Ableton Forum

I've only ever used Live for making original stuff and a couple of quick and dirty mashups. So, now I'm trying to DJ for the first time, yay me

But, not being an electronic music fan, I'm trying to DJ metal tunes, and a lot of them are pretty short. So, to make transitioning between tracks less abrupt, I'd like to be able to say "loop this bar" or "loop this two-bar section" and so on, to create enough track to work with so I can mix more gradually.

I know I can create clips which loop the sections I want by hand, but I'd like to be able to do this live (haha), maybe during a tune just hit a pad on my MPD16 to start a two-bar loop, hit another pad for just a one bar loop. Is this possible? If so, how? Thanks in advance for any tips

In the clip view, double click on the clip you'd like to loop 'on-the-fly' so it's details appear at the bottom left of the screen. Now expand the Sample Properties box by clicking on the tiny waveform graphic between L and E (again these are in the bottom left of the screen.) To the left of the wave form you'll now see a Loop button with 2 set buttons underneath. Start the sample playing using the clip view. Now in the lower box (Length) type 2 0 0 (i.e. 2 bars, no beats, no sixteenths). Now press the Set button next to the Length fields you've just typed in - The track will now jump back 2 bars and loop until you click the newly illuminated 'Loop' box. How soon the Live will jump back is determined by the global quantization value for the session (1 Bar usually sounds slick).

Josh

Cool, looks like I'll be able to do what I want with a few pads and a knob to set the loop length. Cheers