Could someone please explain anti-loop snobbery?

[shamann]

bollocks

Bollocks are primarily for amateurs? If so, I've been misled.

[Mystical_Fantasy]

heehee ... just teasing mate ...

slainte rob

[foosnark]

Personally, I have nothing against loops, but the problem is, when people use them, they have a tendency to stop thinking of rhythm as another instrument that needs as much dynamics and variation as any other part and just let a loop run over and over.

They fall into that same trap with drum machines or their software equivalent as well. In fact, it's often worse that way.

most electronic music today is way to repetitive.

Agreed. Nothing bores me more than 10 minutes of "mmm tssh mmm tssh"

But loops don't cause repetition any more than VAs cause stereotypical 303 basslines

[opiadream]

I've noticed here and there that people who post music that is..let's say 'less than stellar' will point out that no pre-made were used in the making of it
as if somehow that is going to make it more palatable

making a song out of pre-made loops is less creative,
but it seems to me some people look down their nose at using loops simply to make them feel better about their own crap

there's more than one way to be less creative

[mooter]

Yeah, it comes down to who makes it and what they do with it.

All the shit out these days, or history for that matter made by bands aren't any different I mean, what's a riff, and a hook? You're still playing it over and over, it still comes down to the artist as redundant and corny that sounds.

Any human element put into it is going to make it more human, maybe even more interesting to some degree.

Relatively, to me, Amon Tobin would be an example.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

Once again, let's introduce some colorfully named characters to illustrate my point.

Billy-Bob Knob-Gobler takes a premade drum loop, a premade bass loop, and a premade guitar loop, and throws them together and calls it a song.

Haywood Jablowme records a drumbeat, some bass and guitar and mixes them together.

Billy-Bob Knob-Gobler and Haywood Jablowme's songs sound exactly the same. No difference?

I beg to differ. One of these musicians actually laboured over his creation. They may sound the same, but Billy's piece will still be lacking the touch of an artist.

Remember how upset everyone was when we found out that Mill Vanilli weren't really singing their songs? Or that Ashley Simpson was just lipsynching to a recording?

My point is that this is similar to assembling entire songs from premade loops. Why is it that we believe the vocals are the only part that matter?

I'm not saying that making your own loops is wrong. Nor am I condemning arpegiators and the like. Hell, Pink Floyd used them on Dark Side of the Moon, and to claim that Pink Floyd was uncreative in those days is artistic blasphemy.

But if your song is nothing more than premade loops, then yes, I would say that your song is not art, nor does it make you an artist. Anyone can throw a couple of loops into a host and time stretch. If that's how great music was made then my cat could go triple platinum.

Obviously that's not the case, as last I checked he was still only at gold.

[whyterabbyt]

Mystical_Fantasy quoth
If all I did was make a 4/4 measure and copy and paste that through an entire song then I would consider that a loop. I have yet to hear a real drummer (myself included) play an entire song without varying his/her parts to some degree yet never not play the same beat twice. After all isn't the drummers prime responsibility to establish the beat throughout a song or has this changed?

There's an inherent assumption in there that the 'variation' introduced is of intrinisic artistic value. That's not necessarily the case. There can be specific artistic reasons for utterly repetitive looping, which no real drummer could provide.

[CypherOne]

I use loops, but only very occasionally. Mostly I'll rearrange them and use fx etc to change the sound to how I want it to be.

Here's some examples:

Psychosis

Not entirely loop based but most of the percussion is from Stylus RMX.

Aftershock

No loops whatsoever other than loops I made myself

Shift

This collab with mystahr does not feature any loops (apart from homemade) but I sketched the track out with 100% loops to begin with to quickly decide if I was going in the right direction. I then rebuilt all of the percussion from hand. The opening drumloop was as near as I could get to the original loop I used in the sketch. To me that begs the question "why not use the original loop anyway if you're going to take the time to make a copy of it?" It was a good learning experience...

[soulata]

So, have Harry Growth and his Pimple-f**king friends commited the grave musical sin of creative dishonesty by having a total stranger write a large part of a song?

I'd say yes. I believe that they have. If their guitarist can't play an acoustic then they need to either dump the idea, or find a new guitarist.

I disagree completely. It's still their idea for the song (let's say they did the chord progression), the guitarist just isn't up to it... so what. It's still not a session's man song.

k

p.s.: i do lots of sessions and understand what you're trying to say, I just don't agree.

[stefancrs]

Remember how upset everyone was when we found out that Mill Vanilli weren't really singing their songs? Or that Ashley Simpson was just lipsynching to a recording?

Haha, yes. All of us were going totally ballistic when we found out that Ashely Simpson was just lipsynching. For sure

[Doogle]

What about music that uses (often the same) loops but as a rule, destroys them up completely.. eg. a lot of jungle and breakcore?
I should've got sick of the amen break by now but because of how it gets treated, effected and programmed in various ways, I still really like it.

Just my 2p (c or whatever currency).

Been playing with supatrigga a bit recently (I know it's cheating!)... but I was suprised when a friend told me that Venetian Snares uses it quite a bit.

Doogle

[dystonia_ek]

Been playing with supatrigga a bit recently (I know it's cheating!)... but I was suprised when a friend told me that Venetian Snares uses it quite a bit.

Aaron (a noted control freak) always used to make his beats, including all the stutters etc, in MED Sound Studio (an Amiga tracker that was ported to PC) though maybe he's getting lazy in his old age...
I find something like Supatrigga is no substitute for manual tracking or editing for complex rhythmic stuff - the randomness is audible as much as the deliberation is audible when you slice everything up by hand. Depends on your patience threshold though.

But either way, the end justifies the means.

[Hink]

I'm not saying that making your own loops is wrong. Nor am I condemning arpegiators and the like. Hell, Pink Floyd used them on Dark Side of the Moon, and to claim that Pink Floyd was uncreative in those days is artistic blasphemy.

what...you're kidding right?...you must be...who said, please name one person besides you, that thought they were uncreative?...growing up in the 60's and 70's one thing I can say is their use of synths and such (which btw they used a vcs3 which doesn't even have a keyboard for DSOM) was always though to be very creative, innovative and amazing...DSOM still remains as one of the most incredible sounding albums and was the first album to test the cd...

[soulata]

@Hink

If you read what he wrote once more, you'd see what he meant.

Really no need to argue.

k

[shamann]

Been playing with supatrigga a bit recently (I know it's cheating!)

I don't know, I wouldn't consider Supatrigga cheating (but as I've said, I don't think any of it is cheating). I don't think its results are wonderful on drum beats, but try running long sustained sounds through it, makes for a great modulator. To say it's cheating would be saying all of it is cheating really. How many of us flange by manually modulating a delayed version of the original? Or how many of us routinely make echo taps by hand?

Authenticity is over valued when it becomes purely fetishized, and has no bearing on the end result. If doing it by hand produces a more enjoyable result for you, then all the better, but if it's just a credibility boosting mechanism with no tangible result, then why would any one else care?