Looping cuts off sound/Need to sustain note

[AAR]

I have a meditation song that I am creating that is 2 hours long.

I use a drone/humming sound in the background that I want to play the entire length of the song. I don't want to sit there for 2 hours with my finger on one note.

I tried creating a track with a 10-second, sustained note, then looped it. But when I do this, at the end of each note, there is a break in the sound and I don't want that. There can't be any breaks in the sound. 

Is there a way for me to sustain this one note through the entire 2 hours without sitting there the entire time?

Thanks!

[David Nahmani]

Create a 1 bar MIDI region with a 1 bar MIDI note inside. Now zoom way out in the Tracks area, so you can see a lot of measures on your ruler, and Option-drag the lower-right corner of the MIDI region to stretch it as long as needed, the note will be stretched along with the region. 

[polanoid]

14 hours ago, AAR said:

Is there a way for me to sustain this one note through the entire 2 hours without sitting there the entire time?

If the instrument you're sending the note to responds to Sustain Controller messages, you could create a Sustain event with value 127 somewhere in the range of the note and uncheck the containing Region's Clip Length checkbox. Just tried this with the Vintage Mellotron and got a nice drone here 😉 (I also activated Note Chase so you can start anywhere in the song)

drone.logicx.zip

Edited October 10, 2023 by polanoid

[David Nahmani]

@polanoid for some unknown reason I get the weirdest behavior from your file. After a while playing around with it, skipping ahead by clicking the lower-1/2 of the ruler, returning the playhead etc, I get a new note triggered every few seconds, even with Logic stopped. 

Even weirder yet: I changed the instrument for an ES1 and I continue hearing a the mellotron being triggered. 

I've never experienced this before. 😳

I tried your technique in a new file and it does work as expected there. Nice idea. 

[polanoid]

2 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

Even weirder yet: I changed the instrument for an ES1 and I continue hearing a the mellotron being triggered. 

Huh? What have I done? 😱😉

[polanoid]

5 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

I get a new note triggered every few seconds, even with Logic stopped. 

Even weirder yet: I changed the instrument for an ES1 and I continue hearing a the mellotron being triggered.

Mind you I inserted a Tape Delay with high values for Feedback and Delay Time, just because I can, which may give yo the impression of re-triggered notes and the Mellotron still sounding after inserting another SI 

[David Nahmani]

9 hours ago, polanoid said:

Mind you I inserted a Tape Delay with high values for Feedback and Delay Time, just because I can, which may give yo the impression of re-triggered notes and the Mellotron still sounding after inserting another SI 

aHA! That's it. 

Funny thing is, if I remove the Mellotron plug-in, the delay stops sounding and I get silence. If I now insert another instrument such as the ES1 for example, I can hear the Mellotron again. 🤔

[polanoid]

6 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

aHA! That's it. 

Funny thing is, if I remove the Mellotron plug-in, the delay stops sounding and I get silence. If I now insert another instrument such as the ES1 for example, I can hear the Mellotron again. 🤔

Probably some optimization, like Logic turning the track's processing off altogether as soon as there is no SI on it to save CPU time, but without clearing of the Tape Delay's buffer.

[David Nahmani]

Just now, polanoid said:

Probably some optimization, like Logic turning the track's processing off altogether as soon as there is no SI on it to save CPU time, but without clearing of the Tape Delay's buffer.

Yes, that's my guess as well. 

[AAR]

On 10/10/2023 at 3:31 AM, David Nahmani said:

Create a 1 bar MIDI region with a 1 bar MIDI note inside. Now zoom way out in the Tracks area, so you can see a lot of measures on your ruler, and Option-drag the lower-right corner of the MIDI region to stretch it as long as needed, the note will be stretched along with the region. 

This works, except ....

It won't let me drag past 1000 bars. Many of my projects are over 2 hours long, so this won't work.

I've tried multiple instruments but it all ends the same. only 1000 bars. 

