Loop Part of a Song and Play It Until It's Yours

How to loop part of a song

Open the song (mp3, wav, flac, m4a or mp4) and drag across the waveform over the bars you want. That's your loop, and it repeats until you clear it. On a phone, tap Set A at the start and Set B at the end. Keep it short, two or four bars, and start it a beat early so you hear the pickup into the phrase. Then work it. Slow the loop down without changing the pitch. Once the tempo reads clearly, turn on the count-in. Switch on the speed trainer and it nudges the speed up five points, say from 60% to 65%, after every four passes, so you climb back to full tempo without touching the slider. If you want your own part out of the way, press Separate this loop. Only that section gets split, so you can mute or solo your instrument there without waiting for the whole song. Drop markers on the verse, chorus and solo to jump between loops. Your song isn't uploaded.

Make the loop short enough to fix

The useful span is the bar you miss, plus the pickup into it. Two bars is a good start. Four if the phrase crosses a bar line. A whole chorus on repeat is mostly waiting. Start a beat early so your hands are already moving when the hard note arrives. Drag that span on the waveform. On a phone the same span is Set A and Set B, because a long drag is fiddly on a small screen.

Clear the span when you want the song to run, and set a new one when the next phrase falls apart. Markers save you from drawing the same span twice. The names already offered are Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, and Outro. Drop one on the chorus and one on the solo, then jump. Each marker can be the start of the next pass.

Slow it, count in, then let the trainer climb

Speed and pitch are separate controls. Lower the speed and the notes stay where they were, which is what you want while a fingering is still new. The slider runs from half speed to one and a half times, in small steps of a hundredth. Once the tempo on the page reads clearly, turn on the count-in. It is four clicks. It needs that tempo reading. If the number looks like double time, sort the pulse before you trust the clicks.

The speed trainer is what stops you living at a crawl. Turn it on and, after every four passes, it adds 0.05. From 60% that is 65%, then 70%, and on up. It does not park at the original tempo. It keeps going to 150%, which is the top of the slider. If you only want the record, turn the trainer off when you arrive. Playing a little past tempo for a few passes makes the real tempo feel easy. The click is a fixed grid from the start of the file, and it is not written into an export.

Take your part out of the bars you are repeating

When the notes are in your hands and you want the original part gone, press Separate this loop. Only the audio between A and B is split, which is much quicker than waiting on the whole song. Mute or solo your instrument inside that section. Outside it, the song still plays as the mix you opened.

Slowing a whole song, with or without a short span, has its own page: slow down music without changing the pitch. Use that when the problem is the tempo of the record. Use this page when the problem is one phrase you need to hear again until it is yours. The file stays on the device either way.