Ok, I haven't done any work with loops before, so forgive my ignorance. I've just programmed my own beats and grooves using single hits from Battery/Kontakt kits and the like. For reference, I have Konkrete 1&2.
Anyhow, I was looking at Tremors and saw that the sounds are loops. I understand that they can be stretched to sync with the DAWs tempo. Also, if I understand correctly each complete groove is broken down into several seperate parts to form a whole.
My question is: what is the best way to work with loops? I have Cubase 5, Kontakt 4, and Battery 3. Kontakt, Cubase, and Battery have REX support as far as I know...which is the preferred method?
Sorry for the noob question, this is a new area for me that I don't quite understand.
Looking at Tremors....question in general about working with loops
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 148 posts since 3 Mar, 2006
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- KVRian
- 1001 posts since 6 Sep, 2005 from london
there's no 'best way', really - loops a re a very flexible way of working, and i think everyone has their own preferences.
When you buy a SC loop product, you get REX files as well as WAVs - so, you can drag a REX file into a sapler, like kontakt, and it will automatically map each slice ( single hit) to the keyboard, giving you a kit, and play it back sync'd to master tempo.
Or, drag the REX direct into your DAW window -and it will map the slices to the project tempo.
if you use Live, or another DAW with built in time-stretching/tempo syncing, the loops will just drop into your song.
As you said, Tremors loops come both as the full mixed loop, and separate stems - so you get hats, kick, snare etc as seperate tracks. This means you can mix the original loop as you wish, but also, you can mix different parts from different grooves together - this is very versatile and powerful. Put the hats from groove A with the snares from groove B.
So, all in all, there are many different ways you can work with Tremors.
When you buy a SC loop product, you get REX files as well as WAVs - so, you can drag a REX file into a sapler, like kontakt, and it will automatically map each slice ( single hit) to the keyboard, giving you a kit, and play it back sync'd to master tempo.
Or, drag the REX direct into your DAW window -and it will map the slices to the project tempo.
if you use Live, or another DAW with built in time-stretching/tempo syncing, the loops will just drop into your song.
As you said, Tremors loops come both as the full mixed loop, and separate stems - so you get hats, kick, snare etc as seperate tracks. This means you can mix the original loop as you wish, but also, you can mix different parts from different grooves together - this is very versatile and powerful. Put the hats from groove A with the snares from groove B.
So, all in all, there are many different ways you can work with Tremors.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 148 posts since 3 Mar, 2006
Thanks for the quick reply! I think I'll see if there are some included REX loops in Cubase I can play with and see if that is really the approach for me. I certainly appreciate you explaining the difference between using REX in Kontakt and directly in the DAW, I see now it's not a "one approach fits all" type of thing.
REX sounds like it solves a lot of problems...I have painful memories of the first (and last) loop sample CD I bought, where I had to record each loop into my Kurzweil K2000, go into the sample editor on the LCD and set the loop points, and then be locked in to whatever tempo the loop was recorded at. OR, take the time to record each hit, and try to use the included MIDI file to be able to change the tempo. Depending on the complexity that took me about 30 minutes to get a 4 bar loop going. Ok, to be fair that was 1996!
Anyway, mixing and matching the different grooves elements sounds very interesting, thanks for that info too.
REX sounds like it solves a lot of problems...I have painful memories of the first (and last) loop sample CD I bought, where I had to record each loop into my Kurzweil K2000, go into the sample editor on the LCD and set the loop points, and then be locked in to whatever tempo the loop was recorded at. OR, take the time to record each hit, and try to use the included MIDI file to be able to change the tempo. Depending on the complexity that took me about 30 minutes to get a 4 bar loop going. Ok, to be fair that was 1996!
Anyway, mixing and matching the different grooves elements sounds very interesting, thanks for that info too.
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- KVRian
- 1001 posts since 6 Sep, 2005 from london
Cubase also has the Loop Mash virtual instrument, which supposed to be good with loops, but I haven't tried it.
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- KVRAF
- 5806 posts since 8 May, 2008 from ssssskipping ......... I left you there
Another cool thing of using RX2 loops in Cubase and other hosts is that this type of loops respond to quantization like if they were midi data. So, you can apply in them the groove or "feel" you have extracted from your performance, another loop, Cubase's groove presets, etc.
Here you can find more grooves for Cubase (it's a projet with many midi tracks, each one with a different quantization; you need to save each of them as a quantization preset, one by one):
ftp://ftp.steinberg.net/../../Download/ ... Templates/
And remember to select the audio clip with the RX2 loop before applying the new quantization.
Oh, and the loops included in Cubase seem to be acidized WAVs, not RX2. You can find some free demos here and there if you want to try that format.
Here you can find more grooves for Cubase (it's a projet with many midi tracks, each one with a different quantization; you need to save each of them as a quantization preset, one by one):
ftp://ftp.steinberg.net/../../Download/ ... Templates/
And remember to select the audio clip with the RX2 loop before applying the new quantization.
Oh, and the loops included in Cubase seem to be acidized WAVs, not RX2. You can find some free demos here and there if you want to try that format.
