Our Rising Sound » tips

Loop Tips: How a drummer plays with a rhythmic sequence

Kyle — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:46:26 +0000

In my mind the thing that makes or breaks a great live arrangement that uses a loop is the rhythm section. From a feel perspective nothing is better than when my drummer locks in tight with one of our loops that has some complex rhythmic sequencing. But using a loop with a heavy rhythmic sequence can be a daunting task for drummers to find space or complimentary groove. What this has led to in the worship loop scene are a lot loops that use very simple rhythmic components, like just a shaker or straight quarter beats, or more complex rhythmic sequences where the live drummer just cuts out and lets the loop take lead.

Very rarely do you hear great rhythmic sequences marrying with great complimentary live drumming. Here are some tips on what to think about when trying to bring rhythmic sequences and live drumming together.

Watch the ghost notes. If played right this will lock you in, if they clash however, this is what gives the feeling of the loop falling off the tracks.
Listen to your live drum pattern with the loop. Seems like a no brainer, but some drummers have a tendency to turn down the loop track in their headset so they can concentrate on their parts. Not a good idea. Also in rehearsal make sure to record yourself and play back your pattern with the loop.
Play consistent. When you find the groove, memorize that stinkin pattern! Practice until it’s impossible for you to get wrong. Then when you play live, no surprises please, play the pattern that works. Again, maybe a no brainer but I’ve heard and played with a lot of worship bands, it’s a problem.
Accented beats. You don’t have to avoid every beat that the loop hits. Choose which to accent, which you ghost around and which you leave totally open. Which notes you accent will have a lot to do with the actual instrumentation the loop uses on that beat. Sometimes accenting a weird digitized snare with the live snare can give you monster snare hits. I intentionally program my loops with some samples that can be accented live.

Helio Sequence inspired me to start messing with loops. They have only 2 guys in the band and their live shows are incredible. Here’s a great example from them on how to lock in a killer drum pattern with a complex rhythmic sequence.

Guitar players build their sound – advice from James Duke

Kyle — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:38:16 +0000

Recently I had the good pleasure of interviewing James Duke (guitar player for John Mark McMillan) as well as review his new release from his new project called “All the Bright Lights.” That record is largely instrumental and is a collection of incredible guitar tones and textures. So when I saw a blog post from James discussing how he gets his tones, it got my attention.

James gives a lot of great advice in his post and I encourage you to read the entire post, but he opens up the post with some great general advice to guitar players.

“I have gotten a lot of emails lately asking for advice about how to get good guitar sounds. A lot of times I get asked something like “I have all the same stuff as you but i’m not getting the same sound for some reason”. I try to tell them , nicely, that they can buy everything I have, but it’s not going to make them sound like me. If that was the case I would have all of The Edge’s gear. And all of Jimmy Page’s gear. and I would have bought the same microphone as Bono…

I can play through anything and still sound like me. I can play through a line 6 spyder amp and still sound like me. I don’t enjoy that, mainly because a modeling amp just doesn’t respond the way a nice tube amp does. But I can make it work.”

What’s my loop making process? Tips for you loop makers

Kyle — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:43:13 +0000

Recently I received this very good question from a reader:

“I was wondering what your process was in taking an existing worship song, and making a loop to go with it? I enjoy creating loops from scratch, but have a hard time making them for existing worship songs.”

First off I try to only do loops for songs that I feel inspiration to do and to re-arrange in some way. So before I start programming I usually have some concept or vibe already planned for that song. The exception to this rule is when I’m doing a custom loop, many times I go into those dry and that can be more of a struggle. But either way here’s what my process generally looks like.

1. Start with the main melodic hook and build out

I usually just keep looping over the main melodic hook and work with it until I find the instrumentation and rhythm that feels right. This is where I experiment and try and go wild creatively. If I have any bit of advise to give it’s chase your crazy idea. My best loops are all due to me chasing a creative idea that I thought might end up being a waste of time. There’s a fork in the road where I think, “Is this just going to be too crazy? Is it worth the time working on this when I might just throw it all away and start over?” And the answer is YES it’s worth the time! Don’t be safe, chase the idea, see it through and see where it takes you.

