The Dr. Rex Loop Player

The Dr. Rex is a special kind of sampler that plays back loops and sequences. It is designed to adjust music or beat loops to song tempo using special samples called slice files.

Slice (.rx2) files are complete music and rhythm loops chopped up and reassembled, so that the slices can be spread farther apart for slower tempos or pushed closer together for faster temposwithout altering pitch.

To create a Dr. Rex Loop Player

If you're starting with an empty Rack, select Edit > Create > Mixer.

Select Edit > Create > Dr. Rex Loop Player. This creates an empty loop player and connects it to an open channel on your Mixer (Figure 6.137).

Figure 6.137. The Dr. Rex Loop Player

Now we'll browse loops, load one, and hear how the Dr. Rex automatically adjusts the tempo.

To load and audition Rex files

1.	Click the Browse Loop button to open up the 3.0 browser (Figure 6.138). The Factory Sound Bank has a variety of folders that contain loops, or slice files (Figure 6.139). Figure 6.138. Click the Browse Loop button to find slice files in the Factory Sound Bank. Figure 6.139. Several factory folders contain slice files for your loop player.
2.	Check the browser's Autoplay box, and click on a loop to audition it.
3.	When you find a loop you like, click OK to load it.
4.	With a loop loaded, click the Preview button on the front panel of the Dr. Rex Loop Player (Figure 6.140). Figure 6.140. The Preview button plays the current slice.
5.	Use the arrow buttons or right-click in the slice file display to surf the other loops in the same directory (Figure 6.141). Figure 6.141. Use the arrow buttons to scroll through other loops, or right-click the loop name to pop up a menu of all loops in the current directory.
6.	Click the Select Slice Via Midi button to watch the loop player move through the slice file as it plays back (Figure 6.142). Figure 6.142. When Select Slice Via MIDI is enabled, active slices are highlighted in the display as they play.

Tips

You can encode your own Rex files using a Propellerheads program called ReCycle (see Appendix A).
The Dr. Rex has a 92-slice limit per loop. Some commercial .rx2 libraries may exceed 92 slices. If that happens, you'll see a warning message when you try to load the file into your Dr. Rex (Figure 6.143).
Figure 6.143. The Dr. Rex has a 92-slice limit. If your file goes over, you'll see this message when you try to load it.

To create a Dr. Rex Loop Player

Figure 6.137. The Dr. Rex Loop Player

To load and audition Rex files

Figure 6.138. Click the Browse Loop button to find slice files in the Factory Sound Bank.

Figure 6.139. Several factory folders contain slice files for your loop player.

Figure 6.140. The Preview button plays the current slice.

Figure 6.141. Use the arrow buttons to scroll through other loops, or right-click the loop name to pop up a menu of all loops in the current directory.

Figure 6.142. When Select Slice Via MIDI is enabled, active slices are highlighted in the display as they play.

Figure 6.143. The Dr. Rex has a 92-slice limit. If your file goes over, you'll see this message when you try to load it.