Working with a virus

    Basically I need to know the best way to sample/loop recorded sequences.
    After recording a pattern i want to loop it so i can layer more instruments, however some instruments are troublesome to loop because of delay for example, when it starts repeating over there's a small jump you clearly can hear because of the sudden cut of the delay effect. (dunno how to explain this better). I figured i'll let the record run for a bit longer so it captures all the delay effects at the end, but i cant overlap the recordings as i want in ableton to make it sound good...


    My usual workflow is working against me, since i tend to make "one big loop" to make up the elements and sound i want with the song e.g pad/arp/lead/bass/maybe some fx then cut them up to smaller pieces and build up my song that way.


    When you are forced to record after using up your 3 USB parts (Or if running out of DSP with a single instrument) it makes it difficult and slow process..Cause i basically need to make a "complete song" with 3 instruments then layer over 3 at a time up to all 16 parts if i want to use all of the parts.


    How do you work with your virus? Any advises for a beginner like me would be appreciated


    Thanks!

    There are 2 options I can think of:

    • Don't use the delay/reverb effect on the Virus. Record the loop without the delay/reverb, loop it, and mimic the original delay effect using one of Live's delay plugins on the recorded track.
    • If you insist on using the Virus delay, record the loop with it's tail (continue until the echoes fade), then split it where the loop end marker is and move the tail "half" to a new track starting from the loop start marker. If the new "tail only" track clip is still longer than the loop time, split it again at the end marker and create a "tail of the tail" track - repeat as needed...

    Hope this helps