2. Peel back the main hook for an interesting intro

So now I’ll have a main hook section that has rich instrumentation and probably a good number of tracks. Now I want to see how I can build into that through the introduction. Sometimes that may mean opening with a distant pad, or right into the drum loop with big kick, or some keys or whatever. I usually try to layer slowly and really pace the buildup of the arrangement. You may have noticed a lot of my loops have extended intro sections(I know that’s a CCM sin), I like to take my time there and not rush that. Many times I’ll build the intro so I get to the main hook section before Verse 1 then cut it out. A good example of this is my loop for New Creation, verse 1 doesn’t come until 1:27.

3. Change up the verses on repeats

Typically the verses in my loops are pretty sparse, I try and leave space there. But I do like to build/change the instrumentation on repeats. So verse 2 may have an added element from verse 1, and verse 3 may have another or change completely. In my opinion this can be the difference between a good arrangement and a great arrangement. How you build your verses instrumentally can really move the arrangement along and make it less formulaic.

4. Contrast in the bridge

Bridges for me are the moments you contrast the rest of your instrumentation and you mix it up rhythmically. Of course that isn’t true for every song but typically that’s what I’m thinking when I get to the bridge section. You’ll see that clearly in loops like True Love. I love to introduce new sounds at this point and then mix them into the last chorus & outro. This sets up a nice crescendo instrumentally.

5. Now that you know, forget it…rigid formulas suck

The good thing about formulas is you build off previous experience and improve. The bad thing about formulas is if they never evolve and change with you then they become calculated and unauthentic. So now that you know some of the processes and strategies that I employ, you can throw them in your tool belt and choose to employ them or you can just throw them all away. Everyone has their own process, everyone has there own music sensibility, so what works for me may not work for others and what I think works for me maybe others think really doesn’t work for me either.

I hope this has helped but at the very least, I tried to answer the question honestly. Well there is one more thing. I usually loop late at night, in a dimly lit room with candles and a cold Pacifico. If you’re offended by that please pretend I’m pretending.

As always you can browse all my released loops at http://loops.ourrisingsound.com/ and download for your usage.

Video: How to use Reason’s Spider Audio Merger/Splitter

Kyle — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:11:14 +0000

The loop in this video is a custom loop for Misty Edward’s “You Won’t Relent” and can be purchased/downloaded here.

Video: How to create the perfect fadeout in Reason

Kyle — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:44:51 +0000

The loop in the video can be downloaded here.

Beat slicing tutorial from Trifonic (Video)

Kyle — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:50:01 +0000

This is a cool tutorial on some techniques to slice up drum patterns in interesting ways. Great because it’s tool agnostic, meaning you can use the same technique in whatever application you are using, Abelton, Login, Reason, etc… Click through to his vimeo account to see more tutorials.

Trifonic: Editing Beats – Part 1 from Next Step Audio on Vimeo.

[via CreateDigitalMusic]

Tip: iPhone SPL dB Meter App

Kyle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:18:13 +0000

There aren’t too many more touchy issues than volume when it comes to worship in the church. Usually the chain of events goes something like, lady in church complains to pastor it’s too loud, pastor tells the sound man to turn it down, sound man gets defensive and says he can’t control the mix with how loud the amps are on stage, sound man yells at the guitar player and guitar player says he can’t get the tone he wants with the amp turned to 1. Then more and more barriers are placed around the drummer for good measure.

Sound familiar? This is where a good SPL dB meter comes into play. It gives you a reading of how loud you are and gives you something consistent to set the mix to. They can range in price from $40 to $250, and for many churches it’s just not worth the money. Well in comes the iPhone and a nice, accurate SPL dB meter for $0.99. You can’t really beat that.

