shift-space looping playback in 3.1

I just want to provide feedback on 3.1, which I recently downloaded. In the previous versions, selecting a region of a track and hitting shift-space played the region in a loop. This no longer works in 3.1, and I wasn’t able to find a 2-step equivalent; if I understand correctly, I have to select the region from the time-axis at the top of the window, make sure looping is enabled, and then start playback (before the selected region?). I used this particular so often that it was part of my muscle memory (I do audio signal processing and analysis). Please bring it, or some other quick looping playback feature, back! Thanks!

As a workaround, if you right-click the timeline and choose “enable dragging selection”, it works very similar to what you’re used to.

Thanks for the response, LWinterberg, but I tried your approach and it does not function the same as previous versions. Now, I have to select the audio, select “Set Loop to Selection”, press “L”, and now I can loop an audio segment.

I think that the previous method of just pressing “shift + enter” in order to loop a selection was much easier.

Try dragging in the timeline instead

Thank you for the suggestion, LWinter. That technique works as intended. My preferred way of doing it in version 3.1.0 is to make a keybinding for “loop to selection”. Then, I can make a selection, press my keybinding, press L, and then press play. Either of those two methods work.

However, my point is that what used to be as simple as making a selection and then pressing shift+enter is now a 4 step process involving either additional key bindings or using the mouse to drag a timeline. I think that 3.1.0 has made this process needlessly complicated.

As a possible solution, what if there were a menu selection item that said something like “automatically snap loop to selection”. Then a user could toggle this option and looping would functionally work in two steps as it did in previous versions. What do you think of this approach?

There is a new command: Transport > Looping > Set Loop to Selection

There is no default shortcut, but you can add a custom one,

Peter.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for you response. Yes, this is the approach that I’ve decided to take with 3.1.0.

However, my point is that this is a redundant step. It was never necessary in previous versions to select a portion of audio, then set the loop to that portion of audio, and then play in a loop. Before I only needed to select an audio clip and press Shift+Enter. Why do I need to make two selections, both an audio selection and a loop selection, when one should be sufficient?

In the case that a user would like to split the audio selection and the loop selection, then a toggle option as I mentioned above would solve both of these problems.

Old thread but wow this is a not great change for my regular workflow, used shift + click to loop selections all the time basically have to use 3.0.x now.

Are there any plans to restore the ability to just let Shift+Spacebar play selected audio on loop?