see, to me this is more like collage than paint by numbers.
paint by numbers would be following theory to the letter and never deviating outside the lines
imhooc.

yeah, I take your point. When it comes to commercial dance music there are construction kits for *everything*, even melodies. All you have to do is choose a bunch and string them together, just like ejay and those playstation games. The result sounds good but not being a commercial producer myself I would find no satisfaction in doing that whatsoever. 95% of all the creative work is already prepared for you.

+1 Finally someone has hit the nail on the head.

the people ive known who use such things generally speaking use only the drums and occassionally a bassline. with a few edits here and there for effect, then they will add any tuned stuff using the same plugins as the rest of us.
but if the company sold you just the drums and not all the filler, youre looking at 10/15 quid as oppose to 39.99

Yeah, this argument comes up between a classically trained singer friend who thinks loop based composing is the worst thing to happen to music in 500 years, and myself, who can clearly see the artistry in finding and repurposing all that stuff, making it mesh AND make you wanna shake various body parts!

It IS an art form, and very musical. But the debate rages on as to whether that makes you a musician, dj or producer. Some producers have farm teams making beats that they take full credit for, and it's treated as work for hire. Is that really any different?

And Sauli is on to something too. Most of the stuff I hear has pretty complete processing on everything, so using one shots saves time making heavily "produced" sounds from scratch. And I often use the handclaps, shaker, tambourine or cheesy organ drum box loops to do percussion sweetening, and it sounds great, and right FAST.

Speaking of loops and construction kits, all the Sampletank Retanks are on sale at eSoundz for $10! Some are full kits, others are drum/percussion loops only, but they'll all run in Sampletank free, so not much to gamble really!

Try it, you'll like it!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

Have a few,hate em all. Won't use them. I know I'm not the greatest composer but I can do better than that.

Making collages from loads of magazines is an art form, too. But it doesn't make you a producer of all the magazines. But if you create a combination of collages and painting, you're a painter, and if you combine pre-made loops and DIY made loops, you're a musician.

Personally, I rather like dry (= unprocessed) samples. I have enough effect and dynamic processing plugins to process the samples myself to my taste. If the samples are too much processed, I cannot use them in certain contexts. I prefer processed samples only if they're so skilfully processed that I couldn't do it myself.

at least you'd need a new alias: 'Quickie Loops'


i use everything, i like to mangle, if it's legally available and some illegal baby and Hitler noises.
if there is some nice loopie in a CM or FM construction kit, i'll be happy to beat the shit out of it.

ILLEGAL baby noises?? Who do you keep caught in your recording studio?

Construction kits are just tools I see nothing wrong with using them. Its all about creativity at the end of the day not ego. Then again I am also a hip hop producer all of my favs that I look up to chop up pieces of old songs and rearrange them and don't think much about people who use synths and keyboards unless its on a record they choose to sample.

Well said!

We are, with much trepidation, entering into this conversation as this seems like a rowdy bunch.

First, let me start off by saying a lot of people buy construction kit libraries, otherwise we wouldn't keep making them.
We do create a lot of libraries that are not in construction kit format as well though.

We do know though that some composers/songwriters/musicians avoid using them for fear of sounding like other people or concern that they won't be creating there own music while using loops which is why we came up with our KLI Series. For people who own the full version of either kontakt 4 or 5 we want you to know about this series of products.

Essentially what it is are our loops in kontakt format with a custom interface that helps you completely rearrange any loop on the fly quite easily, as well as a number of other features to help you create quick custom parts out of any loop. This is roughly like using a loop in either stylus rmx or dr. rex but it has a graphical representation and can be easily edited right in the gui.

This may not be the solution to every person with a hesitancy to use loops but we thought it might be of interest to some of you.

To check out some more details and to see exactly how it works here are a couple videos to show you more about this series of products. Have a good one everybody!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFYSx82YdHI&feature=share&lis t=UU6-i9jWirJIFlEY_v7jyVPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwp-egxWYZ4&feature=share&lis t=UU6-i9jWirJIFlEY_v7jyVPw


Sincerely, The Big Fish Audio Team
http://bigfishaudio.com

Sorry, but at the risk of sounding sarcastic while half-trying to be sarcastic, what are these construction kits you speak of?

Is this Big Fish Construction Kit from you?