Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
I'm Not Making Any More DrumPerfect Pro Tutorials
I now have a YouTube page dedicated to my DrumPerfect Pro Videos.
It's at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1-_DskaO-0QtQorVwyPuwg
Please subscribe!
My Five Favorite Things About DrumPerfect Pro (the first video doesn't work, but the second does)
[
( ""
Tutorial #1: The Views
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XF09Me8X6kQ
Tutorial #2 Patterns and the Grid
DrumPerfect Pro has been out for a few months now. It is a very deep app, and like Auria, what you get out of it is only limited by the time and imagination you put into it.
Rather than just ask a question or two, I want to begin a continuing discussion for users of DrumPerfect Pro—where people can ask questions, share things they’ve learned, and make feature requests. I’m hope Marinus will get involved. So let me start with a question:
While you can have 16 samples for each instrument in a kit, most of the time I only see them lighting up on the two rows on the left (High-Left & Low-left) and not on the right (High-right & Low-right). Is there a way to set up patterns so they trigger samples on the right side too? Setting “2-Hand” on the Pattern Page doesn’t make any difference.
Now, here’s some of what I’ve discovered through my investigation of the program:
As I began putting together my own drum kits, I studied the ones that came with th program for guidance. Using the “listen” button I started tapping the Cymbal 20 samples in the JS1 kit. A lot of them sounded so similar that I suspected they could even be the same sample with a different file name. Using iFunbox, I was able to download samples to my computer from the JS1 Kit, but none of the others. Anybody know how I can get access to the others? (I know that DrumPerfect loads up with only the first kit, so I’ve tried clearing all sets except for one of the other kits, but it didn’t make any difference.)
One thing I was surprised to discover is that the JS1 kit samples are all M4A files, which is of course, lossy compression. This seems strange to me as very simple non-pro drum machines have WAV or AIFF files. Anyway, I put them into Sound Forge to study them.
If you look at the 3 High Left samples here, you can see that two of the three samples are the same..
3 of the 4 low-left samples are the same.
I also discovered that the 4 samples on the right—the ones I can never get to work—are less bright sounds. An examination of the waveforms shows that they are there are only two different samples. Marinus, is there a reason to have these more bell-like sounds on the right? It's hard for me to judge how this sounds, when I can't figure out how to make the samples on the right work.
What are the lessons here? DrumPerfect is an app with amazing power, but you won’t access all of its potential by using the kits that come with the program. You have to make your own, or at least edit the ones that are there. Otherwise you won’t make use of all the variety of sounds and—at least with the JS1 kit—it seems like you won’t have uncompressed samples.
I would also add the obvious, which is you’ll never get the maximum amount out of the program unless you create your own patterns, or at least revise the ones that come with the program and IAP. Rather than search for pre-made MIDI patterns, I’ve been using the tutorials by Mike Elliott, which offer basics on programming Rock, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Jazz and Drum & Bass Drums. music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/making-the-beat-rock-drums--audio-6533
Comments
This is a good idea. Still getting to grips with DPP. Will watch this thread with interest
Nice thread!
Thanks for sharing!!!
So let me start with a question:
If you want the right hand samples to be played you stroke an already existing beat upwards and it gets a white border, which means right samples are played instead of left handed.
@Fitz Awesome. Thank you.
One of the things that happened to me a lot when I got started with DrumPerfect is that I would spend a lot of time programming complex patterns and then when I opened DrumPerfect again, my patterns seemed to be missing.
Just because you save a song in DrumPerfect does not mean that the app will open up exactly the way it looked when you closed it. But my patterns weren't gone. I just wasn't paying attention to the location where I was saving them.
When you hit the "load" button at the bottom of the pattern page, it will open up to the Pattern Library. And here you can see that I have created a directory for myself, and currently have 29 patterns in it for a Jazzy song I'm working on that hopefully will be a SOTM candidate for April. I made the name "00 Reid" so it would be at the top of the page. You might prefer to put your patterns in the genres that are already there. Note also that I've given my patterns names that mean something to me. If you click on any of the existing patterns, they will play. If you want you can rename an IAP pattern as something that helps you identify it better. And you can move it to a different folder. Another way to go about it is to load a file and then use "save as" to give it a new name. Then the original file is still there.
Whenever you hit the "Save As" button on the Pattern Page you see this screen:
Clicking the Category button allows you to save your pattern in the folder you want. You can also set up a new folder.
The most important tip I can pass on when you're hard at work making patterns is to keep hitting that save button.