I used it at my church and we got a reading that the pastor was happy with and now we know from week to week what to set to. I’d highly encourage you to get some kind of dB meter, but this iPhone SPL dB meter certainly gets the job done. It even has some configuration options for using external mics, but comes pre-configured for the iPhone internal mic.

A beginner’s guide to loops

Kyle — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:04:30 +0000

I ran a recent poll here on ORS that asked where your team was at with looping. 25% of you said you’d like to start using loops but don’t know how to get started. This post is intended to address that and hopefully get you some detailed information on how to get going. First here are some articles to help you decide whether you should even consider using loops:

If you’re wanting to get started looping here are some articles helping you with that process:

8 steps to configure Ableton with loop and vocal cue tracks
Configuring Ableton Live to run your click tracks – The link above showed you a more comprehensive loop setup that runs your loops and click. But if you wanted to just use Ableton for running your clicks, this is a great tutorial for that, as well as just general Ableton Live info.
How to send click tracks to monitors and not mains
How to transpose a loop in Reason
How to create your own click track in Garage Band

Some sites where you can download loops:

www.OurRisingSound.com – here of course
www.themonobox.com – Matt hasn’t been posting for a long time, but he does have some good loops and tutorials still available.
www.sacredloops.org – Again, not much content here, but hey there aren’t many people doing this kind of thing.
Bwacks Forums – good place to ask questions on loops

If you have questions that none of these articles and tutorials address please don’t hesitate to ask. If you have any suggestions for loop links above let me know and I’ll add to the list.

How to get notified first of great music gear deals

Kyle — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:09:04 +0000

I’m always on the search for music gear that I want/need/lust after. I also have nowhere close to the amount of money I need to get the gear I thirst after. Craigslist is an obvious place to start when looking for local gear that people are trying to part with. The problem is so are thousands of other people in your area so the chances of you searching just at the right time to score the right gear at the right price aren’t all that great. Enter Craigslist RSS feeds.

1. Search in Craigslist for whatever specific gear you’re looking for

2. Copy RSS feed for search criteria

3. Add it to your RSS reader of choice

You can see that I have a few saved searches and I check everyday to see if any new items come up. I’m usually first to respond when they do. Although now maybe a few more Phoenix people are hip to Craigslist RSS feeds and I have some competition on my hands.

In any case this is a great way to score good deals. Happy shopping.

8 steps to configure Ableton with loop and vocal cue tracks

Kyle — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:36:08 +0000

A vocal cue track is an audio track set to a click, and usually ran along side of a loop, that is sent to your in ear monitors only and serves as a helper track, guiding you inside your arrangement. The primary purpose is to keep the band in sync with the arrangement and is especially important when using loops. If you get off the loop disaster can come quick and hard.

You can create a vocal cue track in your audio recording software of choice. What I do is just import my loop to GarageBand, create a new vocal cue track and record along side the loop, then just export the vocal cue track by itself. If you are running integrated clicks inside your loop, that is panning a click in the left channel with the loop in the right, then you’d just add the vocal cue track to the left click channel as well. I don’t do this because I use Ableton and it handles my click track dynamically which gives me more flexibility. Once you have a loop track and/or vocal cue track here’s what you do in Ableton, this is a complete tutorial of running loops and vocal cue tracks in Ableton.

1. In Session View add your loop track to the Audio channel

2. Add additional Audio Channel for vocal cue track

3. Add vocal cue track to accompanying loop “scene”

4. Set launch tempo for scene

5. Set proper audio out channels for click, loop and vocal cue tracks

Click on the image below to see it in full size. This diagram shows a 3 song set configured.

6. Turn on the click track

Pay no attention to the BPM counter next to the click track, it will change when you launch from the Master launch tempo.

