Loop Recording on Audio Tracks

It can be very useful to loop a specific section while recording in order to capture multiple performances or takes of the same musical passage. In Studio One Pro, this is called “Loop Recording.”

Follow these steps to accomplish Loop Recording:

  1. Set the Left and Right Locators in the Timeline Ruler at the beginning and end, respectively, of the area in which you wish to record.
  2. Click on the Loop button in the transport or press [NumPad /] on the keyboard to engage Looping.
  3. Activate recording manually or via Pre-Roll or Auto Punch.
  4. When the playback cursor reaches the Right Locator position, it loops back to the Left Locator Position.
  5. Recording continues until you manually stop it by pressing [Space Bar] on the keyboard or clicking Stop in the Transport.

When Loop Recording with Audio Tracks, multiple Takes are created. These Takes represent each recorded pass over the looped region. If Record Takes to Layers is engaged in the Record panel, opened from the View menu or with [Shift]+[Alt]+[R] on the keyboard, the takes are automatically placed in separate layers which are expanded when recording is stopped. Refer to the Comping section of the Editing chapter of this manual for more information.

Selecting Takes of an Audio Event

When there are multiple Takes available for an Audio Event, the Take icon appears in the lower left corner of the Event in the Arrange view.

By default, the last recorded Take is selected. To select any other take, [Right]/[Ctrl]-click on the Audio Event to expose a list of Takes. Click on any numbered Take to select it. Takes are edited as a single Audio Event, so sizing or splicing any Take splices all of the Takes contained in the Audio Event.

It is possible to splice an Audio Event that contains multiple Takes, then select a different Take for each splice of the original Event. For example, if you recorded three Takes for a vocal verse, you could split that Audio Event in between each vocal phrase, and then, for each phrase, select the best of the three Takes.

Unpack Takes

When two or more Takes exist for an Audio Event, it is possible to unpack the individual takes to separate Events on new Tracks, new Layers, or existing Layers. To do this, [Right]/[Ctrl]-click on the Event and click on Unpack Takes in the contextual menu.

Choose Unpack to Tracks to place each Take at the appropriate time on its own new Track. Note that the settings of the originating Track are not duplicated for the new Tracks.

Choose Unpack Takes to New Layers to place each Take on its own Layer. This is usually done for comping, discussed in detail in the Comping section of the Editing chapter. Choose Unpack Takes to Existing Layers if you would like to unpack the Takes to existing Layers.

Set and Shift Loop

Several key commands that you may find helpful when loop recording are available in the Keyboard Shortcuts menu and by default have no key command assigned.

Set Loop Start and Set Loop End allow you to place the left and right locators at the current playback-cursor position. The same commands might be used when setting left and right locators for a punch-in using Auto Punch.

Shift Loop and Shift Loop Backwards allow you to move the loop range to the next or previous range of equal time. For instance, if you have eight bars looped, Shift Loop would move the loop range to the next eight bars.