How to Use

McLooper turns your iPhone or iPad into a remote for Ableton Live: record loops, launch clips, mix and change tape speed from your instrument.

Not set up yet? Start with the Get Started page.

Download this manual as a PDF

1. The looper screen

This is where you record. Choose a track and a length, press RECORD, and McLooper records exactly that many bars into Live, then loops them.

• Target: The track you're recording: the instrument or mic you're about to play, like Keys, Bass or Vocal. Pick it from the list before you play. Pick a group to record every track inside it at once, for example a whole drum kit on separate tracks.

• Rec To: The scene: the row of clip slots across Live's Session View that the take lands in. Scene 1 is the top row. Stay on one scene to build a song section, then move to the next scene for the next section. A scene you've named shows its name after the number.

• Bars: How long each take is. Tap to type a number, or drag up and down. It follows the time signature: 2 bars of 7/8 is 7 eighth notes.

• RECORD: The record button. McLooper starts recording on the next bar line, records exactly Bars bars into the Target track in the Rec To scene, then loops it. Recording into the same slot again replaces the take; the back arrow puts it back.

• DONE: Ends a take early, keeping its full length. It appears beside RECORD while a take is recording. For a long loop with only a little in it, like a crash at the top of 32 bars: play the crash, tap DONE, and recording stops at the next bar. The clip stays 32 bars long, empty after the crash, and keeps looping in time.

• Back arrow: Undo, to the left of RECORD. Puts back the clip the last RECORD recorded over (or a DEL on CLIPS deleted). Tap once and it blinks and says what it will put back; tap again to put it back. It's the same history as the back arrow on CLIPS.

• Auto Next: Keeps recording, take after take, from one press of RECORD: as each take starts looping, the next one is already recording on the very next bar. → Tracks: each take goes on the next track to the right of the same kind (audio or MIDI) with an empty slot in this scene, so you hear every loop you've made while you record the next. ↓ Scenes: each take goes down the same track to the next empty slot (a new scene is added after the last), for variations of one part. Takes (beside it) stops the chain after that many takes, or ∞ to keep going. While a chain runs, RECORD says STOP CHAIN and which take it's on: tap it and the take you're on is the last. Live's STOP also ends it. Auto Next only ever records into empty slots, so it never records over anything; when there's no empty track left, it stops by itself. Off: one take per RECORD.

• PLAY / STOP: Live's transport. Starts and stops Live.

• Loop circle: The take's progress. Fills red while recording and orange while the loop plays, counting the bars.

• BPM: Live's tempo. Shows the song's tempo.

• Time signature: Live's time signature (top right). Pick any signature Live allows. Bars follow it.

• Metronome: Live's metronome switch, under the time signature. Turns it on and off. Its sound and count-in stay as you set them in Live.

• CLIPS / VARI-SPEED: The other two screens. Tap to switch.

Tip: set Target, Rec To and Bars before you start playing. Then all you need is RECORD, with your hands on the instrument. For four quick layers of claps: Bars 2, Auto Next → Tracks, 4 takes, four empty tracks with the same input, then press RECORD once and clap.

2. CLIPS

CLIPS is Live's Session View on your phone: each column is a track, each row is a scene, and each cell is a clip slot. The scene buttons are on the right.

• Launch a clip: tap it. Empty cells do nothing, so a stray tap never starts a recording.

• Launch a scene: tap its button on the right. A queued scene blinks amber; the scene that's playing turns solid green.

• Name a scene: press and hold its button, type a name (Verse, Chorus…), and tap Done. The name shows in Live and on Rec To. Clear the name to get the number back.

• Stop: the square under a track stops that track. STOP ALL stops everything.

• More tracks: swipe sideways. The grid follows your finger and settles on a track's edge; flick harder to go further, all the way to the end. The ‹ › arrows move a screen at a time. On iPhone, turn it sideways to see more tracks at once.

• Groups: tap a group's arrow to fold or unfold it. A folded group's cell stands for every track inside it.

• COPY: tap COPY, tap the clip to copy, then tap where it goes. A group's cell copies the whole group, into another scene of the same group.

• DEL: tap DEL, tap the clip, then tap again to confirm. A group's cell deletes every clip in that group's scene.

• The back arrow: puts back the last clip that RECORD recorded over or DEL deleted, and nothing else. Tap once and it shows PUT BACK? and blinks the cell; tap again to restore. It remembers the last 10.

• New track (+): tap + at the top of CLIPS. A new audio track appears in Live and a window opens: type its NAME, then pick its INPUT and CHANNEL. You can start typing the name straight away.

• Refresh (the two chasing arrows): re-reads the set if something looks out of date.

• LOOPER: back to the looper screen.

3. The mixer strip and PITCH

Tap a track's name on CLIPS to open its mixer strip under the grid. The ‹ › arrows step to the next track without closing it, and ✕ closes it.

