Loop repetitions & song structure in the beginning

[Billy+]

Have you got beatmap player?

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It's a basic template for standard drums that I sketched out, just find some new xy's for the parts and adjust as required. Obviously you're going to be adding a few more hits to your kit but I generally like those to be specific to the track.

[EdwardKiy]

With loops - no. You could use retrigger/glitch effect, maybe, but that produces some very niche results.

Your other two option are live recording or using "player" devices, like beatmap.

[aeox]

Hi,

attached a typical drum part of a song-start-structure. Copy and paste the loop, and everything sounds the same (marked red). Usually i would click in every clip and change the notes a bit or delete/add some variation notes.

Is there a simpler, more "flowy" method than this?

I become tired very fast of this workflow.....

Any inspirations?

Cheers

Screenshot 2021-07-22 215115.jpg

Is there a DAW in mind that does this particularly well, from your experience? I figured ctrl-E/edit was the most straight forward option and I settled on that. Maybe there is a much smarter way of doing manual edits that I'm not aware of.

As mentioned above, beatmap does take the work out of it. I've used that in some cases. Also, manually playing the parts with a controller is fun and flowy!

[LABONERECORDINGS]

Option 0: write in longer clips, so you have a much longer loop so you can vary the edits easier, and also colourise the edits for easy view

Option 1: quick n dirty: press F8 gets the tools pallete up, and you can select say 8 bars of your loop and adjust the velocity and/or timings, as well as add in some random ticks. Select the parts you want to affect, copy them over out the way to the far right (use the sequencer as a big scratchpad playground) and apply the effect. Somtimes good sometimes, no so, can be hit n miss but can get you going out of the 16bar mongloop

Option 2: Get groove from clip - now you could import a rex file for this but all the velocities would be the same, you can use your drum edits and either put them all as 1 enmasse clip (so all hits in one) with your various velocity settings as you have, then in the enmasse clip right click and 'get groove from clip'. Now get the Regroove mixer up on the transport bar. Your User1 groove will appear in slot 1. F8 also has the groove clip editing section (swap the tab at the top). Duplicate your midi clip on another lane and mute the original (again just a 'backup' /checkpoint). On the new lane go to the far left and you have a dropdown with A1 to D8 available - these are your groove setters. Set to A1 and you'll hear the same when you playback. Now mess with the swing knob (increase it) and you'll get more 'triplety' sounding swing. Note this is non destructive, if you like the clip with the new groove just right click and 'commit to groove' on the clip and turn off the lane groove dropdown to --. You can then 'get groove from clip' and rinse.. repeat... You can do this with Rex files to get timings, and then adjust the velocity in your own hits, when you get groove from clip the ReGroove mixer picks up all tmings and velocities. Addicitve Drums 2 works so good with this, especially with multiple groove channels (each drum / hat gets it's own lane so you can apply all the same or different grooves to the same instrument). Also you can save your groove files via the F8 panel so you can load up your own grooves into the ReGroove tool, handy if you have a 8 bar loop with an edit at the end which can affect your shuffles etc.

Option 3: is to bounce to audio the loops and put through a tape machine plugin then add some wow (pitch bend) and flutter (amp fluctuate), to create subtle variation to the loops. Once you have a long enough loop done you can repeat that easier and becuase of the variations you shouldn't sound so bored. Also, add in some fills, only needs to be one or two / flurry of hits (drum rolls, open hat shuffles etc, or even percussive sounds for added 'interest' like spraycan rattles, or maybe LFO filtered white noise hits under the beat to add more 'spice'. This can be good for those hiphop / sampled break styles because they are loops but taken from vinyl (usually) so you get the natural ebb and flow of a record captured in the loop - what we're doing with the tape effect is re-emulate that effect to 'humanize' it off grid

Option 4: Write with grid set to 1 bar and snap off. Set your loop up to maybe a 2 bar or 4 bar loop with your dominant parts setting your tmings (ie house may be kick-kick=kick-kick for the 4/4, Dnb or breaks may be kick-snare---kicksnare-). So this will be your backbone to work to (like a metronome). Now jam along with hits on keyboard / F4 computer keys, nothing mental just soome notes, then move them aroubnd off grid and you'll create some fluid / looser / funky / tighter grooves; late sounds can sound more laid back, early sounds can bring tension, so there's plenty to play with here

Option 5: sort of like option 3 but you create your own MIDI files so you can drop them in on the channel any time you want, and that can be fed into a synth or sample-driven device (as long as you configure your notes to right instruments for playback)

You can use the Beatmap tool too on the end of the sections for those 'of the wall' unexpected happy accidentals which can make your track have that extra 'edge' and break out the loopmonging (don't fear, everyone goes through this at some point so you're not alone )

Option 6: Blocks. if you dive into block edits you can draw them up way faster, they're sort of like 'ghost copies' of clips, and you have up to 32 different blocks you can use (the block length is as long as you want, so you could do some real sneaky edit and actually get 64 variations in 32 by making the block twice as long and then in the sequencer you draw in your block at full size and pull in the left edge or right edge to the centre to get either variant in the same block'space'). When you draw them in the sequencer they spew the notes out within the block repeatedly, so that can speed things up a bit (write a full loop in the block and on the sequencer add 'silent' empty clips for muting the midi, the sequencer clip can 'mast' the block clip data which gives opportunity for more edits and changes easily and quickly. It's the setting up that can take a bit of time of course.

Man that was a post eh?