You may of heard the buzz on Twitter and Facebook the past few days. We’ve been hard at work creating our brand new product, Textures. Textures has been part of the vision of Loops in Worship since the beginning. “To provide Training and Tools for Worship Leaders to Create and Use their own loops.” We feel strongly that the best way to use loops and sequences with your team is to create them yourself. We know it can be a time consuming process so we’ve worked hard to provide you with the best tools possible to do that. Up till now we’ve had Elements, Foundations, and Kits. All of which have done well and we’ve heard great reports from Worship Leaders that have used all our products. Now we’re releasing the next step in our process to equip Worship Leaders with the necessary tools to create their own loops.
Textures features 53 different pad and synth sounds organized into four different categories and Live sets. Bright Pads represents sounds that start with a brighter foundation and will cut through even the muddiest mix. Textures Pianos includes great Piano patches that will help enhance any Worship band with a different touch besides just a normal grand piano sound. The Special/Rhythmic patches are great for simple chord progressions where you can let the patch do all the work for you. Last but not least.. Warm Pads is a great collection of thick and ethereal sounding Pads that layer well with a Piano patch, and work incredibly well during the invitation, prayer times, or in-between songs for smoother transitions.
Want to learn more about Textures? Check out the Textures Page. We’ve put up the Textures Forum to provide support and answers to some common questions.
Today we’re launching our brand new website! We’ve completely rebuilt the website from the ground up using WordPress. We’ve still got some tweaking to do to get things looking exactly right but, this is a huge step in a new direction. We’ll be able to launch new products quicker, we’ll have a tighter integration between the main site and the blog, and things will run much smoother and faster.
We’ve still got some small tweaks to make along the way, but we’re off to a great start. You can expect us to start rolling out new products over the next few weeks, and the web experience to only get better and better!
Here’s some of our favorite new features on the site:
Essentials of Ableton Live Course- We’ve relaunched our new training courses with new pages and more info. Our Essentials course is everything you need to know about Ableton Live in a 5 week course.
Using Ableton Live for Worship Course - We’ve revamped both courses, but this one got the biggest overall. We’ve now added 4 more weeks of content to the course. You’ll walk away with even more focused content on how to use Ableton Live for Worship.
Contact Us- Need to get in touch with us? Here’s how
The Buzz- Check out what some of our favorite people have to say about us!
Twitter- Check out our Twitter buzz page to see some Tweets about us.
I‘m thinking about ditching all my MIDI controllers and starting from scratch. I’ve actually had this controller for 25 years and never thought about using it until now. It’s really accessible, easy to carry around, and I rarely forget it. I could use it to control Ableton Live hands free. In fact.. It’s probably the ultimate “Hands-Free” Ableton Live Controller.
Here’s a demo video of someone else using this type of MIDI Controller:
And of course I’m not giving up my other controllers, but hey.. it’d be pretty cool to control Live with your face, huh? Here’s the gear I’m currently using though, if you’re interested.
We’ll be updating this post as we gain more info about Lion Compatibility with some of our favorite Hardware/Software used in Worship. Bookmark it and check it out frequently. We’ll also be pushing this info out to our Mailing List. You can subscribe using the form below.
Don’t see your software/hardware? Send us an email and we’ll track it for you! * This info is based on info we’ve found online. Install new software at your own risk!* Looks like overall there are issues with Plugin Compatibility.
Native Instruments- No for 64 bit, 32 bit mode seems to work fine(A fix is on the way sometime in September) via NI . Here’s how to switch to 32 bit mode.
What? How dare you say such a thing? I know..I know. I’m looking out for the lightning strikes right now. But there are a few reasons why you shouldn’t be one of the first to download Apple’s new Operating System tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait for Lion to come out. I gave a few reasons why a few weeks ago. But.. give it sometime before getting Lion. Here’s why:
Check out our Compatibility Chart we created. We’ll track your favorite Software/Hardware for you
Software/Hardware Compatibility
Macs are great. We all tend to agree on that. But our Macbook’s aren’t just Apple products. They include lots of 3rd party software. When you rely on that software for work, or use software every weekend, you can’t afford to “hope” the software is going to work on Lion. It takes developers a bit of time to test out the new software, make some tweaks and make sure everything is working properly. You can believe that as soon as Apple released the first developer beta of Lion, all the developers across the world, got to work. It may not be for a few more weeks till our favorite software is updated and compatible with Lion. Oh yeah, and if you use any hardware interfaces, you’ll need to check on the compatibility of it with Lion as well.
