Section 7 — Sampling/Signal Source Concepts
ASR-10 Musician’s Manual
154
Looping
loop end, and vice versa. This does not, in itself, guarantee a good loop but it will save you lots
of time and trouble by ruling out all those splice points which definitely won’t work.
Short (Single-Cycle) Loops
As discussed previously, a short (single-cycle) loop is appropriate when the sustain portion of the
sound is a more or less repeating wave. The best way to find out if a short loop is right for a
given sound is to try it and see if it works. If fact, the best way to learn about looping generally is
to experiment with moving both the loop start and the loop end around in a WaveSample and
listening to the results.
There is a simple technique for finding a short loop. For this example we will sample some
sound with a simple sustain, such as a clean guitar or bass sound, or a synth patch without a lot
of chorusing.
First press Edit, then System•MIDI and make sure AUTO-LOOP FINDING=ON.
Next connect the signal source to the ASR-10 Audio In, set the input level, and sample the sound.
After you have played the root key to conclude the sampling process, the ASR-10 puts you on the
Edit/Wave page, which is just where you want to be to turn the loop on.
• Press the Up Arrow button twice to select MODE=LOOP FORWARD. Now hold down a key
and listen to the sound. The default settings for a new WaveSample are LOOPSTART=00%,
LOOPEND=99%, meaning that the whole sample is currently looping over and over.
• Scroll right to the LOOP START parameter, underlining the coarse adjust (the number to the
right, in parentheses). Use the Data Entry Slider to move the loop start up, past the beginning
of the sound. Try a setting of (25) to start. This puts the loop start 25% of the way into the
WaveSample. Play the sound and listen.
• Scroll right to the LOOP END parameter, again underlining the coarse adjust (the number in
parentheses) which should be at (99). Use the Data Entry Slider to move the loop end down
as far as it can go. It will stop at (25) or wherever you set the loop start to, because you cannot
adjust the loop end before the loop start. The loop start and loop end are now at the same
place in the WaveSample. Play the sound. When it hits the loop, it will go supersonic because
the ASR-10 is trying to loop on just one sample.
• Scroll two steps to the left to select the loop end fine adjust (the number just after
LOOPEND=). Press the Up Arrow button once and play the sound. The pitch of the loop
should be a little lower —you have moved the loop end away from the loop start to the first
potentially good splice point.
• Press the Up Arrow button again and listen to the sound. With each press of the Up Arrow
button, the pitch of the loop should go down as the ASR-10 moves the loop end to the next
zero crossing. Keep pressing the Up Arrow button, one press at a time, until the loop sustains
at the same pitch as the sound before the loop. This is a single-cycle loop.
• After you’ve found a good loop, you should move the sample end back to the same point as
the loop end, then truncate the WaveSample to reclaim the memory that is no longer needed.
(TRUNCATE WAVESAMPLE is found on the Command/Wave page.)
