Extending a phrase: by eye & ear or am I missing a trick?

[hopscotch44]

Hello ... an enquiry begging a little bit of patience and indulgence. I'm actually hoping for a pointer and not a lesson, i'm keen to research and try.
i'm trying something new in REAPER.
If i record a short bit of say, Bodhran (could be anything maybe?) and i want to drag it out, i've been gluing and then dragging it out, but theres always unwanted empty space between that i try to cut out and reposition the items.
I'm looking at quantising too but not really getting that principle yet...

Is there a protocol/technique that's sort of automatic or do i edit by eye and ear then cut and paste or something similar?... or something that everyone has to do that i'm missing?
And... (dreaming maybe)... i want some natural swing (probably that's down to my playing etc) but i don't want the beat/tempo/rhythm (?) to shift subtley.
A link to technique is fine, i will do the leg work but i want to be on the right track.
I only want to record actual playing of instruments and i'm not up for synth generated beats (because i don't get that either.. sorry)
Thanks in advance for any help offered

[Sam Spoons]

Forgive me if this is what you are already doing but I would record a few bars then trim the recording to whatever length is convenient and copy/paste it onto the end as many times as I need. There should be no silence and the timing is dependent on how accurately you trim the original section but with practice it is possible to get sufficient accuracy. It's quick and easy to do when you get the knack. What is not easy is to get a free recorded part to sync with the metronome/beat markers and I haven't yet learned how to 'beat map' an existing part (not something I need to do often but it would be a very useful skill when appropriate).

[James Perrett]

Have you investigated Reaper's looping? You should be able to copy a section and paste it as a loop which you can then just repeat by dragging the end with the mouse.

If you want to alter the timing of an audio recording then take a look at Stretch Markers.

I think that Kenny Gioia or the Reaper Blog have videos on these.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

If you are not playing to a click, then you will have to determine where the beats are. Let's say you are playing 4/4 time. You would need to record more than one bar of that then cut it to the attack of the note at beginning of beat 1 in bar one (so that first note stays in) AND bar 2 (so that note is removed). So you have only used the first beat of bar 2 as a timing reference. Zoom in to get a very very accurate cut (zoom horizontally using scroll up with mouse pointer in edit area of the window) You might also want to press shift and up arrow to zoom vertically as well. Then you can glue the item as before, now when you drag it will repeat exactly on the bar.

The most common cause of this issue with my students is (a) not playing to a click, and then not being aware of what the timing ref is and (b) not zooming in far enough to get an accurate edit.

Just to be clear, it is fine not to play to a click, but you will still need some other way to have a timing reference.

[hopscotch44]

that's set me on my way, i know what i need to do.
so very grateful for you all taking the time to tease this out.
big respect