Lesson 14

Loop length & Loop Mode

Make a clip longer than one bar, double it, and change the second bar so your beat doesn't repeat the same way every time.

You’ll need:

A Move that is switched on
The one-bar beat from Lesson 9 on your drum track

The idea

A clip is a loop: when it reaches its end, it jumps back to the start and plays again. So far your beat has been one bar long, the 16 steps you can see on the step buttons. One bar going round and round is a great start, but after a while the ear gets bored.

Most songs think in groups of 2, 4 or 8 bars. A longer loop gives you room for small changes. A very common trick: play the same beat for a few bars, then change the last bar a little, say with an extra snare hit or a short drum fill. That change tells the listener “here comes the start again”, and the loop feels like it’s going somewhere.

1234

Beat 1

5678

Beat 2

9101112

Beat 3

13141516

Beat 4

An idea for the snare in bar 2: keep the hits on steps 5 and 13, and add two quick ones at the very end as a mini fill.

Move gives you two ways to work with bars:

In Note Mode, the Left arrow and Right arrow move between the bars of a clip. The step buttons then show the notes of the bar you’ve picked.
Loop Mode zooms out. Each step button stands for a whole bar instead of one step, so you can see and set how long the clip is. A clip can be up to 16 bars long.

Make sure your drum track is selected, then press Play.
Didn’t work?
No beat yet? Build one in Lesson 9 first. If the pads start clips instead of playing sounds, press Note/Session to get back to Note Mode. If the step lights show a different clip, such as one from Lesson 12, press Note/Session, press the pad of your Lesson 9 clip in the drum row, then press that row’s track button.
You should hear: Your one-bar beat plays round and round.
Press Loop to open Loop Mode. The step buttons now stand for bars: Step 1 is bar 1, Step 2 is bar 2, and so on.
You should see: The step buttons now show bars. Step 1 stands for your one bar; the steps after it are dim, because those bars are outside the loop.
Hold Step 1 and press Step 2. This sets the loop to run from bar 1 to bar 2, so it’s now two bars long.
Didn’t work?
You can also press both steps at the same moment. A bar with no notes in it plays as a gap.
You should hear: The loop is now two bars long. If the new bar is empty, you hear your beat, then a bar of silence.
Quickly press Step 1 twice. A quick double press sets the loop to just that one bar.
Didn’t work?
If nothing changed, try pressing faster. It needs to be a quick double tap, like a double-click.
You should hear: The second bar is gone: the loop is one bar long again.
Press Loop again to leave Loop Mode and get back to the normal steps.
Didn’t work?
If Loop Mode doesn’t close, hold Back for a moment. Holding it leaves the current view.
You should see: The step buttons show single steps again, with your drum hits.
Hold Shift and press Step 15. This doubles the loop: Move adds a second bar and copies all your notes into it.
Didn’t work?
Unlike the gap you made before, the new bar comes filled in, so you can’t hear the difference yet. You’ll see it in the next step.
You should hear: The beat sounds just the same, but the clip is now two bars long, with a copy of your beat in bar 2.
Press the Right arrow once to go to bar 2.
Didn’t work?
Pressed it too often? If you move past the end of the loop, the display shows an empty bar with a plus sign. Press the Left arrow to go back; the loop length stays as it was.
You should see: The display tells you that you've moved to bar 2. The step buttons now show that bar's notes.
Tap your snare pad to pick it. The step buttons now show where the snare plays in bar 2.
Didn’t work?
Not sure which pad is the snare? Tap the pads in the left block and listen for a sharp crack or clap.
You should hear: The snare (or clap) sound.
Press Step 15 and Step 16 to add two snare hits at the very end of bar 2. Listen: bar 1 is unchanged, and bar 2 now ends with a fill.
Didn’t work?
If a step was already lit, pressing it removed the snare from it. Press it once more to add it back. You can also try Step 14 or Step 12 until you like the fill.
You should hear: Every second time round, two extra snare hits end the loop with a little fill.
Press Play to stop.
You should hear: The music stops.

Try it yourself

Double your loop again, so it’s four bars long. Move to bar 4 with the Right arrow and give it a different fill from bar 2.
Open Loop Mode, hold the step for one bar and turn the wheel, the Volume knob, or press an arrow. Just like editing a single step in Lesson 13, this changes every note in that bar at once.
Hold Loop and turn the wheel to make the loop longer or shorter.

Good to know

Be careful with Delete. A single press of Delete removes the whole clip that’s playing on the selected track, in Note Mode and in Loop Mode alike. In Loop Mode, holding Delete and pressing a step button clears all the notes in that bar. If you delete something by accident, press Undo straight away: it takes back your last action.
Want to try a big change without risking your beat? In Note Mode (outside Loop Mode), press Copy. Move makes a copy of the current clip and switches to it, so the original stays safe.
Another way to grow a loop: use the Right arrow to step past the last bar onto the empty one, and place some notes there. That bar then becomes part of the loop.