The left-hand/right-hand samples default to left unless you do as @Fitz said, and ensure you have a white border on a hit, which will then use the right-hand samples. However, this you can also use to your advantage, to gain more instruments, where I use "instruments" loosely, meaning "a drum" or "a cymbal/brass" etc.
Some instruments, basically the wood ones, benefit from having as many samples as possible. However, other instruments, such as Splashes or Chinas would be overkill to load with 4x2x2 samples (there are only so many ways a short splash can sound), so instead you can use one instrument slot to hold samples for many instruments, if you load other instruments into the right-hand slot. I have instrument slots named "Splash1_2" and "Splash3_4" which only uses 2 out of the 16 possible instrument slots, but gives me 4 distinctly different splashes.
I also have "Crash1_clip" which holds a regular Crash and one that is choked/damped, "Crash2_3" (two separate crashes), another one for "Alt_snares" which holds two alternative snares.
For toms I have dedicated slots for Hi/Lo/Floor (basically 1, 3 and 5 in a big kit) but I also have "Toms2_4" on a shared instrument, should I ever need to make full-on fill or similar.
All in all on my main kit I have 23 distinctly different instruments, where none has less than 4 samples and many have 8-16 samples, and still being easy to add/edit hits in a controlled fashion.
Also, for those that are experimental, you can of course also start loading other samples than drums in to the various slots. I'm guessing you could create some wicked happy accidents by letting the DPP randomizer mix samples.
@hellquist Thanks for sharing. You make me happy that I started this discussion.
Great thread. Thank you.
@Tones4Christ Glad you like it. I hope more people like @fitz and @hellquist contribute..
I'm going to put things up here even if they end up sounding stupid in the hopes that the mistakes I make might help some people avoid falling into the same traps.
One thing I found very frustrating when I was working on my songs is that the patterns would mysteriously change. I would look back at a verse and all the patterns would be a tom tom solo.
Eventually I realized you have to be extremely careful every time you select a pattern. There are lots of reasons to select a pattern--it can be as little a thing as changing the color. But if you don't deselect that pattern and you happen to touch one of your patterns in the Pattern Bank--they will all change to that pattern.
It would be nice to have a "lock" feature, so that once you get something the way you like it, it will stay that way.
The lack of tutorials for this app has me using rock drum machine most of the time instead now.
I really love the patterns in DPP but the lack of variation and fills is driving me nuts and I have absolutely no idea where to start.. I think Derek's upcoming session drummer app might be the best of all for this but will have wait and see. Just not looking forward to a large price tag on that one and large size as well, but it might be worth it if it gets the job done.
DPP Needs Tutorials and more variations of each stock pattern as well as fills for them.
I picked up a couple of the IAP's but they are the same with a lot of different patterns and not enough variations of them to stop them from sounding stale after a few measures. What it does sounds really great but that only takes me so far and leaves me wanting more variation than I have so far been unable to obtain.
@Reid said:
First, I would like to mention that in teaming together in the development of DPP, Marinus and I focused on two different aspects of the app. Marinus, as you already know, is the man behind the engine and general concept of DrumPerfect. Without his vision and amazing competence in solving technical challenges, there would simply be no DrumPerfect on iPad. As a musician, user of DP, I entered a bit later in the development, proposing to take care of the graphic design and then the music design. So that's why it makes sense that I reply here, to this question about samples, the packs being born from my hand.
Well, since the mysteries of DPP have been investigated - and unraveled ( to the world ), let's have a look in more detail at its sample management section.
The way DP and DPP approach the variation of timbres via multi sampling might be ( is? ) rather unique on a portable device like the iPad. Because copiously layered acoustic multi samples with round robin, would eat up lot of memory and make it difficult to work on the many versions of iPad ( which RAM can't just be compared to a computer ), a random blend of high and low velocity of similar samples appears to be an efficient and original solution. So DPP offers not just 16 instruments, like most of the other drum machines apps do, but a generous total of 32 ( 16 left hand and 16 right hand ). Yet only 16 can be available at a time. Indeed by sweeping up the stroke, the right hand group of samples will play, as the stroke (s) gets its white border.
This arrangement is so flexible that it leaves a lot of choices to creative users. For some instruments that require left AND right hand ( snare, hi hat, etc... ) the samples can be slightly different in timbre, to emulate a real drum set. But some instruments may not always need the two hands or two feet. You could have, for example, a ride or crash cymbal ( most of the time played by the same hand ) use only the left hand samples and use another articulation ( bell ) on the right hand, making very easy to shift from one to the other while programming the instrument rhythmic line ( even easier with the pads ). In fact remember that you can create ANY kind of layout for your kits, and use ANY kind of samples ( up to 20s ), far beyond the realm of drums.