Getting all the Kinks worked out
With any new software, there’s always kinks to be worked out. Thankfully before software gets released it goes through beta testing, and gets tested out by people all across the world. Tweaks get made, and improvements are rolled out. Even still, sometimes after software is released it still needs some time for improvement. Odds are in a few weeks, or in a month or so, Apple will release an update to fix those kinks.
Upgrading your Machine
Most of us don’t think about this. If your Mac is a few years old, it may be worth checking out the System Requirements for Lion:
Latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8), with the Mac App Store installed[10]
At least 4GB of free disk space for downloading[15]
Like Snow Leopard, Lion does not support PowerPC-based Macs (e.g., Power Macs, PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs (G3-G5), eMacs).
Furthermore, Lion does not support 32-bit Intel Core Duo or Core Solo based Macs. Rosetta is no longer available in Lion, which means Lion no longer supports PowerPC applications.
If you’re still rocking that old PowerPC.. it’s time to upgrade. It may be worth clearing off your hard-drive, and upgrading your RAM as well, before you take the plunge.
Hey sometimes good things come to those who wait. I definitely tend to think of myself as an open-minded early adopter, but as dependent as I am on my computer, I’ve got to make sure everything functions properly. The good news is, if you’ve got a home or office computer that isn’t crucial that everything works on, feel free to install it and try it out. Just please for the sake of no tech problems on Sunday.. don’t install it on your laptop between now and then!
Join our Mailing List to stay up to date with when your Music Software is Compatible with Lion!
If you’ve used Ableton Live for a small amount of time, then odds are the mention of the word “Warping” probably makes you cringe a bit. But NO FEAR! Warping isn’t that bad after all, in fact Live’s Warp Engine is our friend. It allows us to do some really great stuff with audio, really quickly. If you aren’t sure what Warping is exactly, odds are you’ve faced the effects of it before and probably found yourself scratching your head, wondering what’s wrong with Live. If my inbox and twitter feed is any indication then most of us stuggle with Warping. Here’s a quick post to help you understand what Warping is.
*Feel free to click the pictures below for a full-size view. I’m working from Live 8.2.2 so if you’re using an earlier version of Live the warping process may be a bit different, and clip view will look a little different.*
What the heck is Warping Anyways?
Ableton Live treats audio like it’s Elastic. We can speed up and slow down our audio without drastically altering the quality. This makes tweaks to our loop’s tempo in rehearsal (or *gasp* LIVE) very easy to do. Live performs these tempo changing feats of strength through a process called Warping.
When you drag audio into Ableton, it has to “analyze” your audio. When it does that it’s going to automatically guess at the tempo of your audio and depending on your settings it will try to “auto-warp” your audio file. If you’ve ever dragged a song into Ableton Live and tried to adjust the tempo, you’ve experienced one of two things:
Your Audio doesn’t change tempo
Your Audio changes tempo but sounds really crappy
Either outcome doesn’t make us much of a believer in this incredible thing called warping does it? Here’s one tip that will help. You have the option to turn Live’s “Auto-Warping” option on/off. Most likely you’ll probably want to turn this function off. Here’s how:
Go into Live’s Preferences (Cmd , or Ctrl ,)
Go to the Record/Warp/Launch tab
You’ll find the “Auto-Warp Long Samples” option under the Warp/Fades sub-header. Turn that option to “off”
Now that Auto Warp is turned off things should be better. But what do we do when we want to change the tempo of our tracks? We’ve got to Warp our Audio. Here’s a quick 2 minute run-down on how to do that. For more detailed info check out Live’s manual, it’s pretty great for this stuff.
The Warping Process
The Warping Process is essentially this:
Show Live where the downbeat of “1″ is
Warp the audio to the right of “1″
Make sure the audio is sync’d to your Metronome
Correct any changes in tempo (Always work left to right)
Pretty simple.. so step one:
Find the Downbeat
Once your audio is in Live (I’m working in Arrangement view in this case) Double click on your clip to open up Clip View. Zoom in on the begining of your clip. You can zoom by placing your mouse over the white area of your clip and clicking and dragging down to zoom in, and move your mouse to the right, to go towards the beginning of our clip.
