so all I do today is give a guitar signal (mono) to the sound engineer from the pedalboard, plus sing into one of their mics. I monitor using floor wedges if I even monitor at all.  I'm currently just putting a stereo signal out of the headphone socket on the iPad that can also feed the PA, so I'll leave it to the engineer to mix the sources into a decent sounds for the room. 

With an eye to maybe playing places that don't have a PA, I'm also thinking of getting a small mixer to mix myself and feed an FRFR setup, but that's not an issue right now. 

Next... How I'm using LP.

Very clever setup  & interesting to read how it’s done 

TheBigDipper said:

bloodandtears said:

my fear is that starting a drum beat mid song without any sense of context could be messy timing wise and lack fluidity..   ..unless there is a decent enough break in the song whereby you can pick up the beat naturally?

My timing is pretty solid, so I'm not worried about that. And I'm not planning on going from silence into a section with a drum pattern. I'll have something behind me all the time, even if it's just a hi-hat as a click with a snare roll on beat 4 to introduce the verse (for instance). 

so you'll have to time your new loop  with an existing click?  rather you than me..

bloodandtears said:

TheBigDipper said: <snip>

so you'll have to time your new loop  with an existing click?  rather you than me..

? No. That would be very hard. I think something has been lost in translation, somehow. :-) 

I'm not going to have a click on in the background all the time and try to match to that. If the song has a distinct intro, and would benefit from matching drums, I'll have an intro loop that has a short quiet click (like a drummer doing a 1-2-3-4 sticks click for a bar) and then into the drums part. When I'm ready to change to the verse, I'll click the button to be in time with that. The intro part will stop and the verse part will start at the beginning. 

That's the plan, anyway. I'm doing OK at showing the technology should do the job. I'm now hoping the operator can operate it!  It shouldn't be any harder than timing the start to go with the first chord. I can (so far) do it on demand, and it seems to be close enough to the timing, but I haven't yet tried playing entire songs and seeing how hard/easy that feels. 

TheBigDipper said:

bloodandtears said:

TheBigDipper said: <snip>

so you'll have to time your new loop  with an existing click?  rather you than me..

? No. That would be very hard. I think something has been lost in translation, somehow. :-) 

I'm not going to have a click on in the background all the time and try to match to that. If the song has a distinct intro, and would benefit from matching drums, I'll have an intro loop that has a short quiet click (like a drummer doing a 1-2-3-4 sticks click for a bar) and then into the drums part. When I'm ready to change to the verse, I'll click the button to be in time with that. The intro part will stop and the verse part will start at the beginning. 

That's the plan, anyway. I'm doing OK at showing the technology should do the job. I'm now hoping the operator can operate it!  It shouldn't be any harder than timing the start to go with the first chord. I can (so far) do it on demand, and it seems to be close enough to the timing, but I haven't yet tried playing entire songs and seeing how hard/easy that feels. 

bloodandtears said:

<snip>

I can see what you are trying to do..  essentially a jigsaw of song parts.. and yes whilst in theory if your samples are trimmed correctly and start bang on time and you hit the trigger pedal on cue it should be fine... but believe me from experience this is prone to error..

I wouldn't be surprised if I decide it's not something I can do reliably, or even that I can, but the faff of getting it right isn't worth the effort.

But it's been an interesting ride so far and Loopy Pro seems like something worth spending some more time with. 

bloodandtears said:

Good luck to you..

I was using a Digitech Jamman to in my band to play samples.. but either I'd not press the button properly or timely or we weren't slightly on tempo enough for it to not feel jarring...

We now use a click track for songs that benefit from the extra sounds!

Ta. It's just me playing, so no-one else to point at if it goes wrong! :-) 

@TheBigDipper 

I use Loopy Pro as a practice aid and have developed a template which has 5 song sections  and each section contains 5 separate loops. If I start in the Intro section, it will play and then loop until I trigger the next section. I can trigger the next section in advance and Loopy Pro will play out the current section and switch to the next.

Happy to share the template, and edit it to your use case if that helps.

PFAllen2 said:

@TheBigDipper 

I use Loopy Pro as a practice aid and have developed a template which has 5 song sections  and each section contains 5 separate loops. If I start in the Intro section, it will play and then loop until I trigger the next section. I can trigger the next section in advance and Loopy Pro will play out the current section and switch to the next.

Happy to share the template, and edit it to your use case if that helps.

That would be very kind of you. It's not quite what I'm looking to do live, but it would certainly be very helpful at home trying out composition ideas and for practicing.

OK... to bring this full circle... 

Loopy Pro is a fine piece of software and more people should take a look at it for more uses than just looping.

I can see how I can do what I want regarding triggering specific drum parts for songs. I can see how to build a live performance setup that would be pretty eiable and transportable to make it happen at a gig. I've set up the MC6 Pro so that I can hold the button down and it sends the correct MIDI command on release - so there are no timing problems, the new pattern starts in time with my live playing.

It's doable. But it's also joyless. I've come to realise that I'd rather spend my time writing a new song or practicing the execution of one already in existence than programming drums and overcoming the lack of another musician. 

So I've stopped the exercise and won't be doing this. Onwards and upwards! :-)