rip chopper turns any video into an instrument. Chop footage into
pads, perform it live from your keyboard or MIDI controller, and
keep everything that happens. A real app for the Mac.
▶ capture neededHero loop, ~25s, no UI chrome cropping: import a music video, chop it by transients, play a short pattern on the pads while clips composite on the canvas. This is the single most important capture on the site.
Rip. Chop. Play. Keep.
01
rip
Drag in any video. A concert bootleg, a cartoon, a drum loop, a screen recording you grabbed thirty seconds ago. It all becomes source material.
02
chop
Transient detection finds the hits and lays them across your pads. Or cut by beats, by shots, by hand — every marker stays editable either way.
03
play
Forty pads under your fingers, keyboard or MIDI. Every pad plays picture and sound together, polyphonically, composited live on the canvas.
04
keep
It was already recording. Hit Rewind after the happy accident, chop the best bar out of it, and layer the next take on top.
▶ capture neededFour short captures (~8s each), one per step: (1) dragging a file in, (2) the chop modal applying transient markers, (3) hands on a MIDI controller with the canvas responding, (4) opening Rewind and chopping from the capture editor.
What’s in the box
Chop by hits, beats, shots, or hand
Four chopping tools on one editable marker timeline. Preview every cut before you commit it.
Stem separation built in
Split any source into drums, bass, vocals, and the rest — then chop the vocal against the drums and extract just the vocal. One pass.
A live looper that looks back
Layer loops from your instrument or voice — and if you didn’t press record in time, pull back the loop that just went by.
Video is part of the instrument
Pads trigger picture and sound as one. Arrange clips on a shared canvas, stack them in layers, fade them with the same envelope that shapes the audio.
Rewind everything
The last 90 seconds of your playing, your inputs, and your camera are always retrievable. Performance first, arrangement after.
Tempo that follows you
Beat analysis, tap tempo, time-stretch, and one-click “adopt this loop’s tempo.” The project keeps up with the material, not the other way around.
Who it’s for
the beatmaker
You already flip samples. Now the sample has a face. Chop a soul performance into sixteen pads and watch the singer stutter with your pattern.
the video artist
You collect footage the way other people collect records. Play your archive live — composite four clips on one canvas and perform the edit instead of rendering it.
the musician
Guitar in, camera on. Loop yourself, layer takes, flash back to the phrase you didn’t know you’d want, and leave with a finished clip.
the curious
You watched someone chop a movie into music and thought: I want to do that. This is the shortest path from that feeling to doing it.
the part nobody else does
The record button is retroactive
Every sampler asks you to press record before the good
take. rip chopper keeps a rolling window of everything — your pads,
your audio input, your camera — so the moment after something great
happens is exactly the right time to act. Hit Rewind, and the last
minute and a half is sitting on a timeline, ready to chop. In the
live looper, you can even reach back and keep the loop cycle that
just went by.
▶ capture needed~20s: noodle on pads with no recording armed, land something good, hit Rewind, select the best bar in the capture editor, render it to a loop, and trigger the new loop clip.
Play video before everyone else
rip chopper is in private beta for macOS. Leave your email and we’ll
send a download link as spots open.