TC-Helicon VoiceLive Touch User Manual - Manual (Page 34)

H OW TO G ET S TARTED WITH V OCAL L OOPING
Never looped before? Don't worry, it's amazingly simple. Looping is
about capturing an idea and then repeating it seamlessly in a loop over
and over again.
That's not all however. The real magic of a looper is
that you're able to continue to record over the loop while it plays back,
building it up in wonderful ways on every pass. With a little skill and a
lot of creativity you can base an entire performance around a single loop
being built from absolutely nothing, to a fully grooved out, ear candy
masterpiece. And that's just the beginning. But for starters, let's look at
the simplest way to get your feet wet.
Recording a loop
Step 1: Find a great sounding preset. Although sometimes you may want
to sing through no effect, relying on your voice alone for the sound you
are looking for, most times, the presets in VoiceLive Touch will give you a
huge creative range.
Step 2:Visualize - How long will my loop be? For example, maybe you
want to beatbox a simple 4 beat rhythmic bar. Or you may want a 4 bar
melody. Generally it's best to keep the initial loop small (later you'll learn
how to extend small loops into bigger ones). Let's assume a single 4
beat bar. Count in your mind: One Two Three Four.. at the tempo you
desire. It's important to feel comfortable before proceeding, because
once you set the length of your loop, it stays that way forever (until you
delete it and start again). On the other hand, right now you're just
having fun (hopefully) so who cares if you don't get it right the first time.
Move on to step 3!
Step 3: When you're ready, you're going to hit the record button and
start singing your vocal loop at exactly the same time. For your first
experiment, the moment you hit the record button start chanting
something like "one two three four". Now this is the tricky part: After
you chant "four" keep a very even rhythm and pretend you're going to
keep repeating "one two three four" but press the record button at the
exact same time you say "one" for the second time. After that you can
stop chanting. This will establish the loop. Try it now!
Step 4: If you're lucky, you should be hearing a recording of yourself
chanting "one two three four" over and over again in a very steady loop.
Congratulations!
Step 5: Clean up -- Hold the Rec button to erase everything. Start again
from Step 1 and have some fun chanting or singing something else. Try
varying the length of the loop each time. See if you can get some
seamless beatboxing happening!
Layer Cake
Getting bored? I bet you've already figured out the next part before
getting here. Once a loop is created and playing back, you can punch in
and out with the record button at will, allowing you to "overdub" new
bits of vocally mimicked instrumentation, and of course, singing! Give it
a shot now (do this after Step 4 of Getting Started).
Hints: Going back to step 3 of Getting Started, instead of pressing the
record button to mark the end of your loop, you can also press the play
button which will do the same thing but will leave you in recording mode
allowing you to immediately build your loop without punching in first.
Appendix: Looping Tutorial
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