Apple Logic 9: Adding Variation to your Beats and Loops

Logic Pro 9 comes bundled with a huge number of loops and presets and patterns for it's drum synth/sampler, Ultrabeat and the EXS24. One of the problem with using loops (and even your own recordings  

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Discussion

Hamish H
Hi Rounik

This is great stuff, and I use the 'slicing' method a lot - especially with samples where the whole drum kit has been recorded.

Another method I like is a bit more hands on, and makes me feel like I'm 'playing' the loops. I thought you might appreciate it:

Use two samples of the same drum kit (generally you can find variations of the same drum kit in sample packs). Put the samples on two different audio tracks (eg channel 1 and channel 2).

Assign the output of each audio track to a bus (eg bus 13) then create a new audio track (channel 3) with bus 13 as the input. Set the new audio track to record.

Loop the samples on channel 1 and 2 for about a minute or so, match the volume levels as best you can, then mute one channel.

Set up an external controller to allow you to swap the mute from channel 1 to 2 by pushing a button. - I use a Novation Zero

Go back to the start and start recording onto channel 3. Then use an external controller to swap the 'mute' from one channel to another. With some practice you can get it sounding like the drummer is improvising fills.

record all the different variations that you like!

(PS this is really great if you like a bit of 'human error' in your mixes)

Thanks for all your advice Rounik I look forward to your next post!

Hamish
Rounik
This is a great technique Hamish! Thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to trying this out :)

btw, if you have any suggestions for future posts (Logic, Final Cut, OSX, iLife, Photoshop, etc...) do let me know :)

Thanks again!

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