My fifty cents on building a song of a loop.

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laffik
Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:55 am

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My fifty cents on building a song of a loop.

Hello Fruities!

For 20 years I much often been stuck with a loop, and so exhausted with building it, that I had no creative strength to develop it in a track.

So I developed a formula based on inverted engineering of many existing tracks.

Point where I stuck is often like this: there is loop containing beat, bass, subbas, hihat tops, ambients, riff or acid.

How to go ahead...

Notice it divides into ambient and beat. Create sections of blend between two and where it plays in isolated form. Subsections with hihat tops in section of a beat.

Over all we got (most interesting combinations, not exhaustive):
1. ambient
2. ambient with hihat tops
3. ambient with beat
4. ambient with beat and hihat tops
5. ambient with bass
6. beat
7. beat, bass, subbas
8. beat, bass subbas and hihat tops, riff or acid
9. beat, bass subbas and hihat tops 2

And we want to build track around 6 minutes. If tempo is around 140BPM and loop is 16 bars long it roughly give us answer that we need 16 sections. We got nine. Some has to repeat and it will repeat as it is good when track got more beat than ambients or tops playing solo.

So let's check how it goes in typical club track composed with purpose of mixing in a set and lets create 16 sections of our 9 sections to imitate it fairly close:

Intro:
1. - 2.
2. - 3.
3. - 4.
4. - 5.

Drop:
5. - 7.
6. - 8.
7. - 9.
8. - 3.
9. - 7.
10. - 8.

Break:
11. - 1.
12. - 5.

2nd drop:
13. - 8.
14. - 9.
15. - 8.
16. - 6.

Done. Typical club track.

How to make it less typical? Use permutations. instead of usual 1234 play sections in different order, iteratively: 1243:

Intro:
1. - 2.
2. - 3.
4. - 5.
3. - 4.

Drop:
5. - 7.
6. - 8.
8. - 3.
7. - 9.
13. - 8.
14. - 9.
16. - 6.
15. - 8.
9. - 7.
10. - 8.

Break:
12. - 5.
11. - 1.

So this way you got typical drum and bass track for a MC wrapping, where there is beat consentration throughout whole track in a very long drop.

How to generalize the permutating structure? instead of numers 1-16 use quadruple numbering system. So it goes:

1 - 11
2 - 12
3 - 13
4 - 14
5 - 21
6 - 22
7 - 23
8 - 24
9 - 31
10 - 32
11 - 33
12 - 34
13 - 41
14 - 42
15 - 43
16 - 44

Easy.

Now when you got permutation, let say 1324 it is easy to create variation:

Copy four times:

1
3
2
4

1
3
2
4

1
3
2
4

1
3
2
4

and expand for another power of 4:

11
13
12
14

31
33
32
34

21
23
22
24

41
43
42
44

Then read out assigned sections of 16:

11 - 1
13 - 3
12 - 2
14 - 4

31 - 9
33 - 11
32 - 10
34 - 12

21 - 5
23 - 7
22 - 6
24 - 8

41 - 13
43 - 15
42 - 14
44 - 16

And then read out assigned sections of 9. So we got:

Intro:
1 - 2 - ambient with hihat tops
3 - 4 - ambient with beat and hihat tops
2 - 3 - ambient with beat
4 - 5 - ambient with bass
9 - 7 - beat, bass, subbas
11 - 1 - ambient
10 - 8 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops, riff or acid
12 - 5 - ambient with bass

Beat:
5 - 7 - beat, bass, subbas
7 - 9 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops 2
6 - 8 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops, riff or acid
8 - 3 - ambient with beat
13 - 8 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops, riff or acid
15 - 8 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops, riff or acid
14 - 9 - beat, bass subbas and hihat tops 2
16 - 6 - beat

Crazy? Hazy? Sophisticated? There's method in this crazines. If you analyse this in deep you can elaborate easily track structure for every permutation of numbers 1234:

1. 1234
2. 1243
3. 1324
4. 1342
5. 1423
6. 1432
7. 2134
8. 2143
9. 2314
10. 2341
11. 2413
12. 2431
13. 3124
14. 3142
15. 3214
16. 3241
17. 3412
18. 3421
19. 4123
20. 4132
21. 4213
22. 4231
23. 4312
24. 4321

This way one can realize that loop is only one step ahead of the full track. Sections doesn't have to start exactly every 16 bars - you can use pull outs - some track can start ahead in 3/4 or 2/3 of previous section or such.

When it farts - freeze your tracks. Or use modular workflow with every instrument in separate subproject. Render clips and pretend Fruity Tracks in Playlist.

Cheers!

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