Loops

A

aslo

New member
I have a poor understanding of working with loops in a composition.
I would like to record a composition that evolves by recording loops and arranging the blocks into a composition. Is that reasonable?

As an example
First track i record a piano loop. I play it and record another loop track with strings that is in sync with the piano.

Now i would like the piano loop to loop or repeat 10 times.
I want the strings to play along with the piano, the first time only.
Now i want to continue on with a third track, a guitar.
So i want the piano loop to repeat 10 times, the stings play along the first time.
The guitar continues playing from the first bar, past the 10 times the piano is playing. Is all this possible, and practical??

If anyone is willing to work with me on this, i would appreciate it
 
What version software are you using?
Are you making your own loops or using premade loops?

Are you synched to the project tempo?

You can easily do every thing you asked,but you should check and see if there is a tutoral on loops that came with your software.
 
reply to acidrock

Version 6 of Sonar, i have an older ableton live also that came bundled with something, but im basically using sonar.

I believe i am synced to project tempo and using the metronome in most cases.

I dont know about the "easily" part. I have sonar power, and ive seen some online tutorials, but they are mostly about using prerecorded loops.So yes to answer your next question, i am recording my own.
My confusion lies in how to set it up for a composition.

Maybe it has something to do with your sync question.
Lets say i record a little piano thing as a loop.I want this loop to play 3 times. I now want to do another track
that accompanies the loop, but then goes beyond it, such as strings.
The second track, strings accompanies the piano, but then continues.

For me sonar will play the loop once, or keep repeating it indefinately. Herin lies my problem.

Thanks
 
First off,you must be synced to the project tempo,otherwise you'll be working backwards.

Are you working with MIDI or audio?

If the loop is groove clip enabled(diagonal corners instead of straight),you just grab the edge of the clip and stretch it as far as you need.Cut copy paste as needed.

If you are making your own loops you need to make a audio clip and edit it to the desired size then enable groove clip looping.


For me sonar will play the loop once, or keep repeating it indefinately.
Click to expand...
Maybe you could give us a screenshot of your project.The behavior you describe would be typical for the loop explorer box,but not for the track view.
 
lOOPS

The project will be mixed, audio and midi,but im primarily talking about midi now.

I record the first track as a loop. I may want another instrument to loop with it, so i record another along with the first. The question is how to integrate it all in a composition live as im recording.



The screenshot is a good idea at some later time, thanks.
 
The question is how to integrate it all in a composition live as im recording.
Click to expand...
I'm not understanding what you mean by that.

Are you using a hardware sound module,sound fonts,soft synth?
 
First of all, turn all of your midi tracks to audio, period. If you got midi tracks playing outboard sound modules, the audio is eventually going to come back on an audio track, right? The same for soft synths, soundfonts and dxis. Why have two tracks of everything when you can have one track of audio instead? You don't have to delete the midi tracks, just shove 'em down into virtual tracks that won't get played out of your audio outputs (don't know if I should of used the word "virtual" in this context). It is so much easier to just work with a bunch of Audio. Not that there is anything wrong with MIDI. But MIDI loops? It kind of doesn't really make sense to work that way. At least not to me. I mean, I get my MIDI looking and sounding the way I want. Then, have my MIDI track play my synth, record the synth. Good bye MIDI track. Just MHO.
Second, audition and arrange the audio into clips or Groove clips. Groove clips are loops in Sonar.
Third, if you need help making the Groove clip loops sound seemless, well, I'm just going to have to walk you through that one. It's not hard, just tedious work. For example, easiest thing to loop: kick drum. Say you record a midi kick. That midi kick will then play your synth and produce an audio kick. Arm a track and record that audio kick. Get a good level and all that jazz. Find a clean section of an 8 count of clean audio kick (actually you should of tweaked the midi kick in Midi Events View, first) then cut at the begining of the waveform of the first kick and at the beginning of the 9th kick (remember, 8 beats ber measure). Now you should have a piece of audio that is 8 beats. Right click and hit "enable Groove clipping" or something to that effect. I'm writing from work, so I'm going off of memory. I don't have Sonar in front of me. But you get the jist I hope. Hope this helps.
 
djchris73 said:
First of all, turn all of your midi tracks to audio, period. .
Click to expand...
I think this would be more a matter of how you work.
I would use MIDI until the final mixdown mainly because my computer can handle it and I can adjust on the fly.YMMV.
One advantage being you can switch patches and controller messages all the way till mixdown.
 
acidrock said:
I think this would be more a matter of how you work.
I would use MIDI until the final mixdown mainly because my computer can handle it and I can adjust on the fly.YMMV.
One advantage being you can switch patches and controller messages all the way till mixdown.
Click to expand...