7. Configure loop audio tracks for proper playback

Here is where some complication comes in. You can enable warping so you can do creative things with tempo, also with dynamically repeating portions of the song, key changes and other nifty things. I will show you both methods below. If you have a loop that you aren’t doing any dynamic repeating, key changes or tempo changes, you basically just want to play the track as is and play along, then do this for both the loop and vocal cue track(click images for full size):

If you have a track that needs warping you do something like I’ve done here for Gloria track. I am modulating the track up 1 full step:

8. And finally…launch the track

You are off and running with loop and/or vocal cue tracks. Let me know if you have any questions on this, if you found this useful please consider tweeting, linking to it on your blog, stumbling, digging…all those links are below. Good luck!

Review: ‘Tempo’ iPhone App – portable click track

Kyle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:00:03 +0000

I recently downloaded the Tempo iPhone App for $0.99. It has quite a few features for a little 99 cent app. When you first launch the app you see this screen:

First impression is not that pretty of a UI. Color scheme isn’t my favorite, not soft on the eyes. But they do present you with all the basic functionality you’d expect out of a click generator. You can set your time signature, beat type, volume controls and setting the tempo either through tapping or explicitly setting the BPM. The tapping feature seems a little sensitive, but after a while you can get the tempo average to mellow out and give you a decently accurate setting.

The only other screen available is the settings screen:

The Animate Meter Change is kind of a worthless setting. Just turns off a very brief animation when switching time signatures. Play mode is pretty cool. Overlay mode allows you to play a song from your iTunes library and run the App on top of it. So you can tap out a time to a song in your library. That’s pretty darn handy. Sound set just changes the audio that’s played for the click. Digital is the best sound they have I think. The bummer with the drum kit sound set is they don’t offset high-hat and snare based on the time sig. Both high hat and snare just play together on every beat. That’s not really what you want when using a drum kit click track. Tuner feature is kind of nice, just plays the note tone. Maybe in a pinch it could be handy. Would be much better if it read tones from the mic of course.

The biggest annoyance with the app is stability. You can make it crash every time if you start the click track, then navigate into settings and change some setting. So they have some work to do on bugs. Practically I think the best uses I see for it now is tapping out tempos in your library and having a portable click track for rehearsals and laying down scratch ideas. Here’s the final score based on a 5 point score, 5 being the best and 1 being the worst.

Appearance: 3

Features: 4

Usability: 4

Price: 4

Stability: 2

Overall: 3.4 / 5

How to sync two live bands

Kyle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:00:17 +0000

Bryan Nelson at Vertical Resonator recently did a post showing how his church actually syncs two live bands in 2 different rooms for their worship service. He leads worship at Topeka Bible Church and is really doing some great creative stuff. The two bands play the same set, at the exact same time in 2 different rooms and are forced to do this due to the bleed through in the rooms they are in. It’s a really awesome and interesting setup. Here’s the full diagram showing the setup.

Recording your worship on a shoe-string budget

Kyle — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:34:21 +0000

In the last few months my church, Life Connection Church, has successfully setup a recording strategy that allows us to capture and track each channel before it gets to the board. This has many advantages over capturing board mixes. I wanted to share with you what we’ve done on truly a shoe-string budget.

What’s wrong with just recording the board mix?

The problems with a board mix are typically quality and flexibility. Starting with quality, your house mix is for just that, your house. This isn’t usually ideal for what sounds good in isolation(headphones) because you’re not mixing for isolation. You’ll find this especially true when mixing for small venues and have to deal with unruly stage volume.

Flexibility is lost when you just have a stereo recording and no tracks available to work with in post-production. There’s not many places to go with a stereo recording, you can do some EQ’ing perhaps but it’s all global, not individual instruments or vocals. So you can see how this impacts quality level.

How to capture tracks before the board

There are plenty of ways to do this but I’m going to show how we did it. For just over $400 we purchased the PreSonus FireStudio Project firewire recording interface. This has 8 XLR inputs and can be daisy chained with more units to satisfy however many channels you need to capture. So right from the snake we take the channels we want to capture and insert into the PreSonus and then use a 1/4″ patch cables out of the PreSonus unit into the board. Effectively using the PreSonus as an intercept unit, it does no processing (outside of the pre-amp) just passes the signal on to the board. So as far as the FOH is concerned there’s no change besides gain level with the PreSonus preamps.

