where do you get YOUR loops?

JES · Post by **JES** » Sat Jul 05, 2003 6:54 pm

Hi,

I'm just curious where most of the people who are doing creative stuff with Live get their loops. Do you buy loop libraries? Record sounds yourselves? Sample and mangle from your CD and LP collection?

If you record your own loops, do you do it in LIve or another application?

And, generally speaking, what plugins besides the stock Ableton ones do you find indispensible for tweaking your loops into new sounds?

Thanks.

--JES

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Sat Jul 05, 2003 11:06 pm

Tassman and Reason are good for whipping up strange loops. Audio Hijack Pro is handy to mangle old and record new samples.

-Alex

vandeloow · Post by **vandeloow** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 1:08 am

i record my loops directly from vinyl into live

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 8:33 am

same here. either vinyl (or dvd - movies are a great drumkit resource!) to Live or Spark.

stew · Post by **stew** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 9:34 am

I am mostly building them myself in NI Dynamo, or recording some ambient noises with my portable MD recorder.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 4:21 pm

i use 100% american REAL instruments like guitar (gibson es 335), bass (modulus 5), keyboards (hammond organ, novation k station), and a midi drum triggers (drumkat ez) to make loops of me playing my own music--i reccomend people try making their own music for themselves too. I imagine its much more rewarding than taking other peoples creative output and slightly changing it and recombining things to make something your own. Try starting from scratch. My moms homemade cookies are always better than that pilsbury shit in a can, and real music made by someone with real instruments and creative vision is so much more powerful and unified than taking a bunch of canned loops that you piece together.

Ryan

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 4:29 pm

hehe, oh, the irony (I hope). I don't think Novation would appreciate being called 100% american though, since they're British. I thought that the idea that sampling means "uncreatively using someone else's music" was over and done with.

as for plugins - I really like the Ohmboyz plugins, Reaktor 4 allows for awesome effects as well (still buggy though) - destroy fx makes great plugins as well, can't live without Buffer Override anymore

JES · Post by **JES** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 2:07 pm

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies. Please keep 'em coming.

FWIW, I'm a bassist by trade (Ryan, I own your Q5's grandparent -- a 1980s vintage Modulus Bassstar), so the whole sample-and-loop thing is new to me, but I do really like messing around with Live. And my bandmate is interested in integrating laptops into our performance.

Best,
--JES

jdg · Post by **jdg** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 7:07 pm

i make in other apps first.. then use live as my peformance tool...

i find it easy to make wierdo noises in apps the max/msp and reaktor and etc.. then cut it to a nice loop or phrase and play it in live

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 9:33 pm

Reaktor, mostly. Plus an S2000 with a MIDI keyboard at the other end.
As of now, I'm just sampling chords chops, two-three note licks and what have from it, hand played directly into Live (thank heavens for Warp markers!!). Might get a USB MIDI interface and sequence the sampler from Reaktor, might not. I feel more like throwing out some books and a book case and getting a real upright piano, as I'm mainly doing piano sounds anyways! Reaktor is still my main tool.

As for "writing one's own music", I'm a pen/paper/sheet music/acoustic guitar guy, but I'm mainly focused on what's coming out of the speakers. If you think a sampler isn't a musical instrument, listen to the Avalanches. If you're stealing 4 bar loops from a funk compilation CD and trying to sound like 50 Cent on top, of course it's a bit sad, but a sampler (like my cheap S2k) and a well-stocked record bin can be an innovative, interesting and rewarding musical instrument. End of.

-Paws

Hu_koala · Post by **Hu_koala** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 7:47 am

i use my micro-modular to build all my sounds and loop for live
it's a very nice sound-generator

The Loopmaster (s) · Post by **The Loopmaster (s)** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 10:36 am

Trust Me..........................There are only 2 ways to find loops and this comes with 8 years of honing my skills as a samplist.

1. From Records, CD´s, or any other medium that carries pre-recorded music.

2. Make your own.

FORGET

Sample CD´s because (and I kid you not) Its to easy and doesnt encourage sampling, or musicianship, but most importantly you will never really get an original sound and ultimately your music will sound unfinished, artificial, and perhaps slightly amatuerish if all your music comes from sample loops from CD´s. Its difficult to explain. But there is an immense satisfaction finding and sampling your own loops. You end up not being so dissmissive of the loops that you have made or found yourself unlike a sample cd which could have thousands of loops.

When making your own loops this can be from a combination of drum machine, mixed with various percussion noises, and at times a sampled loop in the backround holding it alltogether.

If you go down the sample CD route, remember what I said in this forum

Mbazzy · Post by **Mbazzy** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 11:15 am

FORGET

Sample CD´s because

... unless you f***k them completely up [ what I tend to do with all pre-made loops I scavenge on the webb ] ... but than this gets into the "make-them-yourself" realm

Beside that I use live & only live to :

- make new drumloops , playing one-shots on the keyboard and playing with gain/pitch to si/e-mulate velocity
- sample other sources

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 12:14 pm

I have always used a lot of sample-CDs. when you change a lot of things on them, it can sound great. you can do original things with stock samples. it's just creativity. and a lot of Pros are using stock sample-CD's... but that's no proving they are good of course...

don't forget I am also running Reason in combination with Live so I will always be original

but I think the next couple of month I will try to sample other things and stop using sample-cds for a while just to try something else.

I like the Akufen thing, sampling a radio... but maybe I will try to sample my instruments first and build music from there.

am listening to Fila Brazillia - Jump Leads... great album!

scott · Post by **scott** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 12:47 pm

I make my loops in Reason, usually using 10-20 devices for a single loop. Lately, I've been doing all of my own patch programming. Also, I am trying to increase the length of my loops to 64 bars.

I've found an interesting circular workflow where I make a loops in Reason, tweak it in Live with effects, and render the result. Then I ReCycle the loop back into Reason and rearrange it. The sounds get quite malleable at that point.

/Scott

where do you get YOUR loops?

where do you get YOUR loops?

thanks -- keep em coming

Live and Loop

well...