Recording

Record does two different jobs, and which one you get depends on how you opened the deck.

In a performance (Library, then Perform), record prints a new layer into the song. The song keeps looping. The take joins it on a bar line and starts repeating with everyone else.

Over a stem set (Stem Play on a library song), record makes a take on the Live channel. The stems are fixed. Your part plays back through Live, on the inner ring, and the song does not grow a new layer.

Both of them monitor Live before the first sample, compensate for latency the way the recorder does, and leave the count-in out of the file. After that they are different, so each has its own section below.

The record key is with the transport. The play key becomes stop while a take is rolling.

Count-in

The metronome key on the deck, or the switch in the tempo sheet, adds one bar of clicks before a take. The clicks are not in the recording. The clock in the middle of the platter counts them down.

Count-in only happens from a standstill. If the song is already playing and you punch in, you are in.

It will not count you in on a tempo it does not trust.

Still listening for a beat: it asks you to wait, or to set the tempo yourself.
Nothing rhythmic enough to read: set a tempo, or record with the count-in off.
A tempo it is unsure of: it shows you the number and asks you to confirm it, or to open the sheet and check. See Tempo & the Grid.

The first loop in an empty performance is the exception. There is no song to find a tempo in, so it records without asking. That loop is the tempo.

Recording a loop

This is a performance, not a stem set. REC-Q at the top right of the deck is on unless you turn it off.

With REC-Q on

Press record. If a song is already playing, the clock shows REC IN and a tenth-of-a-second countdown until the next boundary. The take starts there, not under your finger. If you press record again before that boundary arrives, the take is dropped and the song keeps playing. You changed your mind in time.

Play. Press record again to close it. The clock shows ENDS IN until the next boundary, the take is cut there, and the song does not stop. The new layer is already in the mix.

What the boundary is depends on what is under you.

An imported song, a whole file: the bars of the grid. A take starts and ends on bar lines, and its length is the bars you played.
Loops you already recorded: the length of the first one. Later takes are a whole number of that loop, so they stay in time with it.
Nothing loaded yet: there is no boundary to wait for. The take starts when you press record and ends when you press it again. That length becomes the grid every later take snaps to, and the loop key turns on.

Pressing stop, rather than record, also keeps the take, then stops the transport. With REC-Q it keeps the whole bars or loops completed so far and discards the partial one you were in.

With REC-Q off

The take starts when you press record and ends when you press it again. Over a song that is already playing, the end lands a breath after your finger so the layer can start on that exact point. Use this when the part is a phrase that should not be a bar.

After it lands

The layer is named Loop and a number, in the next free color, and it is set to repeat. Tap its name on the console to rename it.

A few seconds after the end point stay in the file when you close the take with record and leave the song playing. A held note, a delay, a reverb tail: that is the spill into the next pass. Stopping the transport instead cuts the capture off with the take. The crossfade key on the strip, on by default, plays that spill over the start of the next pass and fades the start in over a short pre-roll, so the seam is not a cut. Turn crossfade off and the passes meet at the boundary. See The Console.

The repeat key is on for a loop you just recorded. Turn it off and the layer plays once each time the song comes around, then waits.

A take shorter than a quarter of a second is thrown away. One is capped at ten minutes. A performance holds ten layers. Past that, record tells you to remove one.

You can keep stacking. Each new loop is another ring, and the song length is the longest of them. Record over the top of what you just did. The older layer is a bounce: your new amp does not touch it.

Recording a take over stems

Stem Play. The layers are the separated song, and record cannot add to them.

Press record. The song plays once, from the playhead, and the loop is out of the way for the duration: a take is one pass, not a cycle. It stops itself at the end of the song and parks at the top. Press stop earlier if the part is done.

From a standstill, a count-in snaps the start back to the beat under the playhead, so the clicks hand straight over to the song. Punching in while the song is already playing skips the count-in and starts where you are.

The take shows up in the takes list, selected, and on the inner ring.

What is in the file depends on the source.

A microphone, or any hardware input. Recorded dry. The count-in and the latency at the front of the file are trimmed off, using the same compensation the recorder uses when you record over a backing track. On playback the take runs through whatever is loaded on Live. Change the amp, change the take.
An instrument plugin. Captured after the plugin, so the sound you heard is the sound in the file. Playback does not run it through the chain again. Loading a different plugin afterward does not reprint it.

Live input only, in the takes list, gets you back to hearing the input with no take in the way. The file stays until you delete it.

In the takes list, the share button on a take renders a WAV and opens the system share sheet. AirDrop, Messages, Files.

Choice	What you get
With Your Sound	A mic take through the Live chain, as you hear it. An instrument take is already that sound, so the button just says Share Take.
With the Song	The take on top of every layer, from the top of the song, at the current faders.
Dry, as Recorded	A mic take with no plugins. Hidden for an instrument take, which was never dry.

Rendering stops playback and steps monitoring aside for the length of the export, then puts it back. This is a take, not a mixdown of a recorder project. There is no stem export of the deck and no master bus. If the song needs that, it belongs in the recorder. See Mixing Down to Stereo.

Recorded loops are layers, not takes. They are not in this share sheet. Clear them from the takes list if you want them gone. They are the rings on the deck until you do.