One hurdle we had to clear was we didn’t have the funds to purchase more than one unit, yet we have about 15 channels in use that we needed to capture for live recording. Here’s where we had to get creative. 8 of those 15 channels were for the drums. So what we did was take the drum sub channel out into the PreSonus so now we take the board mix of the drums and have 1 channel of drums on the PreSonus. We have our drums on their own stereo sub channel on the board so this was as easy as taking the 1/4″ sub outs on the back of the board and routing them to the PreSonus. This isn’t ideal for the same reasons board mixes aren’t ideal, but has worked ok for us. Going forward we’d like to buy another unit dedicated for the drums.

What to use for recording the captured tracks

Being able to capture the tracks is one thing, but then what do you capture them to is the other part of the equation. There are numerous software recording tools you could use. PreSonus comes with Cubase but there’s also better options like Logic and Pro Tools. We use a free option, Garage Band for the mac. Eventually we’ll get another unit and then switch to Logic but presently for these demo mixes and for sermon podcasting this is suiting our quality needs just fine.

An important feature here is that this unit works whether you are plugged into a computer and recording or not. No rewiring is necessary when switching between the two.

What’s the bottom line cost?

PreSonus FireStudio Project = $425
1/4″ patch snake = $35
Recording software = $0 (Garage Band)

Total Cost: $460

You can listen to some of the mixes from our setup here and more recently here. You can hear the improvement in quality from the older sample to the more recent one as we get more use with the unit.

How to transpose a loop in Reason

Kyle — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:53:17 +0000

I receive a lot of questions and requests for transposing my loops so I thought I might as well give a tutorial on how it’s done. It’s really quite simple to do in Reason, so let’s get started. This tutorial assumes you have Reason and have opened some project.

1. Select pitched midi notes

You want to select all the pitched midi notes, you do not need or want to select non-pitched midi notes like drum kits or percussion instruments. For those changing the midi note actually changes the instrument. So usually what I’ll do is organize my project so that non-pitched instruments are all at the bottom or top to make selecting all the others quite easy.

After drawing a box around all your midi notes it should look something like this:

2. Set the semi-tones in Tool Window

In the Tool Window click the “Tools” menu item. Then set the semi-tone adjustment you want to make. A semi-tone is a half step. So if you want to raise the key a full step you’d set the semi-tones to 2, if you want to lower the key 2 full steps you’d set the semi-tones to -4. A semi-tone level of 0 would be no adjustment, it’s where you are currently.

3. Click apply

Now all that’s left is clicking Apply and you’re all set.

Video: How not to use a microphone

Kyle — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:14:14 +0000

We like to give tips on gear, software, songwriting, loops, you name it. Something often overlooked is how to properly hold and speak/sing into a microphone. Here is a demonstration on how not to use a microphone.

How to create your own click track in Garage Band

Kyle — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:42:47 +0000

I created a screencast to show you just how easy it is to create your own click tracks in Garage Band. You might also be interested in my post on an OSX BPM widget that lets you tap out the BPM for songs in your iTunes library. You can click through to the video on Vimeo to see it in HD where you can make out the menu options a bit better.

How to create your own click track in Garage Band from Our Rising Sound on Vimeo.

How do you send a click track to monitors and not mains?

Kyle — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:14:34 +0000

Micah D. sent in this question on the “How to introduce click tracks to your band” post.

How do I put the click track through monitors [and] the loop … through the main speakers?

Good question. The goal is to get the loop playing through the mains and available to monitor mixes but the click only in monitors and not through the mains. Getting the loop to play through the mains is just like getting any signal to the mains so I’ll assume that part needs no explanation and focus on getting a click isolated in monitor mixes and not mains. There are a couple ways to do this, I’ll start with the best and most flexible way that I know of.

