Fast & Easy Percussion Loops

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Here's a great way to make percussion loops for use in BiaB.

Open RealBand. Set the tempo to something appropriate, say 100bpm. Select one, two or four bars, whatever is appropriate for the percussion you are going to use.

Now generate a realdrums track such as BossaRockPerc^, variation 2 - Congas. There are quite a few RD tracks featuring percussion variations and there are a few that I created and are available from my profile.

Test the short track created by RD and tweak it as you see fit. Now just save the track as a wav file in the \bb\RealTracks\Loops folder.

To use it as a loop, right click an empty BiaB track and click 'Select a loop for this track'. Instant percussion loop, easy as that.

Remember, you can double, or halve the tempo easily by changing the tempo from 100 (the tempo we created the loop at) to 200 or 50. Similarly, you can change the beats from 4 (for a one bar loop) to 8 or 2.

How would these be different/better from what BIAB would generate?

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How would these be different/better from what BIAB would generate?

You can add them to any empty track. You aren't restricted to the drums track. That means you can add congas or mixed percussion even though you have an existing drum track. Plus, with little effort you can mix congas with other percussion which you can't do with RDs alone.

I guess I am still not understanding the concept and value of loops. Maybe it's because I try to make every song very different from the one before it and don't want the same drum passages in multiple songs. Or maybe I truly just don't get the concept.

You can always select a number of bars and generate from a Real Band snippet, so the concept of "add them to any empty track" is again something I don't understand.

He's talking BiaB, not RB. Track restrictions in BiaB.
And I don't think the idea is to use the same loop in different songs, they are a quick easy way to make repetitive parts in the same song.

Oh. I just cut and paste.

Cut and Paste was a decent option up until the new version. Now, if they are labeled as loops (as opposed to cut/paste) they will follow the chord changes in the song. Quite an improvement.

PW that is a great tip, i have several nice loop disks from my old Acid Pro days, and i do just that.

With the loop feature, and elastique algo, you can add any sound you want.

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they are a quick easy way to make repetitive parts in the same song.

Now THERE was the information I needed to hear. It isn't just setting the "Thriller" bass line loop and it plays for 4 minutes. It follows the chord changes. That's what I didn't think a loop COULD do was follow along to a score and move with the music. I thought it was a persistent loop of one pattern.

Now I have to look into it more.

Requires 2012 version to do this in BiaB/RB

Well, I found out about midnight last night that I will be getting a copy on PG's dime, so I will have it to play with. I love that PG responds so quickly to bug reports that there are updates already. Can't wait for it to arrive!!