QnDJ
Description:
Allow a clip/loop to have a user-defined "bar start" position that is not necessarily the beginning of the audio. This enables loops where the musical phrase begins before the downbeat (pickup/anacrusis), while the loop still stays perfectly in sync with the clock when launched and stopped.
Problems:
  • Many real musical phrases start before the bar (pickup notes/words). With a strict "audio start = bar start" assumption, these loops feel wrong or require awkward workarounds.
  • When launching such a loop, users want the pickup audio to be heard before the downbeat, while the downbeat still lands exactly on the bar.
  • When stopping such a loop, users may want it to play through the remaining tail segment (including the "pre-bar" portion that conceptually belongs to the end of the cycle) so it ends musically instead of cutting early.
Proposed Solution:
1) Add a "Bar Start Offset" (or "Cycle Start Marker") inside the clip
  • In the clip editor, allow placing a marker that defines where bar 1 beat 1 occurs within the audio.
  • The audio segment before this marker becomes the "pre-roll" pickup.
2) Launch behavior: pre-roll playback with synced downbeat
  • When the clip is activated, playback can begin slightly before the bar so the pickup plays naturally.
  • The defined bar-start marker aligns to the next quantized start point (beat/bar) so the groove is in time.
3) Stop behavior: finish the cycle musically
  • When deactivating the clip, provide an option to continue playback until the end of the current cycle (including the segment after the bar start and then the wrapped pickup segment), so the clip completes the phrase cleanly.
4) Actions integration (optional but important for performance rigs)
  • Actions to set/adjust the bar-start marker (nudge left/right, set to playhead, reset).
  • Actions to choose stop behavior (stop immediately vs stop at cycle end).
Benefits:
  • Makes pickup-based musical phrases usable as tight, clock-synced loops.
  • Eliminates the need to bake silence into files or duplicate/reshape clips as workarounds.
  • More musical launches and stops during performance, especially with vocals and phrases that lead into the downbeat.
Examples:
  • "Roxanne" (pickup vocal before the bar).
  • "All You Need Is Love" (pickup phrasing).
  • "Purple Rain" style lead-in phrasing where the emotional pickup needs to happen before the groove locks in.
  • Any vocal loop where the first syllable lands before the downbeat but the groove must still align exactly on bar start.
This summary was automatically generated by GPT-5.2 Thinking on 2026-01-18
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Original Post:
Shifted loops
Sometimes, a vocal part begins a half note before the bar. I would love Loopy to give me the ability to select where the bar beginning is in the loop and synchronize the loop so whenever starting it I can hear that beautifully groovy premptive word(s) before the bar groove takes over. Think Police’s « Roxanne », or the Beatles’ « All you need is love », or Prince’s « Purple Rain ».
In the attached example, a yellow vertical bar marks where the bar starts. when the loop is activated, it should begin a bit before so the pre-start bit is played along with the rest in time. also, when the loop is deactivated, it should play until it’s very end: which is until the relooped part before the bar start.