how to make protools loop?

[alJones]

hi,
I am going to need to make a simple, repeated loop of jawharp for a session. I am a definite beginner. Basically, I'd like to get one or several measures, then repeat. Can this be done after acoustic guitar?

I don't necessarily understand how I can make the jawharp snippet 'match up' with the acoustic track. It might be easier to start with the harp and record all tracks to that, but that seems backwards.

Does anyone know what I should look into for this? Beat detective maybe?
thanks,
Al

[JGriffin]

One (of many) methods:

-set a tempo for your song.
-Use the "Click" plug to give yourself a tempo reference.
-record acoustic guitar in time with the click
-track your jawharp in time with the click
-in 'grid' mode, select the bar of jawharp you want
-copy
-click on the next bar (in "Grid" mode the cursor will snap to bar lines/beats
-paste
-repeat the above 2 steps until you have your loop built

[Aquaman]

OTOH, your idea of starting with the harp (recorded to a click track probably), and building the rest of the song from there could be a really great approach, too.

Nothing wrong with it, as long as your players are comfortable recording to an existing rhythm track/click track.

[alJones]

ok, thanks. Good ideas.
al

[solo-bration]

and if you don't wanna hit "paste" a bunch, once you have your phrase highlighted in Grid mode, you go to the edit tab and hit "repeat" and type in the number of times it should repeat.

This is nice for when I want to repeat a short drum loop for the span of the entire song, without hitting "paste" 200 times.