Now, let's clarify a point. There are only two ways for the samples: either they are identical ( copy/paste ) or similar ( different ). Very closely similar or totally different. The range is vast to choose from. For some similar instruments it may not be recommended to have to much difference as it would introduce some artifacts ( phasing... ); specially with ride/cymbals. It is really an art to layout, choose and balance the correct samples for a specific kit. There are many ways, and the one created for each pack is just one of the possibilities. The patterns and samples make a whole thing that will ( or not ) sound very close to an excellent drummer ( human ) feel.
Extract from the Mark Eliot reference link, you give:
How do we use cymbal samples? This will by far be the biggest pain in the entire tutorial but one of the most essential. Your cymbal samples should be fairly similar, closer to the way we did the kick. Why? Because most people do not actually sit there and intently listen on the tone of the cymbals. There is always variety but it is usually subtle and so to should your samples. You usually have to randomly assign your cymbal samples to get that psychoacoustic effect of knowing it is there but not noticing it.
So looking at the pictures in your post, we can indeed see that some images look VERY similar, but please look closer at the peaks, and your will notice that they are not identical. Yet, for some unexpected variation, there is sometime a sample less similar. If you extend your investigation to all the samples of all the packs, you may start to understand the logic/art that glue the multi sampling of the various instruments, as each type require a different approach.
Let me add that in some kits, extra samples are available in the library and won't appear in the main layout. To explore.
M4a, according to Wikipedia:
The only official filename extension for MPEG-4 Part 14 files is .mp4, but many have other extensions, most commonly .m4a and .m4p. M4A (audio only) is often compressed using AAC encoding (lossy), but can also be in Apple Lossless format.
In the case of DPP we use Apple lossless format, which is decompressed and normalized when the sample is loaded in RAM.
The significant advantages of using files in m4a are: fast download of the pack, samples taking very little space in the iPad disk ( good for 16 and 32 GB models ), and - feature only available between DPP and AudioShare - fast import of zip folders of samples. Can you imagine the waste of time importing the samples one by one?
With DPP everyone is indeed encouraged to learn to create patterns and songs. The flexibility for data input will surprise you. From sensitive pads to grid, to midi import/record etc... Needless to say that for non drummers users ( including myself ) it is a Fantastic instrument to learn and understand the intricacies of drum/percussion playing in about any style. And then go and invent something beyond....
Happy accidents indeed. And not lost!
If you, let's say, put all kind of samples in each slot of each instrument, then make the simplest pattern with just one stroke, and make a song from this pattern, a one stroke song, you can directly export the randomly produced sound to DPP itself and reuse it later.
Or, for more variety, repeat the pattern in the song, export the file to AudioShare, slice it to individual samples, gather them in a folder, zip the folder and open in.. in one go, in DPP.
All your "wicked happy accidents" sounds will be available waiting in the library. Unique library. Remember to have all of them named with a prefix or suffix added, in order to make the search easy. Great way also to create compound sounds like kick+crash, snare+crash, etc...
Quite deep this DrumPerfect Pro....
When might we get more patterns with lots of fills, intros, endings, ect. That will make this much more useful? More packs coming soon? I picked up some of the IAP's that said lots of fills but there really were hardly any included. Hoping this gets more love soon ya know?
YouTube tutorials are on the way ( lot to cover ).
The idea behind the packs was not to offer an exhaustive library of patterns, but very high quality musical material that can be learned from, expanded, and adapted by users. A taste of...
Nevertheless, if there is enough demand for it, we might propose few special additional packs with LOTS of patterns/songs only for a specific kit/style. Patterns would then include intros, grooves, fills, and endings. How does it sound?
Yes, that would make it much more useful I believe.
@gilbert Thank you so much. Everything you said is so helpful.
Sorry about the mistake with the waveforms. My point in wanting to study them was to get guidance on how to take the cymbal samples from my own collection and put together my own kit. And I got the answer--they should be similar. (I admit I never read the whole Mike Elliot thing--I was only interested in making jazz drum parts.)
I have collected a lot of one-shot drum samples over the years, but what I found when I studied them is that they usually provided as much variety as possible in each collection. So there wouldn't be a bunch of cymbal samples that were practically identical--there would be a wide range--rides, bells, assorted sizes and tunings. So I had to search to look in different collections. I'm also thinking about taking a single sample and processing it slightly.
I would appreciate any suggestions from real drummers.
This is a little bit of work, but my patterns are very simple and don't use many instruments --and I am happy with most of the sounds in the JS1 kit.
One of the things I am doing is to bring everything I need for all the patterns in my song into a single new kit. That way I can run DPP with only one drum kit loaded and save system resources.
