LoopDub

• Can be used with a MIDI controller. Typically designed for something like the Edirol PCR-30, which has 8 sliders and 8 knobs as well as a 30-key keyboard. I also use it with my M-Audio UC-33 controller, which has 8 sliders and 3 rows of 8 knobs.
• Play and manipulate up to 8 loops.
• "Hold" button for dropping a channel into the mix on beat.
• Live low-pass and delay filters.
• Live jamming with the keyboard.
• Looping smaller parts of each loop on beat.
• MIDI control of effects
• Program change from MIDI

If it has been installed correctly (See INSTALL), you can run loopdub by typing "loopdub" into a command-line, with the directory of your loops as the argument:

# loopdub /home/me/myloops/

Personally I have created a launcher on my GNOME desktop to do this for me, but the installer does not do this.

Previously I was using a split-stereo setup, where the left channel was used for cueing audio. However, I have dropped this feature for the moment, and will probably make it optional in a future version.

The reason is that I found myself rarely ever using the cue feature in a real performance, and it served only to complicate things. For now the output is simply two-channel mono sound. Stereo will be supported in the future, and potentially multi-channel. However I have found it's not very important for the kinds of performances I've been doing. If there a need for it, let me know and I'll do it sooner.

Beats: click on this until it reads the correct number of beats in your loop. Then corresponding BPM will be displayed next to the button.

Autocue: when checked, the "cue" button will automatically be selected when a new file is loaded. (Cue is currently a disabled feature.)

VU Meter:Shows the current amplitude of final output signal.

Master Volume:Adjust this slider when VU Meter is very close to the top, otherwise clipping may occur, which doesn't sound very nice.

Cue: Puts the loop on the cue channel. This feature is currently disabled, because I never found myself needing to use it.

Split: Divides the loop into smaller pieces. These splits are used for a couple of different things. You can click and drag on the loop with your mouse to select a sequence of "parts" to be looped instead of the whole thing. This can be useful for changing how a beat sounds or looping a strange voice clip. Also, the "Hold" function will drop the sound back in on the next split boundary, which is useful if you don't want to wait until the end of the loop.

Keys: Chooses this loop as the "key" loop. Only one loop can be chosen at a time. When any loop is chosen as the key-control loop, it will no longer be played along with the other loops. Instead, it will be triggered when you press keys on your keyboard, at the correct pitch. This allows you to play melodies in realtime along with the other loops.

Hold: Cuts the volume on the loop until the next split boundary. This is useful when you are cueing a track and want to have it come in on a particular bar instead of manually having to throw the volume slider. Once you click "wait", you can move the volume slider into position without affecting the output, and it will come in when the position indicator hits either the next split boundary or the beginning of the loop.

Norm: This will normalize the loop. Useful if you've forgetten to do this beforehand. Sometimes a quiet sample will have difficulty competing with the rest of the sounds in the mix.

Numbers 1 - 8: Pressing numbers 1 through 8 on your keyboard, you will notice that the corresponding loop number turns to a blue background. This means that this loop sample is selected for being modified by MIDI controls. You may also select or deselect a loop using a key on your MIDI keyboard, as long as no loops are selected as the "key control" or "break" loop. It is known that there is not yet a configuration for MIDI channels, this is on the TODO list.

Enter: Starts and stops audio output.

Alt-Enter or F: Toggles fullscreen mode. (Very nice for live sets, try it!)

Escape: Exits LoopDub.

There are many things that need to be changed and improved and added to LoopDub, however I will list a couple here that are imperative that users know about:

• There is currently no resampling or timestretching applied to samples if there are not the same length. As it is, the FIRST loaded sample determines the "loop length". It is recommended that you use .wav files that are of the same length throughout your performance. You may also use samples that are, say, exactly a half or a quarter of your loop length, but be sure to load the longest sample FIRST to "initialize" the environment. In the future I'll have to find a nicer way of dealing with this problem, but I am not convinced that I will want to actually do any resampling during a performance, as this changes the pitch, and timestretching does not always sound nice and takes extra CPU.
• All loops must be in the base loop folder specified on the command-line. This is actually more of a feature than a bug. I was doing a show where I accidentally browsed out of my loop folder, and I got lost in my harddrive and it ended up causing big problems, so I made it so that it is impossible to browse outside the folder specified as your loop folder. This will hopefully avoid any of these kinds of problems. The trick to using LoopDub is having a well-organized loop folder.
• MIDI settings for effects can be configured through the "Learn" button, however there is currently no way to specify the MIDI "Buttons" without editing a text file. Also the only way to create program configurations is also by editing a text file. Personally I find this okay, but it might be too complicated for some users. The text file formats are, however, exceedingly simple, based on Windows' "ini" files. I may create some cross-platform GUI program for configuration of the LoopDub environment.