Desired ability:
I’ve loaded a 4 bar drum machine loop in as a song, and would like to loop it infinitely until I manually push Stop.

I’m also allowed to slow down/speed up the loop with perfect gaps.

Workflow:
Audio Regions during Playback

Steps:
Select region to play next → Enable loop

Observed limitations:
I’m noticing the loop will only play for 16 bars before stopping, which bypasses my Audio Region edit for the loop to continue infinitely. ❌

I am able to slow down/speed up the song (drum loop) without any issues. ✅

Alternate path taken (imperfect)
Adding song (drum loop) to a playlist → swipe left on song → repeat

This works perfect IF I don’t desire to speed up or slow down the song (drum loop). ✅

The problem with this alternate path is that slowing down or speeding up the now-repeating song (drum loop) introduces gaps, or too quick of a loop repeat. ❌

Request:
I’ve read through documentation, but don’t see where a loop limit is enforced for an Audio Region. If logic has been added for Audio Region loop limits, can it be removed?

If I’m right about this currently-enforced loop limitation, and you agree to change it, how do I track the change release?

BTW, this app is AWESOME. 👍️

I’m using it inside AUM Audio Mixer app, which allows me to run backing tracks, and my other iPad VSTs (ie. pianos, synths) simultaneously.

    cedriccjmusic I’ve loaded a 4 bar drum machine loop in as a song, and would like to loop it infinitely until I manually push Stop.

    This is easily done, just go to loop editor create a perfect loop on this section then enable permanent loop and also colour it as you prefer. Now when you select this song and hit play the loop is going to perfectly replay till you hit stop you could even load a total of 12 loops do as you did with the first loop and you have a perfect drum machine you can bounce between any loops for variation or have totally 12 different beats where with one song setting you could play 12 totally different songs without changing to another song just select the beat you need with the 12 loops and you have total easy freedom,
    My advice is program your loops to be perfect in the DAW and save as one file , load this to ST3, this then makes it very easy to create the perfect loops and create a drum machine that is actually quite powerful as you can attach lyrics to all different loop sections giving you lyrics as well, the potential is only limited by your imagination.

      cedriccjmusic I’m noticing the loop will only play for 16 bars before stopping, which bypasses my Audio Region edit for the loop to continue infinitely. ❌

      I don't really understand your problem, but if you create shorter loops and make them permanent this gives you freedom to easily change loops but will keep on looping until you hit stop/pause or change to another loop, loop areas behave this way,
      If you have permanent loop enabled on a loop if you touch once on that loop will select it and keep on looping , if you now touch this loop again disables permanent loop and it will continue play to next in line loop or stop and cue up next song if there are no more loops.
      The third touch on this loop will cancel Permanent looping temporarely,
      The fourth touch will deselect the selection of this loop.
      If you have enabled permanent looping on a particular loop in the loop editor it will always be setup that way when you load that song even though you might have canceled it while playing, using the loop editor is where you can change the default settings of loops.

      You could have the first loop as an intro loop and the last loop as the ending loop and disable permanent loop on them so you can nicely start or end your songs.

      I hope this gives you enough information to create a canvas that suits your performance.
      If you end up with gaps in audio while using speed and manipulating loops increase your buffer size to minimise this issue don't use speed while performing if you can avoid it, i have reported this issue to Peter and he believes the new update might fix this.

      Cheers Damir

        If you see the loop icon in the waveform view it will loop indefinitely. There is no limit to the maximum number of loops.

          peter Thank you all for your feedback/assistance.

          What I’m saying is I believe I’ve uncovered a bug.

          I’ve attached a video of me activating an Audio Region Loop, and attempting looped playback. You’ll notice that the playback only happens for a couple of bars, then stops, moving to the next track.

          Am I doing something wrong?

          I’m also able to trigger this behavior by increasing the tempo of a looped song.

