Making Music
  Computer Music Software and Hardware

Three-ring circles

There are three rings in each loop display. Although the loop plays continuously, clicking the black area in the middle causes it to retrigger. As the loop plays, a red spoke travels around the larger outer disc and clicking here changes the start and end points of the loop (useful when playing alongside other loops). There are tick marks on the inner ring that divide the loop into eighths and by clicking on these and dragging the mouse around the circle you can change the segments of the loop that are played.

The L-shaped marker on the left is actually a volume slider and the half-moon beneath it controls pan. Clicking in the top right segment of the display mutes the loop, while the other three corner segments control the audio sent to the effects.

Expansion program

Expand the Channels window and Filter and Pitch/Time windows appear below each loop. The filter is really neat. You can click nodes into it, drag them left right and up and down, and adjust their bandwidth. You can also drag high- and low-pass filters onto the display from the left and right.

We've only looked at one window so far, albeit the central one. So much control in such small a space. If you're using a high resolution monitor (say 1152 x 870 or higher) some of the controls are going to be tiny - the pan half-moon, for example looks ridiculously small. You wonder if the program was designed around what could be done with Max rather than what would be more functional.

Inspector loopo

Another window, the Channel Inspector, provides a waveform view of the loop, and a play line shows which segments are playing. This helps you understand what is happening when you mess with the Pitch and Time settings.

There are a wealth of controls here. You can change the loop's pitch, adjust the start and end points, change the number of segments it's divided into, and randomise playback of the segments.

Other controls change the way the segments are played such as repeating them and reversing them. Nudge controls help align a loop if it's not quite 'lined up' with other loops.

Pluggo conversion

But we not finished yet! There's an effects window into which you can load VST effects. Over a dozen come with the program, mainly from Pluggo. Two effects slots appear on start-up but, like the loop displays, you can have up to 99 although even the fastest Mac will probably complain before you manage to populate them all.

The interface for most effects is little more than sliders although one or two have Max's familiar chunky graphics.

There are some useful effects such as reverb and delay alongside the more, er, experimental such as a modulated comb filter, ring modulation, amplitude and phase inverter, and a 256-band EQ - and that's just the ones that can be described in a few words! Many of these work extremely well on loops, often totally transforming them.

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