loops - what do you do with/to them

[soulata]

hi

I'd like to know what's your way working with loops.

I never used them much, but I have some jingles to do and quick arrangements so I guess they'd work just fine for that.

Anyway, what apps do you use to abuse the loops, what slicers, anything that might give me an idea or two?

thanks

k

[meister eder]

Throw them into Ableton Live4, and off you go!
Want more variation? Load Reaktor4 into Live4 and be happy.

[Meffy]

Yes, Live is great for loopy fun. I don't do a lot with loops, but when I do I reach for Ableton.

Meffy

[tetraplan]

In Sonar, I use loops all the time. Sometimes I build them from scratch by simply copy/pasting samples into a track and then bounce these all to a clip.
Sometimes i use them out of the box, when doing simple scoring jobs.

Otherwise, and I do this most of the time, I feed them to my BubbleBlowers. They eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They have big, nasty, pointy teeth, too.

Groet, Erik

[Bonteburg]

hi

I'd like to know what's your way working with loops.

Make loads, be unhappy with them, bounce them, forget about them, rediscover them, mangle and combine them, listen to cool beats evolve

Loops are very important for me for both composing and polishing tunes.


Marco

[Hunter]

never use them... must investigate more. I like programming my own drums etc to suit what I'm doing. Also I dont like the idea of using someone elses stuff in my own tune unless i know them, e.g. remixing other peoples stuff. No particular reason just like making my own noise

[Bonteburg]

loops can often add that extra something (be it ambience, groove or whatever) to a beat/track that no amount of clever mixing/programming seems to get you, don't know why. It's probably to do with loops already being mixed bits, so they add their bit of "completeness" to the mix (?)

[tetraplan]

loops can often add that extra something (be it ambience, groove or whatever) to a beat/track that no amount of clever mixing/programming seems to get you, don't know why. It's probably to do with loops already being mixed bits, so they add their bit of "completeness" to the mix (?)

Percussion! This summer, I discovered what bongos and congas can do. And there's never enough cowbell.

Groet, Erik

[VitaminD]

yes, needs more cowbell!!



I like to play loops (mainly non-percussive) at a much lower octave than they were meant for (say they play 'normal' on c5 I'll play it on c2) and then layer some reverb and a delay on it.. or a doppler effect... much fun.

[androidlove]

I've been wondering why people would use pre-made loops. My 4 year old uses them in her little music maker. How could someone get away with them in a professional production? Why even hire an artist? Just buy a CD of pre-made spots.

I like control of the composition down to the velocity of each note

[meister eder]

I've been wondering why people would use pre-made loops. My 4 year old uses them in her little music maker. How could someone get away with them in a professional production? Why even hire an artist? Just buy a CD of pre-made spots.

Who is talkin about pre-made loops?

I like control of the composition down to the velocity of each note

Then Apple Loops might be just for you!

[Sascha Franck]

I use both hand- (self- that is) and premade loops.

What I use them for:
To get inspired, basically.
But sometimes they may end up in a song as well.

I try not using too predictable loops though. For whatever reasons (because I don't think I'd necessarily need to feel bad about it) I just don't want people to easily detect which loops I've been using - I just seem to hate comments such as "Oh, was that Liquid Grooves' track 09?".

That's why I prefer "generic" loops instead of too much tweaked ones. Basically drumloops only containg kick, snare and hat or percussion loops just containing one sort of instrument (such as a pait of congas or whatever).

What I do with them (apart from getting inspired):
1) Recycle them. Almost all of them. The main reason being that I can now preview them in song tempo in Logic. Which is a godsend, if you ask me. That way I can allways decide easily whether they'd fit a certain feel or not.
2) Mangle them beyond recognition. This might include several techniques.
- Dragging slices onto DR-008 or Battery (and the corresponding MIDI track into my sequencer) That way I got better control about each slice's velocity response, tone and whatever.
- Replace slices. Just a great thing in case you're happy with the feel of a loop but not with its sounds.
- Fool around with the exported MIDI file. I may for instance drag all kick triggers to one note, so I only have to replace one slice instead of several. I may also use the MIDI file's timing to quantize other parts of the song in question. Or I may quantize what hasn't been a quantized loop before.

Of course I may also send the loop (or parts of it) through several effect devices. But that's got to be the most obvious thing to do with just about everything.

However, above mentioned methods allow me to handle loops as a great inspirational tool while at the same time assuring they will never sound too boring.
In fact, those techniques also reduce "new loop lust" to a great amount because you can just take about any loop and do whatever with it to suit your current project.

[Borogove]

Step 1: Grab a random VSTi and sequence a loop with it in Orion (repeat several times)
Step 2: Pull one or more loops into Audiomulch and turn them into a wacked out scrap metal soundscape, saving out 20 minutes of noodling
Step 3: Edit a 4- or 8-bar slice out of the noodle and crossfade it back into a loop (repeat several times)
Step 4: Pull a bunch of the loops created in the above steps into Acid, aimlessly push them around and try to find ways they work well together
Step 5: Throw up my hands, say "this sucks, I'm a coder, not a musician, this sucks, I suck, f**k this", play video games, go back to my day job
Step 6: The following weekend, go back to step 1

[Sascha Franck]

Step 6: The following weekend, go back to step 1

[Caleb]

Step 1: Grab a random VSTi and sequence a loop with it in Orion (repeat several times)
Step 2: Pull one or more loops into Audiomulch and turn them into a wacked out scrap metal soundscape, saving out 20 minutes of noodling
Step 3: Edit a 4- or 8-bar slice out of the noodle and crossfade it back into a loop (repeat several times)
Step 4: Pull a bunch of the loops created in the above steps into Acid, aimless push them around and try to find ways they work well together
Step 5: Throw up my hands, say "this sucks, I'm a coder, not a musician, this sucks, I suck, f**k this", play video games, go back to my day job
Step 6: The following weekend, go back to step 1

Caleb