loop recording
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > loop recording
Posted on Apr 16, 2004 06:32 am
riffgod
www.charlienaebeck.com
Member Since: Apr 10, 2004
Morning everyone,
was just wondering how many people were out there that do recording by doing loops and then paste them together to make their song pretty much? Someone recently suggested to me that it was easier than having someone sit down and play the entire song flawlessly. I have never worked too much with loop "recording" previously. I have imported loops from .wav files from Acid or something, but never made my own. Which do you guys think works better technique wise? I understand that there are going to be people out there that can nail a song in one take, but for quality purposes do you think the approach of recording a little at a time works? Also, does it help you build better dynamics in your songs? Any feedback would be appreciated. :) Thanks
[ Back to Top ]
Apr 16, 2004 07:49 am There are a lot of people here that use loops, hopefully someone can have better insight than myself. I don't really use Acid Loops or anything like that much. While they are VERY cool and very useful for certain styles of music, I don't prefer them. Rather than loops for, say, my drums for example, I prefer to use a virtual instrument and make the basic drum patterns for my verses, choruses, bridges and such, then copy and paste them in the arrangement of the song.
After that, take the guitar and bass and lay down those parts, maybe even vocals. Then after those are layed down, I can then go back to the drums and add little fills and stuff, move certain beats a little bit, change some volumes of certain hits and things like that so it doesn't SOUND so much like a loop, so each part is a bit different and a little more human sounding.
MauzgrrrrrrrMember
Since: Mar 29, 2004
Apr 16, 2004 09:34 am I use loops a lot in cool edit. There is a great feature that allows you to loop it in time with your song (I am sure protools has something simliar). Since I am not great on the bass I will play the bass line for the verse or chorus and loop it, locking into the tempo. Before I discovered this tempo looping feature I could never get a decent rythm. Now it is simple. Often I can get the backbone of a song down in about 10 minutes in this way and it is always in perfect tempo!
The bad thing is that it is hard to transmit energy to a song in this way and unless you tweek it it I think it hurts dynamics. But I find looping handy for quickly laying down tracks to be revisited later (editing or re-recording). Useful if you are still in the creative phase and dont want to get too bogged down in the recording or havent decdided the exact structure of the song.
LokiCone PokerMember
Since: Apr 07, 2002
Apr 16, 2004 10:53 pm What I do when tracking and recording guitars and such is record the verse and then record the chorus seperately, and then build the guitar riff with that. Since the chorus is usually the same throughout the song it only takes playing it once time flawlessly and then plugging it into where it needs to be. Then to make it sound less processed apply different panning and EQ to each chorus.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 21, 2004 08:54 pm That is the best part of recording to PC is the fact that you can make anything into a loop. Then just cut an paste away to get the final product. Some would say that is cheating or taking the easy way out. But I for one am so much happier and get so much more work done this way.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
Apr 22, 2004 11:09 am Well, this is my first post here, so i might as well quickly introduce myself- My name's Drew, I'm primarily an instrumental guitarist, but got hooked on computer recording after a friend of mine installed the demo of Sonic Foundry Acid 2.0 on my computer. It was limited to one week, but that week got me hooked enough that I eventually bought the program myself, and never looked back. ;)
As far as looping goes... i loop my drums and most of my rhythm guitars and bass lines, and I figure it's not cheating if you could play the entire thing cleanly- if you're using loops to stretch out a part for an entire song that you can only hit sporatically, tha's not cool, but since I'm working on a dell laptop from '99 with 64mb RAM, it's sorta a necessity to decrease the amount of discspace taken by a song I'm working on... i need to save as much of that 64k as possible for leads (the disc-based mode on Acid helps, but eventually you get to the point where your hard drive can't keep up, and start running into playback and recording problems)
Fr drums, I think the most flexible way to use drum loops, if you sequence yourself, is to create one "master" loop of the entire kit for while you're tracking, but create seperate loops for the kick, snare, and hi-hats. Toms too, but i seem to not use them very often... strange, as I'm a huge fan od Danny Carey's work in Tool. So, when you're done tracking everything else, replace the "master" loop with your loops for all the componants. EQ each of the parts seperately to best fit within the mix, and reverb them all independantly (although, i try to keep it pretty even, to hold onto that "live in the room" sound as much as possible), and you're there.
The real kicker is, this allows you a TON of flexibility to program fills. Drop your crash cymbols over the top, cut out a hit here and there, and you can do some suprisingly cool things. A real drummer it ain't, but it's close enough for my evil purposes. ;)
This is probably fairly rudimentary for a lot of you guys, so sorry if i'm being self-obvious... ;)
-D
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
Apr 22, 2004 11:11 am Oh, and as a guitar snob, if you can't nail it in a single performance, even if it takes a few tries... then you shouldn't be doing it. ;)
Apr 22, 2004 11:59 am If you can't play it cleanly all the way through, who cares? That only matters if you are playing live. Live and recording are two different mediums. Whether one can play it or not is a moot point. Whther or not you even have arms is a moot point. If one has the musical knowledge and vision to create a beautiful sound coming out of my speakers I couldn't care less how it got there...
Quote:
Oh, and as a guitar snob, if you can't nail it in a single performance, even if it takes a few tries... then you shouldn't be doing it. ;)
Some people call that "practice" and "improving your skills" if someone can't nail it the first few times should they just give up then and not do it? I think not.
However, welcome to HRC :-)
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
Apr 22, 2004 12:50 pm dB- yeah, it's a question of background. I'm guessing you're hear because you're into recording, and maybe dabble in guitar (and I don't mean that as an insult by ANY means- i think the whole world should play :)). I'm here because I'm really serious about guitar, but want to learn more about getting my ideas on disc in as clear, accurate, and lush a manner as possible. For me, especally given the style I'm into, the ability to play the parts is absolutely paramount.
re: the second quick comment- i agree totaly. However, when you're on the clock at a studio isn't the place to be practicing, is it? ;) If you can't do it, practice until you can, THEN hit the little red button.
I guess what I'm saying is this: can play faster than Rusty Cooley by altering the tempo of a peice in Sound Forge. does that mean I should? Personally, i think no- i shouldn't be recording anything that I can't really play.
Now, sampling guitar noise and whatnot and looping that for ambient texture? totally free game. :) It's not a question of compensating for your inability to play a part cleanly and repeatedly, but of making a sample of a sound (that just happens to be guitar-generated) and putting it to work within the context of a song.
Thanks for the welcome, and sorry if we're getting off on the wrong foot...
-D
Apr 22, 2004 12:53 pm No, no wrong foot at all, everybody has different outlooks. I see what you saying in your given situation. However, this being more of a "home studio" group, most of us don't work under deadlines or clocks :-)
My theory is, if the music sounds good, thats really all that matters.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
Apr 22, 2004 12:56 pm works for me. cheers!
-D
