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Review of Seamless Looper – With images.

 
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Sharp
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Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 18197
Location: Ireland

PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:24 pm    Post subject: Review of Seamless Looper – With images. Reply with quote

Hi all.

If you love sampling, then you should find this very interesting. Everyone knows that sampling is an art in it’s self. It can be very difficult if not near impossible to loop evolving sounds, or even standard ones. So, any help in this area is obviously well worth talking about. That said; if you haven’t already heard of this program, let me introduce “Seamless Looper” by Zero-X.

Seamless Looper is a program that allows you to work efficiently with large numbers of samples of all shapes and sizes, quickly and easily. Even the most complicated waveforms can be looped in no time at all. So with that said, lets start by opening a few files and looking at what can be accomplished here. The files I’m working with here in the first part are Trumpet sounds, so these would be considered standard files. I’ll demonstrate the abilities of seamless looper to process near impossible evolving waveforms later on in this post.

So here goes.

Image 1


I’m actually going to open every file in this folder at the same time in order to show you how the program organises everything. Notice how it’s all spaced out nicely, and no window is displayed on top of the other.

Image 2


Next I drag open the file I wish to see enlarged, and seamless looper scales the view perfectly. By simply looking at the wave file open in this way, I can roughly see where the waveform cycles, so lets also roughly select that area for processing.

Image 3


So I have my waveform, and the area where I think it might loop. Next all I have to do is press the “S” key. Doing this will bring up a window asking you what you would like set as the minimum loop size and what way seamless looper is to search. The following settings work without fail for me every time and I have never needed to change them based on the selections I make where I think the sample might loop.

Image 4


Now that I’m ready to loop my sample, I hit the Auto Search button. At this point Seamless Looper will scan the selected area and report back all the possible points where the sample will loop.

I can hear all this loop points in real time by hitting the preview button and directly clicking on the values displayed. This is very handy because it allows you to quickly pick the best point possible.

Image 5


In this case with the sample I’m working with, all the values displayed on the screen are actualy perfect loop points and the sample performs seamless. So, I’m going to leave it on the very first choice, and so I hit the OK button which brings me back to the main screen.

I can now play back my sample and actually see where it was looped in the area I had selected. It sounds grea, a very smooth loop.

Image 6


All is left to do now is to crop away all the unused audio after the Loop End Point. This is done automatically by simply pressing the CTRL+E keys.

The end results will look like this.

Image 7


So that’s how the process of looping a fairly standard samples goes. It’s quick and easy. Next up is nothing short of a nightmare samples. This one fades in and constantly evolves in shape and size.

Image 8


The first steps that must betaken here to loop this type of sample is to deal with the problems of it evolving in size, and in true style Seamless Looper actually has the ability to level out the entire waveform automatically Smile

I start by pressing the “V” key. The settings I’ve chosen have also never failed me, so I leave them as they are always.

Image 9


After processing the waveform now looks like this. As you can see, it’s nice and level, ready for looping.

Image10


When it comes to looping this type of sample, you need to take a different approach because it does not have any view viewable cycle to it, nor does it have one you can hear by ear. In all essence it’s technically un-loopable, so the selection you need to make here is more of a personal preference on what your hearing than any technical reasons. So, I’m making this selection.

Image 11


Time to apply the first part of this loop. Pressing “S” as before brings up the scanning options, but this time around because this sample has no cycle to it, I’m going to tell Seamless Looper not to show me any loop points under 1 second long.

Image 12


After activating the search, like before your presented with a list of suitable loop points. However, unlike before the ones presented will have a clearly defined point where the sample is jerked back to the start point each time it loops. This is expected, and is exactly what you are looking for. You simply need to listen to a selection of the points presented and pick one you prefer. None of them will be smooth, so it’s purely personal choice you need to make here. For this sample, I’m going to chose the one with the points furthest away with each other.

Image 13


Ok, so the sample is looped. Now to remove the jerking effect and to smoothen out the loop point you simply press the “X” key to activate the Cross Fade features. This is by far the most impressive cross fade feature I’ve ever seen. It’s ability to smoothen out even the most poorly looped samples is truly amazing. So, for this sample I’m going to use the following settings.

Image 14


After processing, not only does this give me a flawless loop in what I’d consider an almost un-loopable sample, it does it effortless as you can see from the following image.

Image 15


It doesn’t stop there either. You can even work in a multi track mode which is absolutely fantastic for processing samples for a multisample.

Image 16


Sound designers can also make use of the Formula Wave Shaping tools to create your own unique sounds.

Image 17


And to shape them.

Image 18


There are also a lot of other feature you can use to speed up your workflow. For example, you can setup Seamless Looper in such a way that by even opening a waveform for processing, it’s automatically normalised, or DC adjusted. Saves on repetitive tasks when working with large batches of samples.

Another very handy feature is the sample offset option. This feature allows you to make adjustments to the loop points upon saving the data, which in turn gives you full compatibility with all the different specifications surrounding the wave file format.

For example, if you looped a sample in something like sound forge, and imported it into your Triton. The start loop point would be imported incorrectly. It would be out by 1 sample. Most of the time this goes completely unnoticed as 1 sample location may not produce a pop or click. But, there are times when it will matter. This feature guarantees you 100% compatibility, and eliminates the need to double check data your importing. If it sounds right in Seamless Looper, it will sound identical to that on your Triton.

So that’s some of what this program had to offer. I’d highly recommend at least downing a demo and giving this ago yourself. Especially anyone new to sampling who has been disheartened by the looping process in other applications or on their KORG.

http://www.beatcreator.com

Kind Regards.
Sharp.
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Nejat
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sharp

Seamless Looper” by Zero-X.



super program thankyou
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DrWho
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dude - Killer. Hmmm .. maybe I try making my own bass samples Smile
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Daz
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank Sharp Cool
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chordial
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the info Sharp Smile
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eddy awada
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is one of the topics that interests me the most, I read every single word with passion, thank you sharp for this wonderful explanation, I will most definitely use this great soft.
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Chipfork
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice one Sharp - this looks like a very useful program, good work on your descriptions/explanations.
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Sharp
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

v1.51, July 2006
----------------

New Features

* Multi Loop support.
Open/Save/Delete/Add/View/Preview multiple loops in wav files.
* Cue marker support.
Open/Save/Delete/Add/View/Preview cue markers in wav files.
* "Yes to all" / "No to all", in Close/Close All, Save All dialogs.
* Mouse Wheel Inverter option.

Improvements:

* Supports more ways to detect the root key in WAVE files:
- Via the chunk 'inst'.
- Via the file name.
* Clone supports more settings.
* Multi Track environment improved.
* Save Alien (unsupported) wav chunks option.
Optionally save unsupported opened wav chunks.
* Several keyboard short-cuts.
* Optionally set loop to ON, when loading wav files with
no loop marker information.

Main Bug fixes:

* Wav export. When exporting some unsupported chunks.
* PCM 32-bit import.
* PCM 32-bit export.
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INXs
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:53 am    Post subject: wow Reply with quote

Thanks Sharp. Once again your examples and explanations are just perfect. This is cool stuff, I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to share with the rest of us,,,,TWH

Smile
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slipstream



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PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is this still safe to purchase? The creators website is no longer available, so am slightly apprehensive. Thanks for any advice. Or an equivalent utility link would be appreciated. Laughing
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