[AAR]

On 10/10/2023 at 10:20 AM, polanoid said:

If the instrument you're sending the note to responds to Sustain Controller messages, you could create a Sustain event with value 127 somewhere in the range of the note and uncheck the containing Region's Clip Length checkbox. Just tried this with the Vintage Mellotron and got a nice drone here 😉 (I also activated Note Chase so you can start anywhere in the song)

drone.logicx.zip 222.99 kB · 4 downloads

This is so far over my head I don't even know what to say!  🤣😂

I was able to open your file and play the droning sound, but other than that I am completely lost with the terminology. I am quite a novice. 

Also, as mentioned to David, his method works, but it won't let me drag past 1000 bars. I need to be able to do that for my long projects. In your method, if I were to understand how to do it, will it still cut me off at 1000 bars?

[David Nahmani]

56 minutes ago, AAR said:

Also, as mentioned to David, his method works, but it won't let me drag past 1000 bars.

Why not? I just tried it and was able to stretch a MIDI region to over 21,500 bars here. 

In fact at some point I was able to stretch it even further by zooming out. Here's a 23,316 bar long C3 note: 

 

[wonshu]

@AAR you probably just need to first drag the song end marker much further to the right.

[David Nahmani]

Just now, wonshu said:

@AAR you probably just need to first drag the song end marker much further to the right.

Actually that's not even necessary, stretching the region will automatically push the song end marker as far as it needs to go (the limit being a little over 21,000 bars). 

[polanoid]

2 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

Actually that's not even necessary, stretching the region will automatically push the song end marker as far as it needs to go (the limit being a little over 21,000 bars). 

That does not seem to be true for older versions of Logic, I just tried in 10.4.0 where this does not work. So maybe @AAR is not on Logic 10.7.9 yet. In which case @wonshu's advice is correct.

[polanoid]

2 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

(the limit being a little over 21,000 bars). 

That seems to be a number of samples limit, not a musical grid limit. At 96 kHz / 120 bpm it's around 10801 bars (not relevant for @AAR though - it's still about 6 hrs so more than triple his needs)

Edited October 11, 2023 by polanoid

[RobertAnthony]

On 10/9/2023 at 7:48 PM, AAR said:

tried creating a track with a 10-second, sustained note, then looped it. But when I do this, at the end of each note, there is a break in the sound and I don't want that. There can't be any breaks in the sound. 

Did you adjust the Attack and Release envelopes to make the end of one loop blend into the beginning of the next loop? Depending on the sound you can get pretty close to a seamless loop.

This is as seamless as I can get without spending too much time fine-tuning it, but the concept is there. If this technique works on your sound you can pretty much make the loop as short or long as you want, and as seamless as you want by sitting there and adjusting it nonstop.

File is v10.7.9, and resonant as heck fyi lol.

Edit:

Just remembered OP said they aren't up to par on the terminology. We’ll wait to see if this is along the lines of what they want, then we can see how many Logic users it takes to help them find the Amp Envelope lol.

Drone-loop-via-adsr.zip

Edited October 12, 2023 by RobertAnthony
Added Edit note

[AAR]

I don't know what version of Logic Pro I have right now. I literally bought it like 2 weeks ago. This is how fresh I am to this!!! Of course, I have some Garageband knowledge, but the lingo is where I struggle. Where can I find the version info?

I pulled my song end marker past 2000 bars. Then I went into the piano roll window where I also dragged the region all the way to the song end. Then I dragged the single note as far as I could. Still not able go past 1000. 

 

 

 

[AAR]

9 hours ago, RobertAnthony said:

Did you adjust the Attack and Release envelopes to make the end of one loop blend into the beginning of the next loop? Depending on the sound you can get pretty close to a seamless loop.

This is as seamless as I can get without spending too much time fine-tuning it, but the concept is there. If this technique works on your sound you can pretty much make the loop as short or long as you want, and as seamless as you want by sitting there and adjusting it nonstop.

File is v10.7.9, and resonant as heck fyi lol.

