Requesting early feedback on ShoopDaLoop: a new live looper

[NarcoticV]

Hi all,

I would like to let you know about a project I am working on: ShoopDaLoop (https://github.com/SanderVocke/shoopdaloop). It is a grid-based live looper akin to (and inspired by) Luppp and other grid-based loopers/DAWs.

Main things setting it apart are built-in MIDI looping, built-in JACK connections management and plugin hosting, with plenty of other features planned.

ShoopDaLoop is useable but not nearly ready for a first release. On the GitHub page there is a table of features which should give you a good idea what my current goals are.

When the time comes, I will do a release (possibly with a re-branding to a more mature name )

With this post I would like to gather some feedback, since I am not an experienced musician. What are your first impressions and do I have any major blind spots in the feature list?

Edit: Same question on Reddit @ https://reddit.com/r/linuxaudio/s/0rGIvDsBMh

[Audiojunkie]

Ooh! This looks cool!

[Linuxmusician01]

Do you have a screenshot?

No overdub? That's what I like most about my (hardware) looper pedal: overdubbing stuff.

[NarcoticV]

Do you have a screenshot?

A quick screenshot:

I plan to make a demo video at the end of this week, to give you a better idea.

No overdub? That's what I like most about my (hardware) looper pedal: overdubbing stuff.

Fair enough - not yet, but I want to add this in the future. I want to have a hard look at the design of it, because the way the engine works, I could potentially save the overdub layers separately and allow to remove/alter an arbitrary overdub layer later. This will take some work to implement though, in particular for the MIDI side.

It hasn't had my priority so far because in this grid layout, you can easily spawn multiple loops, so each overdub can just be a new loop that plays together with the previous one. That is arguably better, because then you can still control the volume, balance, time offset, FX, etc. of each layer separately.

FYI, just today I added the keyboard control "N" which records on the next empty loop of the currently recording track. That is almost like an "overdub button" except it stops the currently recording loop instead of playing it back. Based on your feedback I will add another button that does the same but while playing the previous loop(s).

Edit: this quasi-overdub is now triggered by the O key.

[Audiojunkie]

People get tired of me asking this, but it is essential in order for me to use these applications: Does the gui scale up for high resolution (HiDPI) screens?

[NarcoticV]

People get tired of me asking this, but it is essential in order for me to use these applications: Does the gui scale up for high resolution (HiDPI) screens?

It being a Qt Quick app, I believe this works "for free" but haven't tested it. Will have a try - if it doesn't work I expect it to be not very hard to fix. I would suggest to give it a try and open an issue on the github page if it doesn't work.

Edit: On 200% scaling it looks fine (on Cinnamon - Arch at least).

[NarcoticV]

I have some news:

• This week, I pushed an update that allows using MIDI controllers with ShoopDaLoop. It can be configured on-the-fly in a "MIDI learn"-style way or by writing an advanced integration script in Lua. For anyone interested in providing a script, there is an example included for the AKAI APC Mini MK1.
• I didn't mention this, but the plan is definitely to keep it FOSS. I just think it's very motivating to see if it can become something that people will want to use.
• The rough road to a first release:
  • Robust installer for multiple distros
  • Bugfixes
  • A "composite loop" feature that allows building sequences out of building blocks, where one loop can be a sequence of others. This will be the main song sequencing approach.

That to me is the minimum for a first version. After that I will look at polishing (and possibly Windows + Mac support, but that won't be of much interest here ).

I feel like the composite looping will be quite fun and powerful, even allowing you to have multiple "songs" in a single session, or using them to pre-plan a recording sequence. When I have a prototype of this, I will share a demo video!

[NarcoticV]

It's been a while - time for a small update. There have been too many changes to list, but here are some that I'd like to highlight:

• Composite loops are in. They can be used to combine loop sequences into bigger loops or sequence recordings.
• Compatibility is improved: multiple Linux distros are tested in CI. BTW, Windows and Mac are also supported now (albeit still requiring JACK).
• Apart from .whl's, the CI build now also generates portable runnable packages and "fat" binary packages for multiple distro's (rpm, deb, pacman).
• Improved stability. However, I still see a crash occasionally.

So the bottom line is that it should be much easier now to give it a try. I'm still curious for any feedback.

As for demo videos: I decided to focus on development for a while, and make those when the UI is unlikely to change much anymore up to a first release. Getting close to that point.

[runiq]

I have nothing of substance to add but I wanted to commend you on the logo. *chef's kiss*

[NarcoticV]

Not meaning to bump this thread all the time, but something is worth mentioning: easy-to-install downloadable packages are now on a "pre-release" page @ https://github.com/SanderVocke/shoopdal ... prerelease

[Audiojunkie]

Thank you for this!