Useful Tips to Master the Art Drum Loops

For all music lovers and wanna be music composers, music loops will be an essential part of your composing kit, especially if your hands are not well practiced at instrument like the drums and loops.

In order to excel in the art of looping, here’s tips from experts. They’ve all the way to share their secrets, take a look:    

Arranging And Chopping Drum Loops

Looping software today comes in a variety of options and depending upon the one you buy, you can have access to endless choices. The real test of the music composer lies in slicing them in an exact manner and then arranging in characteristic channels. Once you identify the need of rearranging and chopping the drum loops, you will be able to create your own looping effects and that too without much hesitation.  

  

Locating Specific Drum Loops

Once you understand how effects are produced with loop arrangements, you need to slice them properly and then locate them in distinctive audio channels. This will give you an enhanced management over loops with addition of effects as it doesn’t require an alternation with the drum hits for the same purpose. With a distributed approach to the located drum loops, you will excuse yourself from fusing different looping effects and create a defined audio output. 

Utilizing Return Channels

One common mistake that most amateur looping artists make is stacking of their audio channels with different effects from the host. However, the simpler and more sensible way to do the same are to add the effects in the return channels and consequently enhance the possibilities with greater effect options from different instruments. Moreover, with a proper practice of return channels you get efficient with creating all sorts of drumming effects in one single channel without heaps of layering.

Enhance The Possibilities With Additions

In order to master the art of drum lopping you need understand the importance of creating a superior audio clip with layering effects that engage additional drumming effects. You can layer up different effects like snares, claps or kicks together, so that you have endless possibilities to create your own masterpiece with drum loops.

Altering Loop Arrangements

A real useful tip to create your own loop is to alter the arrangements of drum loops and precisely chop it with audio samples and MIDI loops. Using looping techniques means that you have an open platform for altering the looping arrangements with a modification in drumming style and slicing them in a respective manner.    

Editing Drum Loops With Samples

When editing loops in individual layers, it’s important that you make the most of all provided samples. This indeed will enhance your possibilities with audio outputs and add that sense of groove to the track. Even though the track will be distributed in separate sections it will create a sense of multi-track with a bridge over smaller audio sections.                              

Using Music Loops – Need Not be seen as Cheating

Running parallel to the maturity of human civilization, music and the sense about it has constantly been on the running end. The latest addition to this ancient art of music is the usage of musical loops.

However, some people believe that using loops to create music is similar to cheating for a composition. Therefore, we bring to you factors that will make you realize that using loops to create music is just the latest move of modernizing music.

Technological Improvement and the Availability of Endless Musical Loops

Music and musical instruments have been a part of human existence from ages and one thing that has aided their subsistence is the tendency to modernize according to the urbanizing cultures.

From, wooden acoustic guitar of the medieval ages to the new age metal head electric guitars, examples about modernizing musical instruments are certainly endless. Moreover, new age musical technologies have given birth to musical genres like disco, rock, hip hop, jazz and much more.

Loops are the most popular of the latest additions to this modern age chapter of music and it promises to move the industry with its simple yet efficient techniques. Loops provide musicians with the freedom to blend and twirl the grooves from different musical instruments using digital software technologies like MIDI loops, Kontakt Drums, MASCHINE Kits and Stylus RMX. This adds that special modern twist to the traditional styles of music we have followed from ages.

Is Looping Identical To Cheating

Before, we begin to review the concerns of looping as cheating, let us understand what the essence of looping is. A musical loop is a small section of sound, which is cyclically repeated as a segment of prerecorded music and has the freedom to use it endless times.

Usage of loops with musical compositions allows music composers to produce remixes as a blend of traditional music styles with latest digital technologies. Undoubtedly, these technologies have condensed live musical sessions that took hours earlier to an easier shorter replacement.  Moreover, this allows composers to bring in new musical styles to the compositions and remix them for a groovy musical pattern.

 
A Loop Is the Modern Musical Element

If we understand and consider looping techniques as an important feature of the modern age music, we get to notice the endless possibilities that are feasible with it. This is why some of the most professional music artists and composers have appreciated the combination of musical loops as “modernizing key of musical composition.”

Moreover, they see looping technique as an essential element of new age music and stresses on the numerous potentials it has that can help artists enhance their performances. 

Loops are the most recent addition to the music industry that is designed to enhance musical experiences with blends of different musical categories, which is not necessarily cheating as described by many.                      

Stylus RMX – An Impartial Review

Basically, Stylus RMX is one of the best groove based virtual instrumental plug-in that provides users with an impressive control over production and performance of grooves using advanced technologies and controls. 

This virtual plug-in is designed to provide users with multi-page interference with the merged properties of groove control, brand new collections of sounds and instruments that provides endless options to craft grooves impressively.

Some Key Features of Stylus RMX

Stylus RMX is a unique looping machine that is designed to provide users with a powerful flexibility to create and operate grooves using endless options of sounds from the library core. The plug-in too has some of the most advanced and innovative features that give the user direct control over loops or groves and thus enhance the possibilities with it significantly.

Controlled User Interference 

Stylus is a powerful module that is gracefully crafted to improve user interference and is perfectly designed to include effects, speeding or slowing loops with different limiters, tempos, filters and all sorts of possibilities.

Different Kits and Modes

The plug-in is featured with more than 500 multi-patches, 300 drum kits with multiple options of channel setups, FX, Chaos, etc. being really flexible with the user interference, the plug-in has different remixing or looping modes like slice mode, groove mode, semi grove mode and chaos mode that have their own individual features and allows the user to access and switch between endless options of loop collection.

