loops/ bitches or saints?

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hNRk
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loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by hNRk »

Hey guys,

i was wondering who of you:

uses loops?
to what extent?
and what "brand"? (for my i often go with thomas penton, zennheise, loopmaster)

i personally dont really like the idea of using stuff someone else has done and im trying to get more and more away from it. i think using too many loops kills the magic a little. but its hard to get that sound completly on your own. esp. the rhythms are often pretty tight and they sound so damn good (as they are fully mastered). anyways i mostly change something about them when i use them, so theres still a small creative element to it.

how do the big guys, f.e. adam beyer, gaiser, chris liebing do it? do they create everything from scratch? (i personally hope so)
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Rein
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by Rein »

hmmm, loops fully mastered? in the end that doesn't matter, because it's all about how loops work in your track and how it's mixed... also a lot of loops i saw had strange noises and frequencies in them (for example low frequencies in a hat mix). the last time i used loops in a track was when i played with music maker as a 10 year old. it's all about the end result, but with loops it's kind of hard to create your own groove and sound. of course it's harder, but the end result (for me) is much more rewarding if i create everything from scratch.

as for the big guys, a lot of them were already in the game before the whole loop thing, but using samples / loops from vinyl is a pretty common thing in electronic music... but i consider that as something else than prefabricated loops.
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by JonasEdenbrandt »

I don't use loops at all. Sometimes i sample stuff from like disco records and stuff so I guess thats using loops in a way but I never use samplepackloops. I tried doing it a few times but I can never seem to make music the way I wan't it to sound it just sounds like the fucking loops, so i get super irritated and then make something on my own or just delete everything and play computergames instead.

I'm guessing the pros never use loops, the two cats you mention have been in the game so long that they started when there wern't any loops so they learnt making music a totaly different way then with loops and I'm guessing they haven't changed their workflow completly to work with loops.

PS
The idea of Adam Beyer or Liebing using a "Sound like Beyer" or "Sound like Liebing" samplepack is just to trippy.
Toloache
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by Toloache »

I do sometimes use percussion loops. But dunno if you can call it "looping" them. Basically i use them like a palette of sounds. Like i said in another thread, i put them in a sampler and use a little bit, usually with weird pitch curves, looped envelopes and fm modulation.. then a bit of fabfilter timeless and equing and you can guess.. it sounds nothing like the original loop.

Sometimes i use something as little as a single or double cicle waveform of the loop, that playback continuosly from start to end and then i mess with lfo modulated filtering to create weird ambiences. I found best results from this come from field recordings rather than premade loops though.

I dont use loop basically because sometimes i can clearly heard them in some big guys production and it turn me off sooo much. I dont remember which track, but i could clearly hear a loop straight from the sample pack in a sascha bramer record... maybe he isn't the top of the top but he releases on bar25 and other cool labels, and i didn't think guys of this caliber will use loop..
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by kivetros »

Toloache wrote:I dont use loop basically because sometimes i can clearly heard them in some big guys production and it turn me off sooo much. I dont remember which track, but i could clearly hear a loop straight from the sample pack in a sascha bramer record... maybe he isn't the top of the top but he releases on bar25 and other cool labels, and i didn't think guys of this caliber will use loop..
I feel you there... I once caught Umek using Vengeance stuff. I felt dirty. (Disclaimer: I use Vengeance stuff too, but I filter and warp it so much that it doesn't sound like Vengeance stuff anymore. At the end of the day, a waveform is a waveform... it's all in what you do with it. Also, if there's a sound effect hit or something that's just really distinctive, don't use it. Just don't.)

But personally, I use percussion loops for 99% of my stuff. I'll browse through a loop folder, find a loop with one or two worthwhile hits, and drag it over as a new audio clip (I use Ableton Live). Then I'll use volume clip automation to mute out everything but those one or two hits, then shorten the transients until they fit the groove that I have going. I never use loops as-is.

Sometimes, you can find cool little sounds between hits (like the reverb or delay from a certain hit or whatever), mute out everything but that sound, and compress it to bring the volume up. Those are sounds that won't exist in single-hit packs, so it's worth investigating for sure.

I prefer Best Service loops, myself, but that's just me and I use a wide variety of crap (Loopmasters, Sample Magic, etc). You just have to look at loops as a collection of single-hit samples that just happen to work really, really well together. There is no shame in that.
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tone-def
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by tone-def »

i've started sampling records but i'm not sure i'll use the samples as loops.
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Harry
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by Harry »

I've been using drum loops a bit more in the past few months. I did have the same opinion as you (hNRk), and used to to stay completely away from them, but have recently got some the loopmaster jazz sessions pack and the live drum loops are great!

I try not to use them to the point where they rule the whole feel of the track, obviously the core beat of the track i make - kicks, snares hats etc. But when you find the right loop it can really give a nice roll and flow to the beat. I find that it brings a bit more of a live quality element, something that i found quite hard to do with making everything from scratch.

Here's a track i've made that includes a few loops that really helped keep the groove nice and rolling throughout, with it being too obvious and stealing away form the rest of the track - http://soundcloud.com/harry-mccanna/early-bird
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Re: loops/ bitches or saints?

Post by tone-def »

Harry wrote:I've been using drum loops a bit more in the past few months. I did have the same opinion as you (hNRk), and used to to stay completely away from them, but have recently got some the loopmaster jazz sessions pack and the live drum loops are great!
thats probably a lot more useful than any techno or house loops.
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