From Loop to Track: Part 1 – Making a Good Loop
Congratulations – you have the bangin’est loop this side of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, it can only play so many times before it gets stale. This is the conundrum of all loop-based music. How do you keep it fresh for five to eight minutes?
That is exactly what we are looking at in this two-part series, From Loop to Track. This week’s topic?
The loop.
The loop is the foundation of the track. Everything that happens during the track is derived from and added to the loop. Once you have it, you can begin the process of arranging that loop into a track. But before we dive into structures and arrangement techniques, let’s examine what making a good loop looks like.
It Starts With the Loop
A solid loop may actually often feel as though it’s missing something. That’s okay. More than okay, that is what you want – you want to leave space for your leading elements that will move the track along. One mistake some newer producers make is creating a singular leading element and confusing it for part of the foundational loop. That’s all well and good, and perhaps it works sometimes, but often you need somewhere for your song to go once that initial groove gets established.
So while you are developing your loop, it may help to think of it as three distinct loops:
- Foundation Loop – This is the unchanging base line of a track. It’s your rhythm section – drums, percussion, bass.
- Loop A elements – The lead and support elements that play over the fountational loop. For example, a vocal line (talking, singing, chops)
- Loop B elements – The secondary lead and/or support elements that play over the foundational loop. For example, a synth line
The key here is to have distinctive sections to your music in order to create contrasts. In jazz and popular music, you can think of these as A and B sections or verses and choruses. Of course many electronic genres we work in do not have these massively distinctive sections, but as listeners we want to hear changes. We want novelty. This is why even the best loops fall flat after about two to four repetitions.
Handling the Loop
As producers, it is our job to keep things interesting. It is our duty to keep stagnation at bay every step of the way. Stagnation usually sets in after about two to four repetitions. You can feel it when the beat gets boring. Fortunately, there are a myriad of techniques for staving off stagnation. These elements can be summed up as fills or refreshers.
Fills and refreshers can be drum fills, pulling the kick, blips and bloops, stabs – anything that OCCURS WITH IRREGULARITY. If a fill comes in every four bars, it is no longer special. It only means your loop is that much longer. The key here is irregularity. You are breaking up the monotony of the loop by introducing unique elements – one-shots – at key points to refresh the beat and retain interest.
Finally, you need to create and/or identify your leading elements. These are the main elements that carry the listeners’ attention throughout the track. Minimal productions may feature longer gaps in their leading elements, while high-energy productions often feature few gaps, if any. Minimal producers also often subtly highlight mundane looped elements, identifying them as the lead elements of a sparse track.
The goal when it comes to arranging is to carry your listeners’ attention with leading elements from the beginning to the end. To a certain degree, this philosophy should also apply to the reel-in/reel-out sections that book-end the song proper.
Conclusion
It is important to develop strong loops in this phase of the sketching process in order to have a banging finished product. Take your time developing the groove. Choose your sounds with care and focus. And don’t forget your leading lines!
Next week in part 2, we will get into song structures. What makes electronic music structures different from traditional song structures? What do electronic and traditional music have in common? Probably more than you think.
Until then,
-Chris
AudioMunk
Want part 2? Check it out here!
