Using the Loopling Musical Instrument

Loopling is launched as a Java Applet in your web browser window. It uses Java's built-in music synthesizer by default, to provide a range of instruments including drum kit, pianos, guitars, strings, brass, electronic sounds, etc. All musical events are handled using the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) standard, so you can also hook up an external MIDI keyboard or synthesizer.

Several users can connect together over the Internet as Members of the same Group. Users can listen to each others' instrumental "loops", play along in perfect sync, and record their jam sessions.

Members and Groups
Input
Instrument Menu
Information Pane
Control Pane
Sequencer
Recording
Chat
Known Bugs
Release Notes

FAQ page

Up to 8 Members can join a Group via a LAN or Internet connection, each bringing their own instrument to the mix. Loopling's sequencers will synchronize with each other for realtime musical collaboration. See Getting Started for troubleshooting connection problems and the FAQ for help with timing problems.

The Group Leader can control tempo and time signature using the Control Pane, and can record members and save the results as a standard MIDI file.

Loopling has built-in text chat, but feel free to use external teleconferencing software to communicate with group members while jamming.

• Sequencer. Click to create a pattern of notes on the sequencer grid. The active sequencer plays these notes as the blue cursor line passes over them, repeating the pattern over and over. You can adjust the length and timing of the sequence and its note range. In addition to the full chromatic scale, you can limit the sequencer to several major, minor, blues, and ethnic scales for musical results. You can even choose among automated note creation algorithms. Several sequencers can be set up in advance and activated by clicking on the corresponding radio button.
• Click on notes. Click your mouse button on the note names in the sequencer to play them immediately. (This works for inactive sequencers as well, so you can quickly compare scales.)
• Play the computer keyboard. Click on the radio button below the sequencer. Now pressing keys on the computer keyboard (ASDFGHJKL;QWERTYUIOP) will play notes in the sequencer's scale.
• Notes received from other group members.
• External MIDI controller. Hook up an external MIDI keyboard to control the synthesizer.

Instrument Menu

The synthesizer will play the instrument you have selected in the Instrument Menu. The entire GM (General MIDI) instrument set is available: drums, keyboards, strings, brass, woodwinds, etc. How to play multiple instruments. Only one instrument can be played in each Loopling window. However, you can play more than one instrument on a single computer by creating another Loopling member in a different browser window, connected to the same group. In this case you should disable playback on all but one browser window, by clicking the "speaker" icon. Another alternative is to use the recording controls to overdub different instruments.

Control Pane

You can also change the number of Sequencers here.

Click the speaker icon to instantly disable playback, killing all sound. However, be aware that the notes in your sequence will continue to play for other group members.

The Group Leader will see additional controls:

• Members: List and selectively enable/disable input from members.
• Synchronize: the group leader must press this button after changing the values listed below, to synchronize group members.
• Beats/Minute: the sequencer tempo
• Beats/Bar: the time signature, default is 4 beats per bar (measure)
• Sync Millisec: the number of milliseconds delay when sending the sequencer pattern to other members, to ensure synchronization. This should be longer than the expected delays in the computer network. (See FAQ, Delays)
• Rec Channel: The recording channel for the group leader's instrument. This should normally remain on 1, unless you are overdubbing multiple instruments without other members. See Recording.

Sequencer

The Sequencer uses a graphical representation of a repeating musical pattern. Notes are shown on the vertical axis and time is represented by the blue cursor moving left to right. Click on the grid to enter notes at each point in time and click the red "x" button to clear the sequence pattern. Your pattern will play in an endless "loop". Play in realtime. Rather than use the sequencer grid you can click the note names directly to play in realtime. Furthermore if you click on the radio button below a sequencer you can trigger the corresponding notes by typing on your computer keyboard (ASDFGHJKL;QWERTYUIOP). Depending on your system, however, the delay between playing and hearing the note may be significant. See the FAQ on audio latency. You may also find it necessary to disable key-repeat for your keyboard, using your system's Keyboard control panel setting.

