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.
Learning resources for sampling, looping, and sequencing
I really need to learn about sampling, looping, and sequencing.
Firstly, the essential principles behind each, then to learn more, and how to apply.
My usual approach has been to bang about in software and apps until I get sounds I like, and whilst that's a great approach, to work by heart and ear, I see a rising need to understand the tools at my fingertips, and how to get the best out of them. Not app-specific learning, but the basic principles, that I can apply to how I use any related app.
I learn much from Ableton's educational material, and of course, there's a bottomless pit of material on YouTube, but I don't know where to begin. I don't want to sit around watching random videos on the subject.
I'd love to find a clear, simple, and clean learning resource, like that which Ableton put out there.
If you can recommend any resources (or, reluctantly, YouTube channels) that I could follow, for a streamlined learning experience, I'd be really grateful.
Perhaps there are particular apps or developers that might guide me well in this search for a clearer understanding of the basics of sampling, looping, and sequencing?
Comments
Sampling is quite a diverse topic but for me personally the essence of sampling is capturing the sounds around me be it from equipment or real-life objects.
There's no better tool than Koala for getting started and experimenting with sampling and having fun while doing it!
I believe more in 'learning by doing' than watching videos of someone else doing stuff
This video os quite old but shows the basics of Koala (That app has evolved quite a bit since it's initial release).
If there's one app I can recommend without any kind of hesitation it's Koala Sampler!
Good Luck!
Thanks. I also recognise the value of learning by doing. But I'm struggling to understand the basic concepts behind what I'm doing, hence I'm looking for a better understanding.
Think of 'Sampling' as a recorder.
After the recording you can use pieces of the recorded audio in creative ways by editing/modifying and processing it various ways to create new sounds or phrases.
If you already do some kind of audio-recording that is already 'sampling' especially if you also re-use parts of the recordings.
Loops can be seen are recorded phrases of music so when 'Looping' you capture a phrase of the performance and play it over and over again. Creative uses would be to cut the audio into smaller pieces reshuffle the order in which they are played back reversing and/or pitch-shifting some segments etc.
You could for example create nice bell sounds by using a spoon to hit a glass, and weird shakers by stirring a cup of tea.
Let the water run on the faucet and record the water-drops and pitch everything up/down and see what they sound like.
So the 'basic concept' is very simple, record audio and use the recorded audio in creative ways only limited by your imagination.
Check this, sampling stuff in a kitchen and creating a beat
I'm giving this pot a stir, as I didn't get many responses first time around.
I'm still seeking learning resources for this, other than videos. Some people learn best by hands on, some by watching video tutorials, some by audio tutorials, and some by reading.
My best learning approach is written learning resources, alongside hands on practice and learning. Hence, YouTube isn't a great help to me.
I know about the great resources that Ableton offer on learning synths and learning music. I refer to both regularly (and still have oceans of stuff to learn). But I still feel the need to know more about sampling, looping, and sequencing. Sampling and sequencing in particular. I'm at quite a loss on the sequencing front. My dream would be to find a learning resource equivalent to those offered by Ableton, mentioned above. But otherwise, I'm looking for web articles, and books.
Finally, I'm now also wanting to dive into midi sequencing / composing. So anything along those lines would be super helpful too. If anyone has a clue about resources to point me to, that would be really helpful.
I found that a one month subscription to Songen was very helpful for sequencing and composing. Just trying out all of the options and hitting random to see what you like/dislike and how they structure for various genres (or combinations of genres) was beneficial. With the subscription you can generate as many songs as you want and export 300 as midi, if I recall correctly.
You can also tempo change rearrange sections and revoice instruments to make stuff more your style.
Follow a month of that with a month of applying those composition ideas in Scaler 2 and you should have gained a lot of ground in composition - enough to have a feel for where you want to go next.
I spent time with this earlier this year, and it reminded of the speed of skill building I had in photography switching from film (with practice limited by processing cost and time) to digital (with practice only limited by the hours I could devote to it). Good composition apps make it easy to try out so many possibilities so fast that you can learn at your best learning speed without getting bogged down in piano roll tapping.
Thanks Angie. I did explore that app once before, a while back, but I might explore again. One place I got hung up with the tool is that I couldn't work out how to change the scale, so it's always stuck on Major. Is that because I've not paid for the full subscription yet? Or am I missing something obvious? I changed key, tempo, etc, but I simply couldn't find a way to change the scale. Can you explain what I'm missing with that?
Yeah. They’re actually all in minor keys and that’s not shiftable. Scales are where Scaler 2 really shines, so it might be more satisfying for you.
Songen is nice for looking at general arrangement strategies. Scaler 2 is where you can really make stuff your own.
7 part series on sampling:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/lost-art-sampling-part-1
Brilliant, thank you.
Thanks. So that still leaves me searching, as you can't get Scaler 2 for iPhone.
For iPhone, take a look at Odesi. It hasn’t been updated in years but works fine on current iOS. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/odesi-chords-create-rhythms-basslines-chord-progressions/id1056176667
Like the other two suggestions, this is also an easy way to try out a variety of song arrangements quickly to build a base of knowing what kind of arrangements work as good starter points for you.
Odesi’s special strength is the library of major and minor key chord progressions and the ease of shifting an arrangement to various other progressions to find the ones that you like. It’s quite a lovely app and allows audio and MIDI export. Arrangements use a selection of stock chord, base and percussion patterns but you can also create your own by pad tapping the rhythm for each part. It’s a high gratification app and is designed for a good phone use experience.
Thanks.
Thanks Angie.
I found a helpful website for learning music theory here:
https://www.musictheory.net
There are two apps they make too, at very affordable prices. I'll look into them.