Play it like a pro

October 20th, 2008 | Category: Philosophy, Session Notes

I wasted way too much time in the last session trying to record a short snippet of guitar and make it into a loop to stretch out for several measures. In the end, I just sat down and played it like a pro – start to finish.

Good Grooves

There are plenty of great uses for loops and groove clips. They are an obvious choice for electronic music, or anything where the beat is “on a grid” or perfectly synched to the metronome. Sometimes, they are the only answer – like if you want to add an extra chorus to an already-recorded song. And, with careful editing and enough time, you can make them work in situations like mine.

These are the problems I had with the loop, or “groove clip”, in Sonar’s language:

  • You have to record the first measure, a middle measure, and the last measure. That’s because you don’t want your first measure to have reverb tails or ringing notes at the beginning, and you don’t want those reverb tails or ringing notes to get chopped off at the end of the last measure.
  • It’s hard work to get the transitions from the first measure to the groove clip, and the groove clip to the last measure, to be click and pop free. It can be done, but it takes work.
  • The looped part won’t swing with the drums (or other instruments) like a performed part will.
  • Without careful editing, slight timing imperfections in the section to be looped will produce warbled sounds when you apply groove clip looping.

In the end, it was just easier to keep playing the part until I got a “perfect” take – and I didn’t feel like a hack.

1 comment

1 Comment so far

  1. Rauchen January 12th, 2009 2:19 pm

    I have never enjoyed trying to loop and instrument, while laying tracks. Of course, probably depends on the genre. When I have a repeating riff throughout a song, I like the subtle differences I get each time I play the same riff. It gives it that “real” feel. In fact I put little differences in on purpose ie pick slide, harmonic bend etc. Makes the whole track sound more spontaneous.

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