The sequencer cycle length is one or more musical bars (measures), represented by light gray lines in the sequencer grid. Increase or decrease the number of bars using the "+" and "-" buttons in the lower-right corner. The "spacing" buttons change the duration of each column in the grid (1/8 note, 1/16 note, etc) and hence the number of columns in each bar.

The number of notes in the sequence can be changed with the "+" and "-" buttons at the upper-left corner, and the note range can be moved up and down with the arrow buttons.

The notes depend on the musical Key and Scale, which can be changed by clicking above the sequencer grid. The Chromatic scale includes all the notes on a piano keyboard (12 intervals per octave). But musical results are easier to achieve using one of the Pentatonic or Triad scales. A Blues scale and the most common ethnic scales are also included.

The Auto options will create or change sequencer patterns automatically, each time the sequencer reaches the end of a cycle. (The "x2" options change on alternating sequencer cycles, and are handy for discovering new patterns.) Because of their random or semi-random nature, these work best with musical scales such as the Pentatonic and Triad scales mentioned above.

• Rnd Vert. Randomly rearranges each column vertically. This retains the timing of the pattern but scrambles the notes. It works best with short, musical scales, and rhythmic patterns.
• Rnd Horiz. Randomly rearranges each row horizontally. This retains the notes selected but scrambles the timing of these notes at each interval, producing "glitchy" patterns.
• Rnd Fill. Creates a new random pattern each interval. This is a good way to discover new musical patterns: choose Rnd Fillx2 and quickly switch back to "(none)" when you hear something you like. This is also an easy way to create a starting point for the Conway Life option.
• Conway Life. This option implements British mathematician John Conway's Game of Life, which evolves the sequencer grid pattern according to a few simple rules. You must start with an existing pattern (or use the Random Fill option below). Sometimes the pattern will reach a point where it no longer changes and sometimes it will vanish entirely, but many patterns will continue changing indefinitely.
• Flip Horiz and Flip Vert. These options will reverse or invert the sequencer pattern at each interval to alter the rhythm or pitch of the sequence.

You can create multiple sequencers from the Control Pane. Only one sequencer is active, but you can put an alternate pattern in another sequencer and switch to it by clicking its radio button.

• File menu.
  • Open. Open existing MIDI files.
  • Save. Save the recording.
  • Save As. Save the recording as a new file, to avoid overwriting the original file.
• Edit menu.
  • Undo. Undo/Redo last editing operation.
  • Cut. Copy selected bars to the clipboard and clear the selection range.
  • Copy. Copy selected bars.
  • Paste-Merge. Paste clipboard at the selected bar, merging with existing data.
  • Paste-Replace. Paste clipboard at the selected bar, overwriting existing data.
  • Paste-Insert. Insert clipboard, moving existing bars to the right.
  • Clear. Clear data in selected bars.
  • Delete. Delete selected bars, moving remaining bars to the left.
• Transport.
  • Rewind. Set Edit/Record point to Bar 1.
  • Fast-Forward. Set Edit/Record point following the last bar containing data.
  • Record. Start recording at the Edit/Record point. Note that you can record over (overdub) data in existing bars.
  • Stop. Stop recording or playback and resume real-time sequencing.
  • Play. Halt real-time sequencing and play back recorded data.
• Rec Channel. This is in the Control Pane, and chooses the channel the group leader's instrument is recorded onto. This is normally channel 1, but if you are recording by yourself and wish to overdub multiple instruments you should select a different channel for recording each instrument. Instead, you may choose to open additional browser windows and create a new member for each instrument (see Instruments).

MIDI file editing. You can further edit the MIDI file using a MIDI editor such as Pascal Naidon's MidiSwing, an excellent freeware Java application which runs on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, etc.

A note about channels. Each instrument is recorded to a different MIDI channel, and each channel is assigned to its own track in the MIDI file. By default the group leader is on channel 1 and other group members are on channels 2-8. Channel 10 is reserved for drum instruments.