Edit:

Just remembered OP said they aren't up to par on the terminology. We’ll wait to see if this is along the lines of what they want, then we can see how many Logic users it takes to help them find the Amp Envelope lol.

Drone-loop-via-adsr.zip 355.13 kB · 0 downloads

Yes, your example file is what I am looking for with no breaks after each loop.

And......I have no idea about the attack and release envelope. 🙃😂. Willing to learn though if someone is willing to teach!

[rAC]

Do yourself a big favour and buy David Nahmani’s book on Logic Pro: it’s a great investment.

Logic shows it’s version number when you startup, or you can click on the About in the menu at the top left of the file bar.

[David Nahmani]

14 hours ago, AAR said:

Where can I find the version info?

In Logic, from the menu at the top of your screen, choose Logic Pro > About Logic Pro. 

[rAC]

@David Nahmani sorry I misspelt your name in my recommendation for it. @AAR It’s actually David Nahmani’s book I recommended

[David Nahmani]

34 minutes ago, rAC said:

@David Nahmani sorry I misspelt your name in my recommendation for it.

I hadn't even noticed! 😄 Thanks for pointing it out, I've now corrected it. 

[rAC]

@David NahmaniDoesn’t that go against using this a record of Logic related matters 🙂 

[AAR]

I checked and my version of Logic Pro is 10.7.9

If I recall from previous posts, that is the latest, correct?

So if I am all up to date and still experiencing the issue of not being able to drag the note past 1000 bars, what else is there to check into?

[David Nahmani]

3 minutes ago, AAR said:

If I recall from previous posts, that is the latest, correct?

Correct.

3 minutes ago, AAR said:

So if I am all up to date and still experiencing the issue of not being able to drag the note past 1000 bars, what else is there to check into?

Drag the note? Make sure you try what I suggested, which is to time-stretch the region in the Tracks area. 

[AAR]

4 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

Correct.

Drag the note? Make sure you try what I suggested, which is to time-stretch the region in the Tracks area. 

 

As previously stated, I have done all that.  
Maybe there is something in this screenshot that someone can see that I am not seeing.

[David Nahmani]

30 minutes ago, AAR said:

Maybe there is something in this screenshot that someone can see that I am not seeing.

Somehow the region is way longer than the note? If you create a 1 bar region with a 1 bar note and stretch it by Option-resizing it, you should not get that result. The length of the region should stay the same as the length of the note. 

[AAR]

7 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Somehow the region is way longer than the note? If you create a 1 bar region with a 1 bar note and stretch it by Option-resizing it, you should not get that result. The length of the region should stay the same as the length of the note. 

I think I may be getting it now...

I have been dragging the region out in the piano roll window and then trying to drag the note out to match it and it won't do it in that window.

I just tried it in the track window AFTER dragging the note to 1 bar in the piano roll and it worked fine.

I think I was confused because when I do it this way, it shows up as a loop in the track window and I thought it needed to be one long unlooped version to play without some kind of break. Either way, this fixed what I was trying to do!

Thanks!

 

[Brian Liberté]

I'm not sure you followed the advice exactly. When you option click the edge of the region and drag it, it should not loop. It should "stretch." When you drag it, your arrow cursor will change into something that looks like vertical bars as you are stretching.

I am not sure if this is related exactly. I am experiencing similar frustrating with a sustained pedal note in a string track. The pedal note needs to sustain for 3 bars, I dunno how many seconds that is, maybe 10 or less. But the note is dropping in volume after about 1 bar.

I'm trying to switch from EXS24 Full Strings+ Ensemble Patch and split the chords into Kontakt library individual string patches. EXS24 is giving me no problem looping the note as long as I want so... side eye at Kontakt. I hate working with Kontakt compared to EXS24... just EXS24 doesn't have mod wheel x-fades on it's orchestral instruments and that's a real bummer for trying to get a more expressive performance.

Good luck with the meditation music. I probably should meditate. I am a stress ball, making music actually makes me more stressed. 😜 But I push on.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Brian Liberté