By the way @gilbert how can I get access to the samples from other drum kits?
Welcome!
Good idea!
The factory samples are not available outside DPP. ( Apple protection of dev content ) . Packs content is available.
@tritonman I totally agree. As I am doing a jazz song, I bought the IAP and while the patterns are cool, I haven't been able to use any of them for anything but inspiration. This is because so many are multiple bars and that's just too complicated for the song I'm doing. I like to have 4 bar pattern building blocks that I can assemble any way I want to fit the moments when extra drum hits or fills should happen. DrumPerfect Pro makes it easy to combine patterns into one pattern through the "part" and "glue" features, so why not begin with simple building blocks? After spending a lot of time, I decided to roll my own.
One question: I know how to merge patterns, but is there a way to split patterns? That would make the IAP much more useful to me.
Anyway, I go to the Grid, and fool around creating my own fills. And I've been searching out fills on the web. This is profoundly less complicated than the amount of time I have put into getting a modest proficiency in Auria Pro. And it's fun too. Since I've started exploring this, whenever I listen to music I find myself focusing on what the drummer is doing.
And the other thing is that it has affected my playing. My song is many years old and the melody has always been legato as I played it alone. Now that I am trying to keep time with this frisky drummer it has become syncopated.
I really like DPP, and use it for more realistic sounding drum parts. The random capabilities are well implemented. Song mode is straightforward and flexible. The user manual seems to cover about everything. The included patterns are great, but I tend to create/enter my own. If one wants to take the time, there are countless sources for patterns, fills, variations, etc. that can be played or entered into DPP. I haven't tried it yet, but apparently MIDI files can be imported.
I have a ton of midi files but can't figure it out. Do they have to be in a certain format?
Question,
Is there a way to optimize DP to not take too much Ram? What should I do?
@Tones4Christ I shut down everything I don't need. As I said before, I only have one kit live. I also turn off reverb, because eventually my tracks are going to be outputted to Auria Pro anyway.
@Gilbert Does it take more DPP resources to select things like Jam, 2-Hand or Humanize?
I don't understand what impact the Frames has on system resources. It defaults at 256. If I switch it to 128 will it take more resources? 512 or 1024 less resources?
Don't know whether "Memory" is just for our information.
CPU level on Settings Page? Should I flush caches?
@Gilbert I am having a problem with merging patterns into 3 bars. 2 or 4 bars works, but 3 crashes DrumPerfect every time.
Hi Reid,
You can remove easily a part of a pattern. Trimming, let's say, a pattern of 8 beats to 4 beats. Just change the time signature from 8/4 to 4/4 and the last 4 beats will be removed. It is possible that way to trim any number of beats from the time signature. I don't think there is a easy way to split patterns. ( That will come in next updates.) But it is possible in grid mode to select all the data ( in blue ) and move it with the arrows right or left ( even up and down! ). That technique combined with the one just mentioned above should make possible to trim from beginning or end of the pattern by displacing blocks of data that will be kept or erased.
You mean MERGING patterns not APPEND, right? Because you mention 3 bars. Bars of how many beats? So far I can reproduce this crash. Need a bit more detailed information...
Probably not much.
If you hear some distortion, crackles or anything not clear, it would be preferable then to raise the Frames value to 512 or even 1024. It depends of your iPad version. Air 2 has 2 gb of RAM, while older models have only half of that. It certainly make a difference...
yes, indeed.
To my knowledge caches contains samples that have been modified with the lowpass filter. And perhaps other things too. Caches can be flushed, then DPP will show the factory Patbank at the next restart. Max cpu level is at 70% on my iPad Air 2.
Well, depending of your iPad model, not loading too many kits with lots of ( long ) samples at a time. Not having other apps open. That should help a bit...
It depends how these midi files are mapped. You can of course change the mapping of a kit in DPP to match some of your midi files. In that case I would suggest that you make a copy of your chosen kit and change the mapping on this copy. I agree that since not all midi files are produced on the same machine/software, it needs adjustments to match another app like DPP. A bit of research/ trial and error for sure, but it can be done. Personally, so far, I don't use much midi files and prefer to program directly with DPP superb sequencer. That way I spice my patterns/tracks with probability, time shift, humanizing, etc... Yet it takes some dedication to learn to do it properly...
I am sitting (mostly) silently but with an expectant and (mostly) patient look on my large dull face.
Speaking of learning, if any of you drumheads were to create some Tony Allen style patterns and share them here I would be ever so appreciative. Reading drum notation is not my thing, but this app could finally help me figure him out a bit. I'll sit over by Johnny, I guess. I'm the one with the sullen look.