Questions & Answers

Feature Request: Loop Midi & Audio Clips by dragging edge

+285 votes
5,978 views
asked Apr 5, 2016 in Studio One Feature Requests by danielkucharski (1,120 points)
In Logic Pro and most other DAWs; audio / midi clips (not regions) can be loop by dragging the edge of the clip; or in logic, press "L" and it loops the clip ad infinitum. It's much easier than duplicating by pressing D since sometimes you only want to loop the clip 2.8 times or loop it up until a specific point. With the duplicating method you'd have to keep pressing duplicate and then cutting it at the end.

Here's what I want written much more coherently:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13039?locale=en_US

31 Answers

+23 votes
answered Apr 6, 2016 by THA-REAPER (650 points)

Up vote for me. This is something I've been meaning to request, but I didn't know if that feature has a specific name for all other daws or it has a unique name. I was blown away the first time I did that in Reaper a few years ago. I imagine it could work out so much better in Studio One if you were to transform a track leaving the tail, slide the tail back and use that loop function for drums or synths that carry out through the whole song and at the end bring the tail out. 

Don't get me wrong hitting D is quick for duplicating, but spanning a loop out by dragging the end of the clip is even quicker.

 

+4 votes
answered Jun 29, 2016 by Scoox (16,880 points)

Wouldn't it be better to implement something like the brush tool in FL Studio? It paints the last clicked thing. So if you click a MIDI clip and click-swipe, you would get a series of shared copies of that clip.

Then right-click swipe would delete many clips with a single swipe, as per this other FR: Smarter Right-click and Middle-click.

+7 votes
answered Dec 20, 2016 by scoredfilms (6,830 points)

I second Scoox's solution! I like the functionality of other DAWs, but their implementation isn't very intuitive. I demoed FL Studio before switching to Studio One and I found their brush tool to be one of the best features they have. They also let you do it in the Piano Roll which is FREAKING BRILLIANT! If you want 4 bars of 16th notes, it's SO easy to get it. No copy pasting, no tediousness. You click > you drag > magic happens! :)

Sorry for all the exclamations. But seriously, there's no better tool than that brush. Genius! GENIUS I tell you!!! lol

-Sean

+6 votes
answered Mar 30, 2017 by richhickey (450 points)

More than the drag, I especially want Logic's "The region loops continuously until the start of the next region in the track" feature.

+4 votes
answered Apr 3, 2017 by nikhoverland (1,810 points)
Most important feature for me.
+3 votes
answered Jan 31, 2018 by neiljordan1 (18,370 points)
Completely agree. Love this feature in Pro Tools, Logic, etc. Was sad to find it missing when I made the switch to Studio One.
+3 votes
answered Feb 4, 2018 by joeosborn (230 points)
Had this in Sonar also.
+1 vote
answered Oct 31, 2018 by aaronramirez2 (500 points)
I also miss that feature coming from FL Studio :(

Being able to brush the same audio/midi in the arranger and piano roll is so fast.
+2 votes
answered Jan 1, 2019 by jh57 (290 points)
Same here. This has been a function in every program I've used in my short 20 years of producing. I ended up here after googling how to do something I assumed Studio One did. Silly me.
+2 votes
answered Jan 13, 2019 by kriskelvin (210 points)
edited Jan 13, 2019 by kriskelvin

What a disappointment! I've been trying about 10 DAWs and none of them does it the way Logic was already doing it in 1995. Incredibly, I can't find ANY major DAW under Windows that has both that and the alias/ghost/duplicate clip feature, another essential feature! Make multiple ghost/aliases of a sequence, loop them, move each loop as a single unit, set different number of repeats for each...

I just installed the trial version of Studio One, and I like very much what I see, it's at the top of my list with Cubase. But both don't have this basic but incredibly useful feature.

I'm uninstalling Studio One right after that, and will probably finally settle for Mulab (its loop thing not as good as Logic, but it does work!). I'm also seriously thinking of getting a Mac again just for Logic, after more than 20 years on Windows...

+4 votes
answered May 6, 2019 by kevinkbell (370 points)
I was going to add this as a feature request.  It may not seem like a big deal to many,  but just about every DAW I've used (Sonar,  Live,  & Cubase) already has this feature.  I found it kind of off that Studio One didn't.
+2 votes
answered Apr 25, 2020 by johnadams47 (270 points)
This feature seems straight-forward. Would it be super-difficult coding? I'm trying to understand why this is not already a thing.
+1 vote
answered Jun 29, 2020 by xanderking (210 points)

Hi - I just started with Studio One 4 a few hours ago (I'm impressed so far!) and this is the first thing I couldn't figure out: how to loop a region like I can in Logic. 

No amount of region duplication achieves the same thing because any change to the original (e.g. remove one midi snare hit) means you then have to delete all of the existing duplicates and then re-duplicate exactly the same regions without ******** up. For hip hop / EDM where beats tend to repeat heavily it seems like the only sensible method. 

Any alternative / suggestions on workflow v welcome, but as a Logic user I'd love to see this feature.

+3 votes
answered Aug 4, 2020 by nikolaykulyabko (1,850 points)
YES!!! It's such a pain! Especially for audio events!

Let's say I have 1-bar vocal sample that I loop across 8 bars by duplicating. Then I decide to fix a few notes with melodyne. And because it's not looping like in ableton or logic, I have to waste time hitting D 7 times. And until I do that I can't hear the changes I'm doing in other 7 bars this event is present. And then if I decide to change something I'll have to duplicate it 7 times again. Isn't that kinda ridiculous?

