im interested in making a slow and melodic song, but am very new to psycle, its interface, and everything. i know how to input notes in the track, but how can i get certain notes to hold for longer? that and how should i go about making these initial notes a pattern that i can then repeat over and over or whatever?

It depends on the synth/sample you are using. Some samples can be made longer by looping them. For synths you can set the sustain to be higher. You can think of the notes playing like hitting keys on a hardware synth/piano/whatever. When you put a note in the sequence it presses the key, and when you put in a note off you release the key. Sorry, but I can't help more without more details.

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the shadow runs form the light, but can never be fully driven back.

well, im using a machine called pooplog ultral. I figure i could just hold the note for longer by enterin it several times in the pattern, but im really not sure what im doing. and in terms of looping the clip ive made, would that entail just typing the same note sequence over and over?

Entering a note several times in the pattern will be like hitting the note again and again on a keyboard, it will play over and over, but not sustain. If your notes aren't lasting until your note offs without playing them multiple times then you should open up the machine and check your sustain levels, turning them up until your note sustains properly.

For a sample to loop all you have to do is go into the sample properties and tell it to loop forward. In the wave editor you can set loop points. The problem with this is that most samples get a click when you try to loop them, and you can hear a beat from it that may not be desireable for the music. I think loopable samples are detected when they are loaded, and automatically set to loop (sometimes this can be fun to mess with improperly though, just like anything.)

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the shadow runs form the light, but can never be fully driven back.

Most synths have a attack, decay, sustain an release knobs.
Pooplog has them too.
If you turn the VCA sustain some higher, the note will play until you say they end.
You may also want to turn the release knob some, so it will not end abruptly.