Welcome to Picoloop!
Picoloop is a synth and a step sequencer made by Yoyz. In this tutorial, we'll make a tour of the basic functionalities of Picoloop. The commands described here are adapted for the usage on PC.
First, get Picoloop at https://github.com/yoyz/audio/
The Windows and PSP binaries can be found in the Releases tab.
If you're using Linux, you'll probably have to compile it yourself (instructions are provided in the readme). You can also tweak some parameters, found in the Master.h file, before the compilation, such as the MAX_PATTERN_BY_PROJECT variable to increase the pattern slots.
Picoloop is not yet available for Mac OS X, but some developpements are made in this direction at the moment.
The requirements for starting the application are:
- The picoloop binary itself (called "picoloop" or "PatternPlayer_#####" after you've just compiled it, you can rename it if needed)
- the font.ttf file
- optionnally the patch/MDADrum/ folder if you want to get some electronic drums
- the bank/ folder to store your creations.
Run the Picoloop binary. You will be presented to a setting panel. Navigate with ←, →, ↑ and ↓ and choose the color theme (palette) you prefer.
Then make sure the AudioOutput matches your soundcard. Eventually make it select and display "default".
To exit this panel and start making music, validate with Ctrl. In the case it crashes, it might be because the soundcard configuration was not correct. Restart the binary and select another card setting.
You will be presented to the Picoloop main window.
With this color scheme, the 16 steps are in light grey. The moving dark grey cursor is the current sounding note. The cursor for edition is in white and you cannot move it right now (you're in Menu mode). Below the 16 steps is the menu. It displays:
[ ENV ] Note OSC VCO LFO FLTR
Move left or right to select the parameter you want to use.
At the moment, select Note with the Alt key. Now you are in Edit mode, and you can navigate within the 16 steps with the ←, →, ↑ and ↓ arrows. Insert your first note with the Ctrl key. It will be a C2.
You can change the value of this note by holding Alt and typing on the arrows. ← or → for decreasing or increasing 1/2 tone, ↑ or ↓ for increasing or decreasing 1 octave. Make it for example G2. Now select other empty cases and type Ctrl for adding more notes and Alt for changing their values. Delete an existing note with Ctrl. The next note entered with Ctrl will be the previous value which was deleted (delete an A3, next one with be A3 then).
There are a total of 4 tracks which can play together. To change the current working track, go back to the menu with the ESC key. Use the ↑ and ↓ arrows to select the track. It will display Track/0, Track/1 etc. Now you can enter more notes in this other track.
To change the sound of the current notes, select ENV in the menu, and validate with Alt, the menu will disappear, meaning you can enter notes or change values. In the ENV parameters, you can alter the sound with Alt + arrows. Try to play with the two parameters. You end up with something like that:
Now if you type the Enter key, you'll access more parameters, which you can change in a similar way. In this mode, you alter parameters for individual notes, if you want to change all the inserted notes for the current track, exit the edit mode with the ESC key, and use Ctrl + arrows to change all the steps together.
Now it's time to save your first work!
Exit the edit mode with ESC if you're still in it, and type again ESC to enter the second menu (Menu2).
It will display:
L/S [ BANK ] PSH MAC FX BPM
Select L/S (Load/Save) and enter the menu with Alt.
It will look like this:
This screen is for saving individual patterns, but also to organise them into a whole song.
The menu on top represents your tracks. The cursor on this screenshot is on the top 0E column. To save an individual track, select an empty slot and type Alt + ↓. Now the slot will be lighter (with this grey theme). To save all the 4 tracks (one pattern), type Ctrl + ↓, the whole column will be lighter.
To reload you tracks later, select a column and type Ctrl + ↑. To load an individual slot, type Alt + ↑. Beware, there is no warning so it might erase your current work.
Now you can assemble your tracks with the order list (under the Song Position label). Go into this list with the Enter key.
Modify the list order with the arrows and the Alt key.
You can define Loop start position with Ctrl + ↑. As soon as you define this, the song with start to play. And you can define Loop end position with Ctrl + ↓. Change the values of the list with Alt + ↑/↓
Important:
- When you're in the order list, your changes are saved only when you exit it to the pattern editor with ESC. If you close Picoloop before doing this, your changes won't be saved!
- When you're in the pattern editor, the data are written in a buffer, and you must save the current pattern in the track grid before playing your song from the order list (otherwise the changes in the pattern won't be saved). You can only save the pattern in the same row as the pattern number you've worked in. For example a pattern in the Track/1 can only be saved in the second row in the track grid (tracks are starting from 0, Track/0 is the first one, Track/1 is the second one)
Each bank is for storing a different project (=song). We advice you create a text file with a numbered reference to all your songs and projects, because there is no way to name a bank into picoloop.
You can choose your bank at picoloop start up, otherwise use the 'bank' menu, select the bank number to load with the Alt key, then press the Enter key.
There is no option for backing up a bank you're working on, so it can be a good idea to save your whole bank/ folder from time to time. On Linux / Unix systems, you can use a script like this from the command line:
zip -r bank_picoloop_`date +%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M`.zip bank
On MS Windows you can right-clic on the 'bank' folder and zip it, then rename it with the current date.