He already know what his pianos are going to sound like, no need to change patches. Plus, he can keep his midi files intact, just shove 'em down where they are out of the way. And he wants to work with loops. You can't stretch Midi Tracks like you can Groove Clips.
 
djchris73 said:
You can't stretch Midi Tracks like you can Groove Clips.
Click to expand...
That's why I use midi groove clips.Those you can stretch,and change tempo much more than audio,not to mention pitch.
 
djchris73 said:
He already know what his pianos are going to sound like, no need to change patches. Plus, he can keep his midi files intact, just shove 'em down where they are out of the way. And he wants to work with loops. You can't stretch Midi Tracks like you can Groove Clips.
Click to expand...

It's really just a matter of preference and what your machine and sequencer can do.
 
aslo said:
As an example
First track i record a piano loop. I play it and record another loop track with strings that is in sync with the piano.

Now i would like the piano loop to loop or repeat 10 times.
I want the strings to play along with the piano, the first time only.
Now i want to continue on with a third track, a guitar.
So i want the piano loop to repeat 10 times, the stings play along the first time.
The guitar continues playing from the first bar, past the 10 times the piano is playing. Is all this possible, and practical??
Click to expand...
Aslo is obviously a musician and already knows what his audio should sound like.

acidrock said:
That's why I use midi groove clips.Those you can stretch,and change tempo much more than audio,not to mention pitch.
Click to expand...
Bro, Aslo is not MIDI savy at this point. Aslo, read my response, where it says how to make loops with audio.

Aslo, is wanting to deal with audio. Nevermind his statement:
aslo said:
The project will be mixed, audio and midi,but im primarily talking about midi now.
Click to expand...
I don't think he's sure of what he's talking about here, just yet. I've never seen a two track final mix handed to a mastering house for duplication with MIDI in it.
TelePaul said:
It's really just a matter of preference and what your machine and sequencer can do.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is a matter of preference. But why would do you want your computer to deal with a midi track, an audio track and a soft synth when all it has to deal with is the audio? So much more work is being asked to be done by the computer by doing it the way acidrock wants to do it. That is the point I'm trying to make: Hardship on the computer.
I don't know of any professional engineer or producer that would purposely want the computer to work harder than it has to, just because it can. I know you guys are gonna lash back. But before you do, stop and read the whole thing, think about it and then post your response.
 
Yes, it is a matter of preference. But why would do you want your computer to deal with a midi track, an audio track and a soft synth when all it has to deal with is the audio?
Click to expand...
Because you can and it gives you more options.

Nobody's saying it's better to do it one way or another,rather that there aere many different ways of doing things.While some people find MIDI daunting,it gives you more power and options than audio.That's part of the reason a person would buy a program like SONAR.

The OP did say this also.....

The project will be mixed, audio and midi,but im primarily talking about midi now.
Click to expand...
 
Honestly, I do both. But when I'm working with someone on a track, or I come up with something when they're not there, I wont bounce it down. It's just really a tonal thing for me, exactly what sample I want to use and how it's going to be arranged, particularly if I want a second opinion.

Granted, when i do start eating processing power I will change to audio. But it's more flexible. Like I said in my previous post, it's really down to your computer, and the pay off between convenience versus processing power.
 
Back to the original question-

The thing about repeating the phrase indefinitelybaffles me.
It shouldn't do that w/o the loop brackets turned on.

The easist thing to do if you don't understand midi-
If you want the piano phrase to repeat 3 times,
drag/drop more 2 copies of the original phrase into place
for a total of 3 repetitions.

For the string track, drag/copy those 3 to another track,
set the out to a different midi channel.

Your sound module/keyboard should be in "performance" mode
if available, w/ sounds assigned to corresponding channels
(piano on midi1, strings on midi 2, and so forth, up to 16 channels).

It's not important when in the process you do it,
but you'll need to mixdown the midi tracks into audio eventually.
You'll also be able to apply efx after mixdown.

Kirk/FKA1
 
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