Looping MIDI Tracks In DP 11?

[Armageddon]

Okay, I have been at this all day and I can't figure it out. I know this function changed substantially in DP 10 (from "loops" to "clips"), but I can't figure out how to loop a MIDI track in DP 11.

In the olden pre-DP 10 days, I could drag a one-measure 4/4 MIDI drum beat into a MIDI track, highlight it, go into the Regions pulldown, create a loop, click on the Loop button in the Tracks columns for that MIDI track and the looped MIDI drum would play for as long as I wanted it to (I use it to play to instead of a click).

I'm trying to do the same thing in DP 11 and having zero success. This is what I'm doing:

1) Drag a one-measure 4/4 MIDI drum beat into an empty MIDI track, outputting to an instance of EZDrummer.
2) Select/highlight that one-measure MIDI track.
3) Select "Pack Into Clip" from the pulldown.
4) Double-click on the now "packed into clip" one-measure MIDI track. What I assume is the clip editor pops up at the bottom of the screen.
5) The Loop button is selected, meaning it should be "looped", right? Wrong. It continues to only play that one measure when I play the sequence.
6) Below the Loop button are Start, End and Duration parameters. Changing the end or duration time extends the yellow line at the top of the clip, but the MIDI track still only plays that one measure.
7) The Clips window does nothing. Hitting the Play button seems to add the clip over and over to the Queue, but does not actually "loop" the MIDI.

I seem to remember, from what little I worked with DP 10, that you packed the loop into the clip, then ... dragged the clip into the Clip window, maybe into one of the Clip tracks? And then, it would loop, but also wrote MIDI notes when recording other MIDI tracks for some reason? It doesn't seem like you can even do this in DP 11. I'm to the point where I'm tempted to roll back to DP 9 like the old fart that I am and at least have the comfort of working with parameters that I'm familiar with, but I'd much rather learn how to work with this newfangled software.

I've tried looking this up in the DP 11 PDF manual and found nothing. Any help or suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong or what I have overlooked would be greatly appreciated.

[CharlzS]

After you pack into a clip, when you hover over the left or right edge of the clip in the Sequence Editor you get the Loop Cursor (circular arrow). Click and drag as far out as you want. You can also select the clip and Edit --> Repeat (cmd-R), but that makes copies of the clip. You can set DP to record your MIDI as clips in Preferences so you don't have to pack everything into clips.

[Armageddon]

After you pack into a clip, when you hover over the left or right edge of the clip in the Sequence Editor you get the Loop Cursor (circular arrow). Click and drag as far out as you want. You can also select the clip and Edit --> Repeat (cmd-R), but that makes copies of the clip. You can set DP to record your MIDI as clips in Preferences so you don't have to pack everything into clips.

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, I had already tried doing this (it seems to do the same thing as extending the duration or the end time in the Clip Editor). So far, the only way I've been able to get it to work is:

1) Select the one-measure MIDI track.
2) Pack it into a clip.
3) Highlight and copy the clip.
4) Go to the Clips window. Paste the clip into the topmost cell ("Scene 1") of the MIDI track the one-measure MIDI drum beat resides on.
5) Click the "trigger" (looks like a Play) button in that cell. The clip is copied into the "Now Playing" section of that clip track.
6) It now loops infinitely.

It seems to be a very unnecessarily complicated way to do this. It should be exactly as you described: you just extend the duration of the clip in the Clip Editor and it plays as long at you've set it for. The Clips window shouldn't even be involved. It also comes with a bizarre problem ... when I record MIDI or audio on another track, it also records the looped MIDI drum beat onto the clip track as MIDI, even though the track isn't armed for recording and Multi Record isn't even activated.

(Edit: D'oh ... your method actually DOES work!!! I was grabbing the wrong part of the clip -- in the middle of the left edge -- which had more of a ">]<" shaped cursor than a semi-circular one. This extended the duration or end time, much like the old-school loop, and led me to believe that the loop just wasn't working when it stopped after one measure. I had to grab the clip BY THE LEFT CORNER, where the cursor changes to the exact semi-circular one you were talking about. Dragging that out actually extends the loop, showing up in the Tracks window as new MIDI notes. Although this eliminates the need to go into the Clips window, and doesn't multi-record onto itself, it's still weird that it generates MIDI notes when you extend the track. Up until v10, extending the duration of the loop was all you needed to do. Thank you so much for your help, would never have tried that!)

[CharlzS]

Good you figured it out. I was just previewing my next post when I saw your edit.

There are two cursors that can change at the edges of the clip, a loop cursor (circular arrow) and a trim cursor (opposing arrows). I appears what you are describing is dragging with the trim cursor. Move higher up on the edge to get the loop cursor.

[Phil O]

What I haven't figured out is what exactly do those "loop" controls in the clip editor widow actually do?

[Armageddon]

What I haven't figured out is what exactly do those "loop" controls in the clip editor widow actually do?

Thank you! That's exactly where I was banging my head against a wall on this issue, because I assumed, like the olden days, if you clicked "enable" in the loop column in the Tracks window, the track was looped! With "the New Way", all the Loop checkbox in the Clip Editor window seems to do is ... make it a loop. Which then allows you to drag it out to whatever length you want in the Sequence Editor window. It's less complicated than I feared, but definitely more complicated than it needs to be. In theory, you should just be able to click "Loop" in the Clip Editor, set your start and stop time (or at least Duration) and that should be it. All this new Ableton Live/Logic/DAW That Shalt Not Be Named stuff is really muddying the waters (not to sound like an old coot). I'm still happy that I don't have to go into the Clips window for any reason (a rare new feature in DP I cannot see myself using).