Guys and gals in the development, please just bluntly copy clip looping functionality from ableton and it'll make S1 one step closer to being a perfect DAW!
+1 vote
answered Aug 19, 2020 by tysonswetnam (200 points)
yea. I honestly don't know why this isn't already a feature, i recently started making the move from GarageBand iOS to Studio One and somehow the free GarageBand DAW has this but Studio One doesn't?! I was shocked. it would make things sooooo much simpler.
+2 votes
answered Oct 7, 2020 by alexandrewust (240 points)
I'm a new user who switched from Ableton Live because I was amazed by all the features that Studio One can provide and still remain by the way, but I didn't think it didn't had that looping feature for events.

Really weird to see such a basic feature is missing in this great DAW. Hope it will come shortly !
+1 vote
answered Oct 13, 2020 by roysonboleh (1,280 points)
I can't even believe this basic feature doesn't already exist. Another good thing about it is if you stretch out a clip across many bars, you can split it anywhere and delete the part you don't need. If you copied the event, then you have to go and delete all the events. It's a bit more cumbersome. Not that huge of a deal but what is the purpose of pulling out the end of the even and having it blank??? I mean, might as well have it duplicate, right?

And for those of you who don't know, when you are duplicating the event, if you press shift, it keeps all the events connected so if you make changes in one, they all change. There is a little ghost icon on the bottom left to indicate they are linked. That is a cool feature at least.
+1 vote
answered Oct 22, 2020 by johnnoizz (560 points)
Hello everyone!

Well... I moved from other DAWs to Studio One, i'm very happy but didn't notice that there's no loop option for audio clips??? Really???

I demoed many DAWs and 90% have this function, Why such a big DAW like Studio one doesn't have it?

Somebody knows if there is some word from the programmers about this feature?
+1 vote
answered Jan 7, 2021 by federicosilva (4,480 points)
This would be a great feature.
+1 vote
answered Jan 12, 2021 by arndkaiser (2,300 points)
This is already available for Patterns on Instrument Tracks.

+1 vote
answered Jan 19, 2021 by nicolasalba (1,640 points)
Super useful and intuitive feature idea that is hopefully gaining traction. Hopefully since they finished the big marquee features for v5 they can get to the quality-of-life improvements like this one, though the request has been around a while. They might think the D key is good enough, but as all the other commenters mentioned having a paint tool would be way better to set exact lengths quickly, and being able to alter all repetitions automatically after changing one element would be great. They have this in the pattern creator so they know it is useful... just make it more universal.
+2 votes
answered Feb 5, 2021 by fabiofazzi (380 points)
Just bought few days ago Studio One, and it's cool... but the looping feature is a big miss! In Logic is simple and effective!
+3 votes
answered Mar 16, 2021 by eugenelukianenko (600 points)
This feature is a must! And should be implemented the same way it's made in Logic. Looping not only by dragging the right edge of the clip but with a key command (in Logic - "L"), you press the button and the clip is looped to the end of the song or left edge of a clip ahead of it.
0 votes
answered Jan 19, 2022 by tristanmanduley (150 points)
This is needed badly... hows this been open so long. i know the S1 team prides itself on being different, but their differences are wins when it comes to elegance. there is no more way elegant to loop a clip than how its done in Logic Pro. dont try to reinvent that wheel, just add the missing feature. im likely to return to logic pro at some point even tho i love S1 for its originality , stability, and often smarter designs, but that feature is hugely impactful to my workflow. honestly id rather just perform the same part over and over than copy paste on timeline.

order of preferences for editing:

1. drag edge and loop good take

2. perform take over and over length needed til all good

3. copy paste and tweak over and over

that should be fixed. i like the S1 method less than the challenge of just mastering each performance. :(
0 votes
answered Jan 21, 2022 by btkkykzt (1,640 points)
YES! Would like to this one in the next update of S1
+2 votes
answered May 22, 2022 by lewicky (270 points)
edited May 22, 2022 by lewicky
This is not only basic essential functionality from a GUI point of view, it also makes it much easier to manage tracks, because you end up with what appears to be one event on the track, with one label, allowing you to quick see *what* the event is.

If you use the "D" key to loop a short event add infinitum, you end up with a giant collection of events on the track, each with their own labels.  When you zoom out, those labels will become obscured, making it impossible to know if, for example, you have one wrong event stuck in there somewhere, or where, for example, a (correct) different loop has been inserted.

This is just basic functionality and it should be prioritized.
0 votes
answered Jul 2, 2023 by Mikayy (2,810 points)
How is it possible that such basic functionality is still missing? I mean, it is almost there with the pattern function.

I just want to have a piano roll that repeats itself. That can't be so difficult.

If you guys ask yourself what you should do tomorrow, then that's it! Please copy the Ableton solution.
0 votes
answered Nov 1, 2023 by QuentinDurot (160 points)
I'm coming from ableton and cannot understand why it's done with pattern and not with part. My first reflex was to convert all part to pattern but it looks like a bad solution.
0 votes
answered Nov 22, 2023 by IreneuszKruczek (260 points)
Even Cubase has this feature... So many years since this topic appear and still there is no such important feature.
0 votes
answered Mar 15 by marioautherith (150 points)
This certainly is the last thing missing for me for S1 to be my perfect DAW. I know the "shift"-d solution, but it really isnt the same when working on a Song.

I would really hope that there will be a tool added to do this by dragging. After all, S1 promotes it self as the drag and drop DAW out there.
So please, at least add it like in logic, on the upper edge of midi/audio tracks, if you drag along the section should loop.
...