Audio Looping

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www.witchsmark.com
Member Since: Aug 13, 2006

Getting ready to start a new project recording our 2nd album. I wanted to try something new, especially with the drums, and give Audio Looping a shot. I use Sonar 6PE, but will probably upgrade to Sonar 8PE before we actually pull the trigger. Is Audio Looping a bad idea, should I just capture the drums straight through live?? Does anyone have any experience doing this, or is it just not really done except for with MIDI??

Thanks.

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I am not a crook's head
Member
Since: Mar 14, 2003


Aug 19, 2009 10:14 am

Nothing wrong with using loops for drums. There are a billion and one loops out there, of greatly varying quality. You can buy libraries of loops that cover lots of different styles and drum sets, from hip-hop to jazz brush to rock bombast.

Live drums have all sorts of advantages (i.e. human feel, ability to control down to the very last beat what gets captured, ability to separate all the pieces of the kit on its own track) but all sorts of disadvantages (i.e. really loud, hard to find a good drummer, difficult to correct any mistakes in post-production).

A good compromise is using MIDI instruments with drum samples. Then you get the silent recording of loops combined with the control of each piece of the kit as with an acoustic kit. A velocity-sensitive MIDI controller paired with a good virtual instrument can produce some very convincing fake drum parts. You get to go back and edit each hit's timing and velocity, you can switch kits if you change your mind later, you can switch out pieces of the kit if you want a different kick or snare...there's tons of flexability.

Plus with a MIDI controller and a soft-synth, you can build your own loops and use those in your recordings if you want to. And you have a virtually unlimited library of sounds available for purchase or free download from innumerable sources.

Kaos is only a form of insanity
Member
Since: Feb 03, 2005


Aug 19, 2009 11:19 pm

I agree with Tadpui, even if I am a drummer!! another thing you can look at is sampling your own drum sound. I have just started this and the results are pretty good. The advantage for me is I keep 'MY' drum sound. I record each part of the kit individually, together with my various cymbals and snares, different tunings etc etc ..... It's a long process but i think it is worth it. Added to this if you do record a song all the way through you can use the files in something like drumagog to replace whilst keeping your sound

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Aug 20, 2009 09:30 pm

Yep, nothing wrong with loops at all. I've been using Drum loops and other loops in one form or another forever. And proud of it. I"ve been doing it in Sonar and before that Cakewalk and have looped just about any kind of phrase or sound you can think of. Sonar's looping function's have been greatly improved and I would compare it to Acid or consider it almost better in some respects.

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