Record a loop but not immediately play it

I bought and then sold an Aeros (experimenting with laptop-based setup), but I’m finding I prefer my stuff on the floor. What I need to do is record a guitar progression and then save but not play it. There are times I’ll record a verse progression while I’m singing, but don’t immediately go to a solo so I just save it, then fire it when I’m ready to solo. I do this with TC Play Acoustic - external foot switch for rec/play and stop/play buttons, so I hit the record button while playing, then hit the stop button - that saves the loop for later.

I assume I could use the stop-all button on the Aeros to do the same thing no matter what mode I’m in, but since I’m greedy, in a perfect world I’d first record a one-bar percussion loop that is constant, and then when I recorded a chord progression whatever button I hit would save that loop (not play), but also leave the percussion loop going. I figure stop-all would…well…stop all.

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I do that kind of thing in 6x6, locked tracks and also a midi foot controller. Make your percussion groove (locked track). Record your part and when you’re done go back to your percussion groove.

do you need the midi controller to do it? I used locked tracks before (great feature btw) but since I don’t have a unit in front of me I can’t mess with the steps. I’m assuming you have a button on the midi controller set to stop a specific track?

edit- actually in watching a demo video, I got to wondering if this would work:

  1. in 2x2, record percussion loop on locked track one.
  2. at some point, start recording the verse progression on track two
  3. at the end of the progression, press the next part button (instead of play) - that should send it to an empty part two, track two (can’t remember if locked tracks go across all parts).
  4. could then record something or not. When I wanted to solo, I’d go to the next part.

Seems that would almost work but I’d need to record something useful on part 2 track 2 unless I had set the volume low/off for that track.

I do use the midi controller but you wouldn’t have to. It’s a lot more to think about without however. In settings, I have RPO (record, play, overdub) and because it’s not in front of me I can’t remember exactly but something like switch parts at the end of loop. So you’ve got your locked percussion track, you record your rhythm part, while recording scroll through (and back) to the blinking cursor on your locked track. When you’re ready to quit recording, hit play and you’re back to live instrument and locked track only. When you’re ready for your solo, scroll to the appropriate track and hit play.

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Hey there,

This could be done by doing the following:

  1. Lock track 1 by using the touchscreen and pressing the track’s track clock or handsfree by opening the mixer. You open a song hands free in the mixer by holding the bottom left button until the “Exit” option says “Lock”, then press the button to Lock it. Tracks can be locked before they are recorded to or after.
  2. Record the percussion track to track 1, since the track is locked, it will exist in both part 1 and 2.
  3. When ready, initiate a part change to part 2 and set up a recording on track 2 (press the middle button)
  4. To avoid track 2 playing back after done recording, change parts before you commit the recording, this will both commit the currently recording track in part 2 and switch you back to part 1 at the same time, meaning you won’t hear the harmony track loop back at all.
  5. Switch back to part 2 to hear percussion + harmony
  6. You can double tap track 1 Action button to mute the percussion at any time

Does this work?

Let me know!

I’m having to work from memory as I don’t have one anymore, but it might work. Given that approach though, you’d be recording in part 1 though, correct. So in other words, when I switch from recording in part 2 (which I used to set up to switch at end of measure), it would save tr2 pt2 and go back to tr2 pt1 and start recording (?). Or maybe the thing to do would be to record one bar of silence in tr2 pt1 so when switching from pt2 it would starting playing the silence in pt1.

I’m trying to avoid having to double tap anything - part of the reason for having something beyond the Ditto+ is having buttons that start/stop/etc with single push. Its the whole walking and chewing gum at the same time…double tapping (unless it is a Sig) sometimes challenges me.

So I think the suggestion/workflow would be:

  • set part1 track1 to locked, record percussion loop
  • record silent bar in part1 track2
  • when I want to record the rhythm guitar track, switch to part2 - should default to track2 and start recording
  • at the end of the progression, change back to part1 - that should play the silent bar (?))
  • when I want to solo, change to part2, should play the recorded progression

A recording would only start if you set one up before changign parts, so no, a recording will not automatically start when you switch back to part 1. Track 2 will remain empty. It also does not ‘save’ it but rather write it to the RAM, the audio is only saved if you save the Aeros song.

This all is fine, but recording the silence in P1T2 is not necessary

Let me know if this helps!

Rather than start a new thread, I figure this is along a similar concept. Anyone see the new Chase Bliss effect pedal called Habit? It is a primitive looper + delay but has some very clever features, although to access them you need to have the pedal on a desktop to turn the knobs. But I wonder when the firmware is updated for Reverse and Half Speed, maybe that same programming can also create some kind of random function. For example, a track is selected to apply the Reverse effect. Instead of simply reversing the content, the Aeros has an option to Reverse and Randomize. So the Aeros scans the content of the track and randomly selects chunks of the track and reassembles it in a number of different ways, maybe even taking audio information from another track.