Route the click signal to the board on an isolated channel. How exactly you do this depends on what is generating your click. In my case I take the left channel from my audio interface which carries the click signal generated by Ableton Live. The right channel carries the loop signal. Ableton makes it easy to split your click signal. In my upcoming posts on how to create your own click tracks I’ll show how to go about doing this.
Take the click channel’s fader all the way down. This of course turns it off in the main house mix.
Use your pre-fade aux sends on the board to control monitor levels. In order for your monitors to pickup the click with the fader all the way down these sends must be on a pre-fade send. That basically means that the fader doesn’t come into play at all in the aux send level. Post-fade takes into account where the fader is at.

Wikipedia does a better job at explaining pre/post fade aux sends:

The Auxiliary send routes a split of the incoming signal to an auxiliary bus which can then be used with external devices. Auxiliary sends can either be pre-fader or post-fader, in that the level of a pre-fade send is set by the Auxiliary send control, whereas post-fade sends depend on the position of the channel fader as well. Auxiliary sends can be used to send the signal to an external processor such as a reverb, which can then be routed back through another channel or designated auxiliary returns on the mixer. These will normally be post-fader. Pre-fade auxiliary sends can be used to provide a monitor mix to musicians onstage, this mix is thus independent of the main mix.

What to watch out for?

You want to listen for channel bleed through where your click is still audible in the house even though the fader is all the way down. We recently had this issue and the cause, besides the board being to blame, is how hot a signal was being sent to the board. The click channel was clipping, so we fixed our gain structure and brought it down a lot and that helped our bleed.

Other options: In ear monitor pack Mix-In

Another way of doing this is using the Mix-In input on your in ear monitor packs. Most in ear monitoring packs have a 1/4″ in. input for mixing in some auxillary signal. You could use a multi-channel headphone amp to carry the click signal and then take the 1/4″ in. outs on each channel to all your monitor packs.

This isn’t a great way of doing this if not for complexity sake then for the cabling mess, but maybe if you had limited aux sends on your board this could come in handy.

I hope that helps.

How to setup your Mac laptop for live audio

Kyle — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:20:08 +0000

This site talks a lot of using loops in worship and I wanted to take a minute and talk about how to setup your laptop for playing any kind of audio live off your Mac. This posts focuses on mac because if you are relying on a windows machine to play any kind of live audio then you’ve already violated rule #1 which is:

When using a computer for any important, enjoyable or useful purpose make sure it’s a Mac.

If you’re still reading I’ll assume you haven’t violated rule #1 and congratulate you on your complete salvation. The 7 steps below will make sure that only your intended audio will be played on not any system alerts, make sure your system is isolated and configure display settings. It won’t get into specific application settings or audio interface settings. I’ll dive into those in separate posts for a specific application. This is a general post for all apps running on a Mac.

1. Quit all non-essential applications

Make sure you “quit” and not close.

2. Turn off Wi-Fi (no network connection)

If your machine has a network connection all sorts of background processes will fire, like MobileMe syncing, Time Machine backups, etc… You don’t want any CPU diverted from your audio apps.

3. Turn off system audio alerts

You don’t want any audio sent to any speaker set that isn’t coming from your main audio app. Goto System Preferences and select Sound.

Uncheck all 3 system alerts options.

Even if you have your system alerts selected to play through internal speakers instead of your audio interface, you still don’t want these alerts to play.

4. Set display settings

You don’t want your display going into a screen saver or sleeping during a live performance. Set your screensaver to never turn on by going to System Preferences and clicking “Desktop & Screen Saver”.

Now set your Energy Saving settings so your display doesn’t just shut off.

Remember to set your display settings back after you’re done performing so you don’t kill your display. You need to have a screen saver and the energy saver on normally.

