Hi, I created some loops suited for dance music with my DAW. This compromise midi data send to VSTs with output routed trough effect buses. I want to bounce each idea / loop to a single wave file suitable for use in the next production phase. Example: an idea which uses drums, strings and a piano-riff should give me 3 wave's, 1 for the drums, 1 for the strings and 1 for the piano, all ready to loop. I have some questions about this approach:

1. Should I bounce each instrument with effects applied to it or without? And what about instruments using the same effect buss? Right now for example I have a techno melody together with a bass-line running trough a single reverb. How to deal with this?
   
2. what about tempo? Say I have a bass-line or repeating synthesizer melody at 128 bpm, I create a loop and one day I want to use that loop in a 140 bpm song. Is that possible without changing pitch?
   
3. how to cut the loops? Should I leave some room for overlap? Say I have a 4 bar string section at 120 bpm. Does that mean the loop will have to be exactly 8 seconds (= 8000 ms) ?
   
   

thanks

WaveOnWave: Everyone has his (or her) own individual workflow and organization, so it is of no avail to give you any advice on this.

For me personally it is important to stay flexible. Thus I try to stay on the
midi-level as long as I can (and as the CPU allows me to stay). If I want to
change anything - chords, melody or tempo - I can easily change things if I have
only midi-data on my tracks.

I prefer to work with midi, too. I don't make loops to use them later (maybe I should... ), but sometimes (very rarely, to be honest) it happens to export a loop to use it on another software.


If I were to make loops, then I would:

- Label them with bpm (and possibly other informations) in the file name (I would decide a conventional filename structure, for example "[bpm][key][<other_infos>]loopname" and stick with it).

- If the sustain of a sound ends on the next measure, then I would export twice the measures of the loop, plus the tail (say the loop is 4 measures long, then I would repeat the part in my daw to get 8 measures and then I would export 9 - or anything needed for the tail). The idea is that I can use the first two measures as intro, measures 3 to 6 for looping and measures 7 to 9 as outro... this is just my approach if I need to make a loop (sometimes it happens, but in general I hate using loops).

- If there are reverbs, I would export at least 3 repetition of the part, plus the ending tail (same idea as before: first repetition as intro, second for looping, third as outro). Reverb with lots of modulation/randomization can be problematic, though.

- Pay attention to any modulated effect, so that they loop correctly (if necessary, repeat the part more than once), for example it's not nice to hear a phaser effect "retriggered"... Effect not synced to tempo are probably your worst enemy in this situation (that's why I hate making loops: sometimes an effect needs not to be synced to tempo!). Consider removing the effect, if it doesn't subtract much.

- Pay attention to effects on busses if you are to export the parts going to that buss separately: in some situations (for example a compressor on a submix), the device will behave differently if there is only one part as input... As a general rule, every processor that is influenced by the signal level is a problem when you have to export separate parts and that device is shared beetween them. A reverb on a send probably it's not a big problem, if it's a quite static reverb... Use your hears to judge if the sound changes and how much (maybe you can't get away even with changes, there's no general rule).

- Sometimes you may want to export both a dry (without effects) and a wet (with effects) version of the loop, this could be handy in many situation (say you want to change the reverb level or type...).

- It's often a good idea to export also midi parts, so you can use them later (to change sounds, to create layers, there are so many situations where they can be handy); maybe try to keep the project file, too (this can be handy if you have a stable setup, if you change gears often, maybe the old projects are not that useful). Label everything with a name you can easily find them in case of need (maybe a reference to the loop name?). Having access to the original parts can be extremely useful, for example, when you have to apply a lot of timestretch and you get an innatural result: if you still have the source files, then you can change their bpm (if they were written as midi), tweak the effects a bit to adapt to the new tempo and so on...

- As a general rule, good organization is the key, you will avoid a lot of headaches (I had lots in the past! Now I'm quite organized and I avoid most of the problems, but I'm not an organized man by nature... sometimes I curse a lot because I can't find a resource or an old file).



Hope that helps.
Obviously, you have to take the suggestions with a grain of salt and adapt them to your workflow.