newbie looper/maybe out of the loop

["Mike B (digiboy)" <digiboy@nyc.rr.com>]

Hi all

I am completely new to the looping concept and it may be that looping is
not really what I want to do.
I want to construct rhythm patterns by playing into a loop sampler.

I picked up a Line6 Echo Pro locally to try. It's an amazing piece of gear
but so far the loop/sampling features  are not what I expectedr.

There's really no way to control the length of a sampled loop other than to
push a button at the start and then again at the end. If I want to drop in
an 8 beat phrase and have it repeat, I don't see any way to do that where
the loop will hold to the beat. There doesn't seem to be any way to  edit
the loop time .  I was expecting to at least be able to do that with some
kind of  on-the-fly "recycle" button that would cause the loop to jump back
to it's start and then repeat back from wherever that button  was pushed.
Seems to me that might work.
 I can think of other ways it could work too.

How do people usually do this? It certainly sounds to me like  loops are
easily being done that keep time with a pre-determined rhythm. Are they
using midi? Some other type of  loop/sampler that does this?
Any advice appreciated .
Thanks



Mike Berman
digiboy@nyc.rr.com