          Video demonstration of loop stopping

              cedriccjmusic I believe this is the same problem I have pointed out to Peter not long ago, increasing your buffer size to maximum helps reduce the bug but it doesn’t eliminate it, Peter said he thinks he might be able to fix this problem in the near future, my suggestion is don’t use speed change and pitch shift for now on stage and maximise your buffer size.
              In my experience it is reliable if you select a song play it but don’t fiddle with speed and pitch , I have not had looping change issues so far but I did have them when my buffer was on 512 I increased it to 1024 the loop changes gave me no problem but changing speed and pitch was still an issue, now I am running buffer size 2048, I don’t get looping problems and if I fiddle with speed and pitch the break in audio has reduced but I can still make it breakdown.
              So now I just won’t speed or pitch change while song is playing it’s not wort it on stage while performing.
              I believe Peter the magician will fix it.

                The speed change issue will be fixed in version 3.7.

                But the other issue is weird. But I have never tested with audio files this short and looped completely. Do you have crossfade settings enabled? Especially the fade out time might cause an issue if it longer than your whole 2-bar audio file. It might also be caused by the fact that the next song is prepared a couple of seconds before the current song ends and your file is most likely shorter than this preparation time.

                Can you maybe check if this issue still occurs with a longer loop (maybe 8 bars)?

                  peter

                  But I have never tested with audio files this short and looped completely.

                  Ah! Gotcha. Yeah....We run a lot of short drum machine loops in Gospel music, so when I found out about this app, I was EXTREMELY excited.

                  Do you have crossfade settings enabled?

                  No, I don't, because I need the looping to be seamless, regardless of tempo change.

                  Can you maybe check if this issue still occurs with a longer loop (maybe 8 bars)?

                  The longest length I have is a 4 bar loop. I just tried reproducing the issue, and couldn't when not adjusting tempo ✅.

                  However, adjusting the tempo of the 4 bar loop caused the looping to stop, and the next song to be queued. ❌

                  So, your hypothesis about preparation time seems to be spot-on. It appears there's a calculation that takes into account:

                  1. Current song (loop) duration.
                  2. hardcoded preparation time

                  Increasing the tempo gets you to the preparation time threshold faster, which bypasses the loop flag logic.

                  That said, it appears your song Repeat logic isn't dependent on preparation time. This would explain why I don't have issues with loops discontinuing when using Repeat. The only downside of Repeat is that it doesn't behave well with tempo changes (tempo increase: gaps in loop, tempo decrease: premature looping).

                    The speed change fix in version 3.7 will fix both the loop playback and repeat functionality.

                    I will try to reproduce the issue with a short loop and maybe I can shorten the preparation to enough so that 2 bar loops will work. But I don't think I can make it work for 1 bar loops.

                      peter

                      But I don't think I can make it work with 1 bar loops.

                      Understandable. All my loops are usually 2 bars or more anyway. 👍️

                      When you implement a fix for the preparation time, it might be useful to update documentation around Looping specifically:

                      1. Two types of Looping: Audio Region, Repeat
                      2. Notion of preparation time, and its ramifications on Looping.
                      3. Minimum allowable loop time (ie. seconds).

                      You're an awesome Engineer, man!

                      Question:
                      Is there an ongoing Releases thread I can follow in order to get app update announcements (major, minor, patch)? Are you following a specific release schedule?

                      It would be awesome to track when these fixes go into PROD.

                      Much appreciated 🙏

                        I can't reproduce the issue with a 4 second long 2 bar loop. And that makes sense as the preparation time for the next track is 1 second. And the minimum loop length is already 2 seconds. Maybe the issue is related to some other configuration you have. Can you post screenshots of your playback settings and your fade settings?

                        All releases are documented in the changelog: https://stagetraxx.com/user-guide/changelog/

                        Feature release like the next 3.7 release always have a open beta testing phase that is announced here on the forum.

                        I found the issue: the region end is not correctly set when you add a region to such a short file. The region is a tiny bit too long. This is indeed a bug.

                        You need to correct the region end by dragging it a little bit to the left and then back to the right as far as it goes.

                          peter

                          I found the issue: the region end is not correctly set when you add a region to such a short file. The region is a tiny bit too long. This is indeed a bug.

                          Ah! Interesting. That was very quick. 🔥

                          I’m a bit scared of manually editing the Audio Region loop duration, just because the margin for error (ie. loop timing might get off).

                          Just in case it still helps, here are some screenshots of my settings.



                            In this case where you want to loop the whole file it is actually safe to change it manually. Just slide it as far to the right as possible.

                            Your settings look fine.