An Overview of Stylus RMX features

The most impressive features of Stylus that outclasses the plug-in over others is the massive collection of 7.4 GB sound library, which is expandable and allows users to import their own creations with the sample files. 

This helps them to create and re-create notes more easily and comfortably.

Equipped with innovative chaos designer, stereo audio groves, eight part multibral and eight stereo outputs, the plug-in comes with easy and powerful organizing parameters. It has a remarkable collection of professional effects like power filter, valve radio, vintage compresses, stereo imager are just a few from the list.  

The plug-in consists of easy MIDI control, SAGE technology, multi-mode power filter, ADHR envelopes and three hours of video tutorials that provides easy learning skills to the user and consequently enhances the performance with it.

What Reviews Say About the Real Time Groove Module – Stylus RMX

With its impressive features and endless options of controlling and producing grooves or loops, Stylus RMX is pronounced as the ultimate groove factory by the leading professionals of musical industry.

Users advocate the module with an extraordinary extent of control and support it provides in handling tempos, pitches and source materials as simply implausible. The plug-in covers a wide range of possibilities with its versatile and user friendly approach. The tool is one astonishing module that is simple, powerful and provides users with top quality instruments and grooves.           

How to create your own drum loops with virtual instruments

Samples of drums that were used to create loops can be used after some overdubbing in your own sampler.

However, that is a lengthy process and it is advisable to make your own drum loops. Editing is very easy in loops, you just need to import some samples into a hard disk multitask recording program. Arrange them in any order you want, add the tempo to create your own loops.

You can save these tracks as AIFF or Wav files. Loops can be created in any tempo, but if you might want to convert them into stretchable ones later make them with the REX techniques or Acidization. A tempo of 100BPM is highly recommended. Let’s take a look step by step.

1. Collecting Samples

After you collect the drum samples, create tracks where you want to hold them. Before starting keep in mind that creating a template will make life easy for you, when you might wants to create more loops.

Tip- A free windows program Stomper can give you analog drum sound effect

2. Add the Tempo

Once the template is created in DAW set your tempo and value for snap.

Tip- Start with the snapped drums first and add the human touch later.

3. Placement of Samples

After the samples have been allocated make your loop, set the volume and pan settings optimally.

Tip- You can either place sounds individually on their own tracks or you can spread them on different tracks.

This method enables you to lower or higher the non-accented and accented hats and you do not affect the quarter notes too.

4. Saving and bouncing

This is the final step in the whole process. You can choose between bouncing all parts together inside a stereo or mono track that can be saved as an AIFF or Wav file. Or you can make a mix in stereo version and instead of kick add reverb to the drums.

Tip- make a separate file for every drum sound and save all these variations in a folder.

5. Flexibility with Variations

When each sound is saved in its own dependent file it will allow you a greater flexibility when creating loops with variations. You can do the following-

·         Moving the track back and forth will teach you the applications feel factor. Moving the snare ahead will give it a nervous effect and behind for an effect that feels laid back.

·         If you are able to maintain the original duration the change the pich when working in a digital editor for audio. Timbral variations will be created by this.

·         You can create remix variations by dropping out tracks that are individual. When there is a sound on each track it is easy to drop it out or to add parts while remixing.

·         You can also create virtual aux busses by selecting sounds you want to process and then bouncing them. 

Author Bio: Ryan is CEO at Thelooploft. He has expertise in creating MIDI loops as well as Guitar loops. Besides business, he has interest in playing baseball.

Tips on how to get more from Your Drum Loops

A drum loop is basically that section of the music which is cut in such a way that it seamlessly plays the sound of drums indefinitely or in a loop. It can range from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the composer. They are usually created to work as a convenient underscore on which the composition is built. They can be combined with bass line loops. The following tips have been suggested keeping Ableton Live in mind but can also be used with DAW.

1. Chop the loop

Try and change the arrangement of the loops after chopping them. This comes very handy when you want to create your library drums.

2. Audio channels

After rearranging plan a scheme for placing chopped slices in their independent audio positions. This will enable you to add different effects to various parts and it wont effect the drum hits at all. The only problem with drum and guitar loops is that when you want to add an effect it affects the kick and the hi hats. The overall sound can be effected by it.

3. Return channels

Always try to put all your different effects in to the return channels instead of loading them into your audio channels. This will save a lot of space in your CPU and let you add more instruments later. Most Ableton Live users find that effects in return will help in mastering the audio drums. In other words with all of it in one return all the effects for the snare will be in one channel  and have no loads effect on layered hit of snare.

4. Multiply your drum hits

You dint need to stop at one kick or snare. You can try it innumerable times. The more the layering the bigger the sound that will be created. Most people have come to expect this with genres of bass, drum and dubstep. One layer might work once but layering is always more impressive.

5. Adding drum patterns

Be creative with drum patterns and don’t hold back when using them. The option of DJ the Prodigy will provide complexity to the underlining drum sounds in your track.

For eg- Fire Starter has a drum beat as main, but it can also be used a abreak beat loop in the back.

This technique is commonly used in Glitch and Break Beat

6. Use of transposition

When the drum hits are chopped up the glitch effect can be added very easily using transposition. When using Ableton Live always remember that transpositions can be done only in multiples in increasing order. Or else they will not sound in sync.

For eg- if a drum hit is transposed three semitones then the next one should be -6 or -9 or +6 or +9. This is just a tip not a rule.

7. Conversion into a MIDI track

The audio sample can be converted into a MIDI track very easily using Ableton Live. The arrangement can be changed of the loops and you will end up getting your own unique loop. It just not limits you here, sustain decay; release and attack can also be added for alteration.