• ARM / MUTE / SOLO: The same as Live's track buttons.

• VOL, PAN, sends: Drag to change. Double-tap a slider to snap it back (volume to 0 dB, pan to centre).

• I/O: For audio tracks: pick the input, then the channel.

• PITCH: Opens the tuning row, below.

• DUPLICATE / DELETE TRACK: The same as in Live.

PITCH tunes the clip you can hear on that track. When the track is stopped, it tunes the take in the Rec To scene, the one you just recorded.

• − / + move it a semitone at a time, up to 48 either way. The box beside them fine-tunes in cents.

• Double-tap the number to go straight back to 0.

• On a group, PITCH moves every clip in it by the same amount, keeping them in tune with each other.

• It works on audio clips. MIDI clips have no pitch setting in Live.

4. VARI-SPEED

VARI-SPEED is a tape machine's speed knob for your whole song: turn it down and everything slows down and drops in pitch together, in tune.

• Turn the knob to change speed in semitone steps, from −12 (half speed, an octave down) to +12 (double speed, an octave up). It clicks at each step.

• Under the number you see the speed and the new tempo, for example 0.841× · 84.1 BPM at −3 from 100 BPM.

• Double-tap the knob to go straight back to normal speed.

• SLIPPERY (top of the screen): the knob glides freely, with no clicks, so you can stop between steps or wobble the speed by hand, even while recording, for a warble or an LFO-like effect. Audio tracks follow it smoothly. MIDI tracks (NOTES and KNOB) can only change pitch in whole semitones, so they follow the nearest one. Turn SLIPPERY off and the knob snaps to the nearest step.

• While you're off normal speed, the VARI-SPEED button on the looper screen shows it (VARI-SPEED −3).

The tape trick: anything you record while slowed down stays a tape recording. Go back to normal speed and it comes up faster and higher with the rest of the song, just like recording on a tape machine at a slower speed.

How each track follows the knob

Tap Track settings at the bottom of VARI-SPEED to see every track and choose how it follows. McLooper picks a sensible choice for each track, so most people never change it. When a track needs something from you, a TRACK SETTINGS · 1 needs a look bar appears there instead. Groups are folded: tap a group to see the tracks inside it. Tap DONE to go back to the knob.

• REPITCH (Audio tracks (the default)): Speed and pitch move together, like tape. McLooper switches the clips to Live's Repitch warp mode, which plays audio faster or slower like a record, and puts each clip's own warp mode back at normal speed.

• NOTES (Synths, keys, bass (MIDI)): McLooper adds a Pitch effect called McLooper Varispeed in front of the instrument and moves the notes. Safe to delete; it comes back when needed.

• KNOB (Serato Sample and other samplers that play chops or pads): McLooper turns the instrument's own pitch knob instead, so the right chops still play. See the next section.

• TIMING (Drum kits, or anything that shouldn't change pitch): It follows the tempo but keeps its pitch. Drum Racks and drum plugins start here.

On MIDI tracks, a note that is already held changes pitch on the next note, not mid-note.

5. Getting samplers ready for VARI-SPEED

Audio, synths and drums need no setup. Samplers that play chops or pads from notes, like Serato Sample, need their pitch knob made visible to Live once. Track settings tells you when a track needs this.

Serato Sample

1. In Live, click the plugin's Configure button.

2. Open Serato Sample and move its key knob a little.

3. Click Configure again, then save the set. To skip this next time, save Serato as a preset in Live and use the preset.

McLooper recognises Serato by name and turns its key knob from then on.

Other samplers

1. Do the same Configure steps with the sampler's pitch or transpose knob.

2. In Track settings, set the track to KNOB and choose that knob from the list.

3. If it asks, tap LEARN. The knob moves for a moment while McLooper reads its range, then goes back.

6. Good to know

• Help in the app: tap Help at the bottom of the screen for this guide and the setup steps (the Mac app download, the setting in Live, connecting).

• Settings stay with the set. Target, Rec To and Bars are saved in your Live set, so each song opens the way you left it.

• More than one phone: bandmates can connect to the same Mac at once, on the free app or any phone's browser. For a browser, choose Show Phone Connection in the Mac's menu bar menu and scan the QR code.

• Turning the phone: on iPhone, CLIPS turns sideways to show more tracks; the other screens stay upright. On iPad, every screen turns.

• Feel: buttons and knobs click under your finger on iPhone. iPad has no haptics, so they glow instead.

• Change Mac: at the bottom of the app's screen, to switch to another Mac or type its address.

• The Mac's menu bar menu shows whether Live is connected and how many phones are on. Turn Remote Off stops phones connecting; Reinstall Ableton Script, followed by a Live restart, fixes most problems with Live.

• Take logs: McLooper writes a small log of every take, with when each loop pass started, to Music > Otis McLooper > Take Logs on your Mac.