Looping might be screwing with my production

mat42291

SuperNoob
Joined
Aug 15, 2011
Location
NY
Ok so the one thing I know I have to get used to is thinking of a track as a complete song. And a lot of the time I feel like I over think production. But I feel like the loop function might be my greatest downfall.

I feel like in a lot of ways I've got OCD about the whole visual presentation in my DAW. I tend to keep things in neat organized 8 or 16 bar loops. And while it looks nice on screen, I realize good music is about how it sounds not how it looks haha.

So I guess I need some advice on how to break out of that horrible repetitive looping habit. I was thinking of laying down a drum track to start and keep that going for a while. Kind of like a backbone of the track. Then just play it back and see what elements I want to add in. The goal would be for me to learn how to really build up a song instead of connecting individual loops.

I feel like I got into a bad habit of thinking vertically too much and now it's biting me in the ass. I know it may seem obvious to a lot of you guys, but I'm just becoming aware of just how much I need to start thinking differently about putting together a track.
 
trouble i find now with my production is its so easy to get into bad habits.
like spending hours eqing drums/bass when i only have a 8 bar loop. whats the point when i dont have the rest of the track?
so i force myself to get the track down first - if i find myself messing with eq befire ive got the bones of the track down i stop. cos as soon as i start fiddling with that i will loose hours and forget what track i was making.
then i end up with yet another 30 second project to be added to the pile.
so basically get yer tune down first - all of it. yes it will sound rough. but you have something to work with rather than just a small loop.
hope that helps man
 
Try taking all those neat and tidy loops, and setting your DAW up so you can arrange everything live (trigger loops and 1shot risers from keyboard, have knobs mapped to track volumes, fx sends, etc)
Then play your track, switch bits on and off, do a bunch of DJ tricks and live remixing to get the arrangement and flow to work. With a bit of preparation I bet you can sit for ages and keep jamming on your track, evolving it and coming up with breakdowns and drops and stuff. Then just record the best of it and continue from there.
 
trouble i find now with my production is its so easy to get into bad habits.
like spending hours eqing drums/bass when i only have a 8 bar loop. whats the point when i dont have the rest of the track?
so i force myself to get the track down first - if i find myself messing with eq befire ive got the bones of the track down i stop. cos as soon as i start fiddling with that i will loose hours and forget what track i was making.
then i end up with yet another 30 second project to be added to the pile.
so basically get yer tune down first - all of it. yes it will sound rough. but you have something to work with rather than just a small loop.
hope that helps man

Yeah helps a lot man. I do the same shit. I gotta just really focus on getting those ideas out and getting a foundation to work off of. After that it's easy to just tweak things and mess with sounds without having to worry about coming up with ideas for the actual composition itself.

Try taking all those neat and tidy loops, and setting your DAW up so you can arrange everything live (trigger loops and 1shot risers from keyboard, have knobs mapped to track volumes, fx sends, etc)
Then play your track, switch bits on and off, do a bunch of DJ tricks and live remixing to get the arrangement and flow to work. With a bit of preparation I bet you can sit for ages and keep jamming on your track, evolving it and coming up with breakdowns and drops and stuff. Then just record the best of it and continue from there.

This is awesome advice. I'm using Reaper as my daw. I'll have to check it out and see if I can trigger loops. But I'll give this a go.
 
Try taking all those neat and tidy loops, and setting your DAW up so you can arrange everything live (trigger loops and 1shot risers from keyboard, have knobs mapped to track volumes, fx sends, etc)
Then play your track, switch bits on and off, do a bunch of DJ tricks and live remixing to get the arrangement and flow to work. With a bit of preparation I bet you can sit for ages and keep jamming on your track, evolving it and coming up with breakdowns and drops and stuff. Then just record the best of it and continue from there.

^this

ableton's session view is pure gold
 
so basically get yer tune down first - all of it. yes it will sound rough. but you have something to work with rather than just a small loop.

Bullseye.

I always used to do this and it seemed to work, I mean I would EQ etc. some stuff to get it sounding alright but never fiddle to long. Then I started getting fiddly and end up with this shitty 30 second bits that were pretty much nothing

Now I started worrying about the tune structure again and I think I literally just got something finished :) (tune structure wise)
 
Recently I've noticed that my production's so called template seems to be too repetetive, like a play with scenes, they dont seem complex at all, the arrangements :L:L


I have no clue how to break out of this structuring mishabit( is it a word tho? xD). My brain gets kinda tingly when applying new structure and it doesnt seem to advance the structuring part. :L
 
maybe expand your mind a bit first?
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