Midi Loop Song Construction

[jpoprock]

Hello! I’ve always wanted to know how to better manage my loops when construction a drum song… so here is my question!

Say you’re working in a 120bpm session and you find a loop you that you like for an intro that may be located in the 92bpm folder. It doesn’t matter because it’ll play at the session tempo. But say you choose “intro 2” from that 92bpm folder and drop it in the track. Then say you find a verse loop in the 112bpm folder under “closed hats” or something and you select “variation 8” and drop it in. So then you get to the chorus and browse for some loops that fit. After spending way too much testing out loops, you decide to go back to that “variation 8” loop and check out some loops before and after it to see if you can find something that’s a cool variation of that groove. But guess what? In every single folder under “closed hats”, you’ll find a Variation 8 loop, if there are in fact more than 8 loops. How do you know which folder the loop you original chose is in? Rather than going thru every single “tempo Straight 4/4 Verse Closed Hats folder”?? I hope I’m asking this question the right way. This is why I don’t hang out in “software forums”! It’s hard to ask questions when you’re not sure about the language!

Another question I have is this…

Say you’re working with Superior and loading loops into EZPlayer/SOLO to construct your “song”. Granted, I am still learning how to work with BOTH programs, but I have a “basic” understanding. Let’s say I’m working with the stock kit, and browsing loops. I drop intro and verse loops into the track, then find a cool “chorus” loop I want to us. I haven’t changed anything about my “kit”, yet when the chorus loop plays, suddenly the snare drum is different! What in the world could be causing this to happen? It’s like the loop sounds are overriding the kit that is loaded into Superior. I bet it’s simple, but I would LOVE to know how to get around this!!

I hope this all makes sense. I look forward to some responses.

Jason

EZD, Sup 2.0, C&V SDX, EZ Drummer, DKH Multi, Pro Tools 8, padKontrol, OSX 10.5.8

Topic

[jpoprock]

Hmm… I guess I stand corrected on the player issue. Yesterday when working with midi loops, the drum sounds were changing from loop to loop on occasion. Almost like different snares were being used. One would sound like it should, then in the next loop in my song, the snare would suddenly have a different pitch and a ring to it. But I loaded up that saved song from yesterday, and suddenly it’s working as it should? Very strange!

EZD, Sup 2.0, C&V SDX, EZ Drummer, DKH Multi, Pro Tools 8, padKontrol, OSX 10.5.8

[Scott]

How do you know which folder the loop you original chose is in?

If you’re using EZplayer and if you are dragging and dropping into an Arranger Track in EZplayer to construct your groove you can simply SHIFT+left click (on PC, I’m not exactly sure about Mac) on any of the grooves in the Arranger track and the browser will snap to the groove so you can see where it came from.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[jpoprock]

Thanks for the tip on the keyboard shortcut. I need to print the manual to EZ Tracker out and have a look. I’ve tried not to ask questions about the product cuz admittedly, I haven’t really dug into the manual yet. So until I do, I’m refraining from questions. I’m sure it’s all there. However, I was trying to copy and past some patterns around last night, and my right scroll was going CRAZY. I simply wanted to copy a verse to a different point in the song, (like say measure 40), and my scroll took off like crazy to the right and no matter which direction I moved my mouse, it kept going and going. I finally had to just paste what I had delete it. Haven’t figured it out just yet, but I have a fairly good feel for it. I need to investigate why the need for multiple layers? Seems to me that you just need one track/layer? Maybe it’s for stacking multiple midi performances in one big session? I don’t know… But I’ll look into it. No need to answer any questions about it until I read up on it more.

J

EZD, Sup 2.0, C&V SDX, EZ Drummer, DKH Multi, Pro Tools 8, padKontrol, OSX 10.5.8

[Scott]

However, I was trying to copy and past some patterns around last night, and my right scroll was going CRAZY. I simply wanted to copy a verse to a different point in the song, (like say measure 40), and my scroll took off like crazy to the right and no matter which direction I moved my mouse, it kept going and going.

This issue was fixed with the recently released update. Make sure you are running the latest version (1.0.6)

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[jpoprock]

Awesome! Thanks Scott! I didn’t even check to see if there was an update waiting for me.. and there was! Downloading it now…

EZD, Sup 2.0, C&V SDX, EZ Drummer, DKH Multi, Pro Tools 8, padKontrol, OSX 10.5.8

[Author]

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