What is Loopcloud Listen?
Loopcloud Listen listens to the music in your DAW and finds samples that work harmonically and melodically with your project. It uses Loopcloud's Harmonic Matching technology to detect chord changes and the position of sounds within your music, then finds matching samples from the Loopcloud Store or your own sample library.
How do I use Loopcloud Listen?
TLDR:
1. Add the "Loopcloud Listen" plugin to your Master channel
2. Click the "Listen" button and press play in your DAW
3. Click "Show Results" to view the matches in Loopcloud
4. Preview the matches while your DAW plays
5. Drag and Drop into your DAW!
Step by Step:
1. Add the "Loopcloud Listen" plugin to your DAW
Add the "Loopcloud Listen" plugin to your Master channel, or to any other melodic channel you want to analyse. The Listen plugin listens to the audio on that channel and sends it to Loopcloud. If the Loopcloud isn't open already, click the Open Loopcloud button in the Loopcloud Listen plugin.
2. Start Listening
In the Loopcloud Listen plugin, click the Listen button.
If your DAW isn't playing already, Loopcloud Listen will now wait for you to start playback in your DAW.
Then, press Play in your DAW and Listen will analyse 4 bars of audio.
To analyse 8 bars instead, click the Settings cog and change the listening length to 8 bars.
3. Preview your results
Once Listen has finished analysing your music, click Show Results.
Your matching samples will appear in a Listen Results tab, and will play in time with your DAW as you preview them. This lets you hear how a sample works with your music before deciding whether to use it.
Loopcloud intelligently re-pitches the matching samples when necessary, so you don't need to specify the key of your project for Listen to find matches.
To see matches from the Loopcloud store, click Store. To see matches from your own library, click My Sounds.
4. Refine your results
Add search tags to your Listen results to narrow down the search.
For example, you can add Instrument, Genre, Label, BPM or any other Loopcloud tags.
Here I've added a Harp tag to the search:
5. Drag and Drop into your DAW
When you find a sound you want to use, you can purchase it if necessary and then drag and drop it into your DAW session.
The first result is perfect, so I've dragged it into my DAW
Tip: Drag and drop via the Export button to retains any intelligent pitch changes made by Loopcloud
Can I use Listen with my own samples?
Yes - Listen can find harmonic matches from your personal sample library as well as the Loopcloud Store.
Your own samples appear in the My Sounds tab, and samples from the Loopcloud catalogue appear in the Store tab.
Do I need to set the key of my project?
No - You can use the Key filter if you want to narrow down your results, but it isn't necessary for Listen to find harmonically compatible samples.
Loopcloud can intelligently re-pitch samples in other keys to match the audio it has analysed.