M
Marco Rigoni
Description:
Add a “late-toggle” safety layer for clip playback that prevents awkward half-starts when Play is pressed too close to a quantized boundary. If triggered inside a user-defined guard window, Loopy Pro will defer, rewind, or silently catch-up so the clip enters cleanly on the next bar/beat/cycle.
Problem:
In synced/quantized loops, hitting Play just before a boundary can start mid-cycle, truncate the first transient, or miss the downbeat entirely—causing flams, phasey loops, and on-stage mistakes. There’s no simple way to say “if I’m late, please wait and start cleanly.”
Proposed Solution:
  • Guard Window (per action/clip/project):
- Define
Minimum Pre-Roll
as beats/ticks or milliseconds. If
timeToBoundary < guard
, apply the chosen behavior.
  • Behaviors:
-
Defer
— Wait until the next target boundary (Beat/Bar/Loop/Clip-Cycle).
-
Rewind & Defer
— Seek to clip start (or chosen cue) now, launch at next boundary.
-
Silent Catch-Up
— Internally run from the intended start point with output muted until the next boundary, then unmute in sync (optional micro-fade).
-
Force Now (Bypass)
— Override per press (modifier/MIDI) for emergency starts.
  • Targets & Offsets:
- Choose boundary =
Beat / Bar / Loop length / Cycle of Clip X
; support ±offset (e.g., start
−1/8
ahead for pickups).
  • UX & Feedback:
- Amber
“Deferred to next bar (0.6s)”
HUD; optional pre-roll click or visual countdown.
- Per-clip badge when guard is active; editor preview of guard window.
  • Actions & Variables:
- Actions:
Set Play Guard (beats/ms)
,
Set Guard Mode (Defer/Rewind/Catch-Up/Off)
,
Start Now (Bypass Guard)
.
- Vars:
timeToBoundaryMs
,
playGuardEnabled
,
playGuardMode
,
resolvedBoundary
,
isCatchUpActive
.
  • Integration & Safety:
- Works with existing
Quantize
settings,
Count-In Offset
, and
Cycle-Synced Ramps
; sample-accurate scheduling; full undo.
- Per-project defaults with per-clip overrides; follow-actions honor deferral unless explicitly forced.
Benefits:
  • Predictable, clean entries—first transient always lands where it should.
  • Fewer on-stage flubs from late presses; better musical feel.
  • Flexible per-clip behavior (ambient pads vs. tight drums).
  • Clear visual/audible cues reduce anxiety and speed recovery.
Examples:
  • Guard =
    1/4 beat (Defer)
    : pressing Play 80 ms before the bar waits for the next bar and starts from the clip’s beginning.
  • Guard =
    200 ms (Rewind & Defer)
    on a vocal stab so it never fires mid-syllable when triggered late.
  • Silent Catch-Up
    on a long pad: the clip rolls muted to maintain phase, unmuting exactly at the next loop boundary with a 10 ms fade-in.
  • Footswitch mapped to
    Start Now (Bypass Guard)
    for deliberate off-grid entries during breakdowns.
This summary was automatically generated by GPT-5 Thinking on 2025-09-14.
Original Post:
Safety measure for when 'Play Clip' is toggled too late in synced loops
Let's suppose I have 2 clips, the first is the master clip and the second has count-in/out quantization synced with the master.
As I think we all know, in a live gig it's easier to forget to do things at the right time, and in fact it happened to me several times to remember too late that I should have launched the second clip. But if I try to launch it just after the start of the master cycle, clip 2 starts counting in before playing and therefore the structure of the song is ruined.
For this reason, I think it would be nice to be able to take the human error into account by adding an option to unmute clip 2 and play it as if it was launched on the beat if play is toggled on the first half of the clip's cycle, and start count-in only if clip is launched on the second half of the cycle.
I am aware that phase-locked loops do something close, but unfortunately they won't work with what I need to achieve because I need to play clip 2 always from its start.
Hope other live performers are interested in something like this, it would save some disasters on my gigs for sure!