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11.2.5.  Paste Repeat, or "Looping"

In electronic music especially, there's a common need to record one or two measures and then loop those measures to create standardized basslines or drumbeats.
The "right" way to achieve that would be to use a drum machine or a sequencer, which would literally play the same data (either pure MIDI data or audio samples) for as many measures as the composer programs. However, the effect can be emulated in Qtractor with a Paste Repeat, which allows you to copy an audio or MIDI clip and then paste it back-to-back for as many repetitions as you want.
To perform a Paste Repeat:
  1. Check your snapping settings in the View menu (usually when looping clips, the user wants precision snapping to the first clip's edge).
  2. Click to select the clip you want to copy (or use a range selection to extract a portion of the clip) and use Edit > to Copy the clip.
  3. Click Edit and choose Paste Repeat.
  4. In the Paste Repeat window, enter the number of iterations you want to paste, or the duration (in timecode, frames, or beats) you need to fill with repetitions. Click the OK button to confirm.
  5. Click in the timeline to complete the paste and anchor the newly pasted clips in their track.