5. Turn off Bluetooth

Another step that isolates your machine from other devices. You don’t want file transfer requests popping up in the middle of a set.

6. Disable remote controls

A common trick to play on someone with a Mac is to mess up their presentation with the apple remote. If you need to use your apple remote live than pair the remote so only your remote will work. Otherwise if you don’t need it, just easiest to turn it off.

Go into System Preferences and click on Security.

Disable remotes.

7. Configure application to use your audio interface

There are a lot of audio interfaces out there to use with your laptop. Just make sure in your application’s settings that you configure it to use your audio interface.

At this point you should be safe from all unexpected sounds, connections from other devices, malicious remote jokes and unexpected display screen savers and sleeping.

Tool Tip: BPM Counter widget for Mac OSX

Kyle — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:17:46 +0000

When working with loops and click tracks one thing you need to know and preferrably know quickly is the beats per minute(BPM) of the song. I use this widget constantly to quickly get the BPM of a song I’m listening to in iTunes.

All you need to do is install it, then play the song in iTunes you want the BPM for, open your dashboard and tap the drum set along with the song and it will display the BPM. Then you can click the +Music icon on the right to save that into the song data in iTunes. Quick and easy and as accurate as you are of a mouse clicker. The only down side I’ve found is that it can get pretty CPU intensive if left open for long durations along with iTunes. iTunes ends up eating up more and more CPU. So watch out for that and if that’s happening make sure to close the BPM widget after using.

You can download it here.

Our Rising Sound » tips

Loop Tips: How a drummer plays with a rhythmic sequence

Related posts

Guitar players build *their* sound – advice from James Duke

Related posts

What’s my loop making process? Tips for you loop makers

1. Start with the main melodic hook and build out

2. Peel back the main hook for an interesting intro

3. Change up the verses on repeats

4. Contrast in the bridge

5. Now that you know, forget it…rigid formulas suck

Related posts

Video: How to use Reason’s Spider Audio Merger/Splitter

Related posts

Video: How to create the perfect fadeout in Reason

Related posts

Beat slicing tutorial from Trifonic (Video)

[via CreateDigitalMusic]

Related posts

Tip: iPhone SPL dB Meter App

Related posts

A beginner’s guide to loops

Some sites where you can download loops:

Related posts

How to get notified first of great music gear deals

1. Search in Craigslist for whatever specific gear you’re looking for

2. Copy RSS feed for search criteria

3. Add it to your RSS reader of choice

Related posts

8 steps to configure Ableton with loop and vocal cue tracks

1. In Session View add your loop track to the Audio channel

2. Add additional Audio Channel for vocal cue track

3. Add vocal cue track to accompanying loop “scene”

4. Set launch tempo for scene

5. Set proper audio out channels for click, loop and vocal cue tracks

6. Turn on the click track

7. Configure loop audio tracks for proper playback

8. And finally…launch the track

Related posts

Review: ‘Tempo’ iPhone App – portable click track

Related posts

How to sync two live bands

Related posts

Recording your worship on a shoe-string budget

What’s wrong with just recording the board mix?

How to capture tracks before the board

What to use for recording the captured tracks

What’s the bottom line cost?

Total Cost: $460

Related posts

How to transpose a loop in Reason

1. Select pitched midi notes

2. Set the semi-tones in Tool Window

3. Click apply

Related posts

Video: How not to use a microphone

Related posts

How to create your own click track in Garage Band

Related posts

How do you send a click track to monitors and not mains?

What to watch out for?

Other options: In ear monitor pack Mix-In

Related posts

How to setup your Mac laptop for live audio

1. Quit all non-essential applications

2. Turn off Wi-Fi (no network connection)

3. Turn off system audio alerts

4. Set display settings

5. Turn off Bluetooth

6. Disable remote controls

7. Configure application to use your audio interface

Related posts

Tool Tip: BPM Counter widget for Mac OSX

Related posts

Guitar players build their sound – advice from James Duke