PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum loops

I have the 2021 pro, there does'nt seem to be any bass looks included, is that correct?
Is it possible to make my own loops?

According to the PG Music Website, the Pro package contains over 1000 loops, but it doesn't state if any are Bass Loops. There is a Drums and Bass loop (_DRUMNBS).

Can you use MIDI for that?

Hello Roycol, I recently did a fresh install of the 2021 Pro for Windows. In the loops window, I typed in the keyword "bass" into the filter string and there were some results for bass drums, dubstep, hip-hop, house-techno, and other miscellaneous genres. I then searched for bass in the loops of the 2021 UltraPAK version and only identified drum loops in various genres as well, no bass instrument loops. Generally the loops are drum tracks.

It's very possible to make your own with Real Track bass.

I don't have time at the moment to tell you a step by step method, but it's not really any harder than creating a full arrangement. You'll just need to set things up differently than for a full arrangement--bar length, repeats, endings, etc. as well as your usual entries of key, tempo, and any groove alterations like pushes, shots, holds, rests. Render with Acid info.

It depends largely on your DAW how the resulting small segments will be loaded, but you should be able to paint them in similar to any other loop.

The downside MAY be that you MIGHT have to take the extra step of quantizing, but with bass, I'm thinking probably not so much. As long as they "loop", that human element shouldn't be more "detrimental" than the way they play in a larger arrangement. The up side is you can made 6+ with every song file by just loading a bass on every track that will accept one AND you get to set your own key and tempo.

Things have changed dramatically since I was using them a lot, but all of the above steps may well be easier than digging up bass loops from a 3rd party folder.

See what you can accomplish.

If you're looking to make your own custom audio loops, we actually have a tutorial here that you may find useful as well:

https://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_loops.htm

Well, this is a fun post and both methods are easier than the convoluted way I've done loops in the past so my interest in making custom loops is re-energized. Thanks for Roycol's question and both great replies.

Tangmo, If you do find time, a detailed step by step post would be appreciated. I never knew to use the StyleMaker to isolate the audio snips and that is pretty convenient and I currently import my saved WAV snippets into RealBand and use the Save as Loop function from RealBand to acidize and save to the correct file directory. Curious to hear what you do.

Charlie

OK, Charlie. No pictures, but here's how I could get a real track bass to PLAY a loop. Stay tuned for associated failure, however.

Edit/Song Form/Settings (for this song)/ UNCHECK generate two bar ending.

Options/ Preferences/count-in/select no count in.

Number of bars (my test was TWO)

Number of choruses (ONE)

Selected a RT bass in key and tempo. Soloed it in the mixer. Generated and regenerated until I had a pattern I liked.

Rendered as .wav with no lead-in/count and with Acid info.

Here's where failure reared it's ugly head. The resultant .wav always had an extra bar of silence at the end. So I took the .wav to RealBand and figured out your instructions, selected the two good bars and created a loop. Loaded that loop into Reaper and it painted in beautifully and would have played as long as I had kept painting.

So I would have to caution from my own experiment that it may be impossible to create a loop from start to finish within BIAB from Realtracks. It is also very possible that I did not set all options necessary to render only my two bars and nothing but my two bars. You can certainly get RT's to play "looping" within BIAB.

So what's the take-away, Charlie?

1. Is it possible to create loops with RealTracks? Absolutely. I hope that was never in question.

2. Is BIAB proper capable of creating loops? In my experience, it got me almost all the way there. I could set my own key, tempo, feel, and I even added a 1/8th push to the first beat of the second bar, so "groove" adjustments are also possible. I could hear it "looped". The problem came when rendering. I had to go outside the BIAB program to do an extra step on the file I rendered out of BIAB.

4. Is RB perhaps a better option for doing all the above in one program? Maybe it is. I suspect strongly that it is. Though I keep RB up-to-date, I haven't spent much time in it. Without question it is a very good tool for the actual creation of finished loops. Assuming RB can do all of those things that BIAB can do mentioned above, then it very likely IS the better option.

5. Imagination is the limit in loop creation. "The Box" can give you a lot of things that "The Box" was not principally designed to do. Use "The Box" to help you think outside the box.

I'm hoping at least for a C mark on this explanation, Charlie. Sorry for the lack of graphics.

I'd be interested in any other's experience, especially when it comes to the possibility of convincing BIAB to render without that extra bar at the end.

What I got:

https://soundcloud.com/user-47797156/2-4-120-cmajor-loop-x4/s-nRe9Wy8qObQ

Time spent--about 1 hour 15 minutes. Without hiccups? Probably 15 minutes. With lots more practice (or with RB)? Likely less than half that. And I'm slow.

Have fun.

Just for fun, to illustrate my point #5 above with an extremely extreme example, this is an old thing I did many years ago in Acid Pro. Except for the vocals, this was made with 100% Sonic Foundry Acid stock loops. It's about 20 years old. Even the "lyrics" were inspired by what seemed to be emanating from the sonic gnarlification happening. "What do you think of that mouse, boys?"

I "heard" another lyric in the second half, but chose not to sing it. The perfect punk lyric for Acid Planet. Good times.

It's unlikely you will like it, but here it is. I didn't make it to be liked. I made it to be annoying and to poke some holes in computer-music pomposity.

https://soundcloud.com/user-47797156/beets-for-mr-buckley-new-master

Thanks for posting the directions. For a 20 year old song, the song was light years ahead of its time.... It sounded very much like computer music.