To record your music, you can either (obviously) plug a recorder to the line-out of your computer or device, but you can also set this environment setting before starting picoloop:
export DUMP_AUDIO=1 && picoloop
As we've seen earlier, we can change the pitch value (note) of a step, but also some parameters such as ENV (enveloppe), OSC (oscillator), VCO (a kind of mixer), LFO and FLTR (filter). If you press Enter while in a parameter menu, you can also get more parameters related to the first one (for example in the ENV menu, you'll get first Attack/Release, and after pressing Enter you'll get Decay/Sustain, one more press on Enter and it's Trig/Amplification). Note: on some engines, ENV is replaced by A/R.
But we can also change the whole engine, using the "MAC" menu in menu2. The different engines are (from up to down):
- Psynth (default) : PicoSynth, soustractive synth with 2 oscillators (lightweight).
- SID : emulation of the MOS SID 6581/8580 soundchip (found on Commodore C64 8-bit computers), based on the resid engine
- Mdrum : MDA Drumsynth (you need the patches in the picoloop/patch/MDADrum/ folder)
- Mdiout : midi out
- Tsynth : Twytch/Helm. Needs high ressources.
- 0303 : based on Open303, a free, open source emulation of the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. Needs high ressources.
- Csynth : Cursynth, a soustractive synth with 2 oscillators. Needs high ressources.
- PBS : PBSynth, another soustractive synth with 2 oscillators (lightweight).
- Pdrum : Picodrum, for making rythms (kicks, hats, snares...)
- OPL2 : FM synthesis
- LGPT : sampler using the little piggy tracker engine (in development, only available in latest releases of picoloop)
On some less powerful machines (PSP, raspberry pi), the high ressources engines are not enabled.
Refer to the picoloop README for all the parameters or experiment yourself.
There is a thread about Picoloop on the Chipmusic.org forum: https://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/13624/picoloop-nanoloop-clone/
You can use a gamepad instead of the keyboard to make music with picoloop. This tip will work on linux (PC, raspberry, picoloop version).
This example with work with SNES-like USB gamepad you can get for a few euros on ebay.
Install qjoypad and put those files into your ~/.qjoypad3 folder:
layout:
picoloop
picoloop.lyt:
# QJoyPad 4.1 Layout File
Joystick 1 {
Axis 1: +key 114, -key 113
Axis 2: +key 116, -key 111
Button 1: key 62
Button 2: key 37
Button 3: key 64
Button 4: key 105
Button 5: key 22
Button 6: key 23
Button 9: key 9
Button 10: key 36
}
On debian/ubuntu/linux mint systems you can just do:
sudo apt install qjoypad
cd
mkdir .qjoypad3
cd .qjoypad3/
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/farvardin/picoloop-manual/master/tools/qjoypad/.qjoypad3/layout
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/farvardin/picoloop-manual/master/tools/qjoypad/.qjoypad3/picoloop.lyt
Then plug your gamepad and start qjoypad. You might need to select the picoloop layout in the menu in the systemtray.
| Menu mode | |
|---|---|
| ← / → | move backward/forward in the menu |
| ↑ / ↓ | select the track from 0 to track 3 |
| Alt | do nothing |
| Ctrl + ←/→/↑/↓ | edit all step at once |
| Ctrl | enter the edit mode |
| TAB | go to the next 16 step on the same track |
| Backspace | go to the previous 16 step on the same track |
| ESC | call menu2 or menu1 |
| Edit mode | |
|---|---|
| ← / → | select next step |
| ↑ / ↓ | select step+4, step-4 |
| Alt | enter a note in a step, it works as a cut/paste |
| Ctrl + ←/→/↑/↓ | edit the current step |
| Ctrl | do nothing |
| TAB | go to the next 16 step on the same track |
| Backspace | go to the previous 16 step on the same track |
| ESC | call menu2 or menu1 |
| Enter | cycle between the different parameters |
| Bank | |
|---|---|
| Alt + ↓ | Save the current track on the selected slot |
| Ctrl + ↓ | Save your current pattern (group of 4 tracks) |
| Alt + ↑ | Load a track (replace current) |
| Ctrl + ↑ | Load a 4 tracks pattern |
| Song position (order list) | |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + ↑ | Define Loop start position |
| Ctrl + ↓ | Define Loop end position |
| Alt + ↑/↓ | Change the values |
| Alt + ←/→ | copy value left or right |
| Ctrl + ←/→ | insert or delete value (shift patterns) |
| PSH menu | |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+↑ | Increase the track size (16 steps block) |
| Ctrl+↓ | Decrease the track size (16 steps block) |
| Ctrl+→ | Increase the track size (1 step) |
| Ctrl+← | Decrease the track size (1 step) |
| TAB and Backspace | Navigate into the new steps (-16 or +16) |
| Volume | |
|---|---|
| ESC+↑ | Increase volume |
| ESC+↓ | Decrease volume |
Get picoloop at https://github.com/yoyz/audio/
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