What is the easiest way to make live loops using nothing but a laptop?

February 20, 2009 9:11 PM

What is the easiest way to make live loops using nothing but a laptop?

I have a Macbook Pro running XP and OS X, with Ableton Live. I'd like to use the built-in recorder but I might also use an external mic at some point.

posted by dcams to computers & internet (3 comments total)

I've never used Ableton but I've made loops with Garageband. If I was trying to make a short guitar loop I set up a click track, play the guitar live, than cut out whatever section I want to loop and paste it however many times needed. You can also sequence beat loops with Garageband but the way I do it is super time consuming and not efficent at all, there's some people at MefiMu who are pretty good at it.
posted by BrnP84 at 10:32 PM on February 20

One of my favorite pieces of software: Sooperlooper!
posted by phrontist at 11:16 PM on February 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

Head over to the Ableton forums (although the signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes terrible), this post is a good starting point. They mention using a MIDI pedalboard to trigger the looping/playback etc, but if you don't need to be hands-free, you can assign keyboard shortcuts instead.

Sooperlooper rocks too, and Live 8 will have a dedicated looper, but you should be able to get started with just the current version (or the previous ones).
posted by phax at 2:22 AM on February 21