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That's good to know - until now I assumed that only Ableton would fit the bill. Having a Linux alternative is nice. Why did you stop using that BTW?
I really like the idea of multi-app session management, and originally I intended for ShoopDaLoop to be used this way (and it still can, with the "external" dry-wet tracks). Unfortunately, for me personally I had lots of issues with RaySession and Ajordejo that made it unworkeable. Probably my own fault, as I hear much good about these tools. One drawback is that by doing a dry/wet setup, you have to make a cycle in your Jack graph, which effectively doubles the total latency.
This one is high on my list! FYI though: have a play with the composite loops, because it sounds like what you want is already possible. Shoop doesn't have "scenes" but only "composite loops", which can be used as a scene or a repeating sequence or both. You can re-use your single drum loop in multiple composite loops.
I am also not sure yet how to tackle this. But agree it is important.
Indeed, this is possible.
Indeed, a lot is already possible with the composite loops. Be aware: you don't need a trigger-only track for it. Any loop can be a composite loop. For example, if I want to sequence loops of the same track, I usually put the composite loop in the same track. When I want to group stuff over multiple tracks, I like to add those composites to a trigger-only track to keep the overview.
That sounds cool. In principle you can already do it with the composite loops, but you'd have to manually add each new recording to the list, as opposed to it just following the order of the track. I'll have a think about it. The "random" part is also nice! I feel like instead of supporting these kind of things directly, what I'd really like is if the LUA scripting interface becomes powerful enough so that users can program their own fun behaviors. But it would mainly require having a way to couple these scripts to buttons or loops. For example, I went the same route with the keyboard controls. I wanted to offer comprehensive controls but also give the opportunity for users to create their own keyboard mappings and advanced keyboard behaviors. So the built-in keyboard support is a LUA script shipped with the app, which the user can copy-paste and modify to their taste if they prefer. It's just that the LUA script interface is relatively limited ATM. I will expand it as new scripting ideas come up. It won't be a stable interface until a first release comes.
Thanks for your insights! |
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As for binding plugin settings to MIDI controls: there is currently no specific feature for it. From what I know, Carla can already bind controls to parameters though. The downside is that the information can only get in through the same MIDI port that the recording goes into. In other words, if you would want to control a plugin this way, you'd have to connect that MIDI controller to the recording input of the track. And any control changes to that parameter would be recorded along with the content (and played back again). Edit: #324 |
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Sorry for the silence, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Here are finally a few follow-up answers:
I was more excited by the idea of trying to get a similar behaviour with open-source only - and also, the free plan (not sure if it still exists) lets you use only 8 tracks, only 2 or 3 external plugins, and no major version upgrades. The price then gets quite steep.
Tbh I'm struggling quite a lot too, especially with the connections and the MIDI controls mapping, and Non-Mixer(-XT)'s midi-mapper (midi-osc interface). Sometimes I feel like giving up (which I also dis in the past haha) or writing a simple script to just launch and connect everything the way I want it - which I may well do soon.
Aha, interesting, I'll try that!
Good to know, but what are trigger-only tracks for then? To start one-shot effects/samples?
Sounds very cool with a button indeed. I'll have to get into LUA scripting.
Yeah, it is possible, but I find it very cumbersome and unintuitive to (IIRC) select the parameter in a long list (as opposed to clicking on the control in the UI) and then select the control in a long list (as opposed to moving the physical knob). Anyway, thanks for you continued work on this, I hope I'll find more time to play with shoop in 10 days or so. |
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They don't add any particular functionality. I just added them because I think as a session becomes a bit complex, you may want to have a track with only composite loops in it, for "organizing" your session. For example, you can make a trigger-only track, and make each loop in it connect to all others in the same row - that way you'd have created something like Ableton's "scenes".
Cool! The groundwork is there, but the LUA API is quite limited. I've just been adding functions to that as I needed them, mostly for the default keyboard script. But I think it can become quite powerful.
That's a shame, I personally haven't played with it yet. At the moment I've tied everything to Carla pretty hard for plugin hosting, so if Carla is not intuitive in that regard, I won't be able to work around it. The only option would be to use external apps (via JACK/NSM) instead of hosted plugins via Carla, that way you can do it however you prefer.
Cheers! Also a FYI: the next build I will upload will have quite some changes to the loop controls. I reduced it back to "play" "play dry", "record", "grab" (new), "stop". The "grab" is new: I am working on always-on recording. So you don't have to press anything to record - just play (even with the ear symbol off - no monitoring). When you play something nice, hit "grab" (G). The grab respects the N cycles control and the "play after recording" control (will play immediately in that case). I will add documentation soon, but just a heads-up in the meantime. |
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FYI: I updated the documentation. The "Controlling Loops" section now explains the new global controls in more detail, and also goes into the "grabbing" (always-on recording) feature. I feel like it has reached the point now that these basic controls will stay relatively stable, so it really is time to make a demo video soon! |
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Hello again :)
Continuing the conversation we started in #235 :
Haha, same here! But I eventually came to accept that I may be more an engineer than a musician, always finding ideas to improve the tools even though I'm not actually using the tools much 😅
That said, if you haven't, I would advise you to try and get to learn some of the commercial alternatives - Bitwig is the only one I know that can do what we're looking for on Linux - since there are great engineers there that have been paid for many years to figure out the best workflow and interface. I used it for a few months after having worked on my own audio looping project built in Pure Data, and a few things (including opinionated restrictions) were quite enlightening.
My latest project has been to use Seq192 as a MIDI looper and Non-Mixer XT as plugin host and mixer, hosted together in a RaySession issue where I would include a few other Python scripts or Pure Data patches to use some custom MIDI instruments. I'm controlling Seq192 with an APC mini (hence currently writing a Python program to convert MIDI to OSC and OSC to LED colors), and a Launch Control XL to manipulate the plugins and effects in Non-Mixer XT (I used Ardour before, where the MIDI learn and controls binding is much smoother and more reliable).
Off the top of my head, these would be the most critical features for my own use:
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