Press the “Warp” button to ”warp” our clip. Now find the strong downbeat of “1″. Double Click on the waveform to create a “Warp Marker”. This pins that part of the audio to Live’s Grid. At this point, the playback of the audio shouldn’t improve. We haven’t really warped anything yet. You can see in the example clip I’m using about that beat four is not in the correct spot. We’re about to fix that.
Warp From Here Commands
Right click on the Warp Marker you just created and select “Warp from Here” from the context menu. There are a few “Warp from Here” commands but in most cases the Warp from Here command works fine. This runs Live’s “Auto-Warp” Algorithm on the content to the right of the Warp-Marker.
You can now see in the example above that beat four is in the correct place. BUT.. notice that our song is playing too slow. This is because Live’s Current Tempo is set to 72, and the Clip’s Original tempo is 100.99 (101). It’s important to note here that we’re experiencing the effects of Warping. Even though our clip is originally recorded at around 101, Live is playing it at 72 bpm. It may still sound a little wacky..we’ll fix that in a moment.
For now bring Live’s tempo back up to 101 and take a listen. If you want to turn on Live’s Metronome to see if everything is locked into the click. Everything should be functioning properly now. If everything is working properly with the track then let’s look at adjusting our tempo. Again if we drop or raise our tempo now, odds are it’s gonna sound wacky. We’re going to fix that by using a different Warp-Mode.
Choosing the Proper Warp Mode
This is a piece of cake. We have 7 different Warp modes. Depending on what version of the software you’re using, and if you’re using a REX loop or not, you could have 4-5. Changing the warp mode, helps Live determine how to best interpret the content it’s trying to warp. Here’s a quick run down of the warp Modes and what is good for what:
Beats-Great for Drum Loops. Adjusting the Preserve and loop modes can offer some great sounds
Tones- For Clearly Pitched Audio. I use this for Full Songs if I’m working with Live Intro
Texture-Good for Polyphonic sounds/Noisy Sounds. Also good for changing your audio to something unique.
Re-Pitch- Treats tempo changes like a DJ speeding up and slowing down his turntable. Pitches audio up/down.
Complex-Perfect for Full Songs. It’s not available in Intro so use Tones. It can also use up to 10x the CPU of other Warp modes.
Complex Pro-Great for full songs where you want to transpose the audio. Tweak with the Formants/Envelope to get some crazy sounds or better represent the original song.
REX-Only available when using a REX loop.
If you’re using a Full Song set your Warp Mode to either Complex or Tones (if you’re using Intro). It will give you the best results. Now you should be able to adjust the tempo of your song pretty freely and the track should still sound pretty close to the original. If you make a crazy tempo change, i.e. 120 bpm to 72 it’s gonna be more noticeable, but for the most part it should work great!
On the Other side
pshh…We made it! Warping isn’t really that bad now is it? Just remember, find the downbeat of 1 and select Warp from Here. 95% of the time everything will be all good. Remember this is only the tip of the iceburg and one specific song. We could really dive in deeper if we wanted and look at other issues, but there’s only so much time in the day and so many words this post can hold. If you’re interested in learning more about Warp Modes check out Live’s manual. If you have any further questions ask them below in the comment section, or if you’d like some one on one training drop us an Email.
We’re busy at work this week to make some tweaks and updates to our website. We’ll be rolling out the new design piece by piece over the next week. If you’re trying to access a portion of the site and having trouble, odds are it may be down temporarily as we transition to the new site. If you need to ask us a question or get in touch during this time feel free to contact us via our Support Page.
The improvements to the new site will help us speed up product releases and make everything a little easier to manage on our end, ultimately making it easier to make improvements and release new content, which makes it easier for you! The new site will allow us to release some improvements and aspects of the site that we’ve been working on for a while. Needless to say…it’s going to be a busy and fun summer!
What a big statement for a title right? A revolution is a pretty big thing. One of our most popular blog posts set out to declare the iPad would change the way we perform, create, and produce our music. In alot of ways we can say the iPad has done that, but there’s still lots of room to go. In a way the iCloud and Lion announcements have got me back into dreaming mode. There are four new features I’m particularly interested in and I’ll explain why I think they’ll revolutionize the way we make music.
Before you upgrade to Lion you’ll want to check out this post to see if your software is compatible
Gesture Tracking
Apple revolutionized (again with the powerful words…) the way people experience media, browse the web and use non-PC devices with the iPhone and iPad. The touch gestures just work. I’ve seen my nephews use an iPad and an iPhone without needing any explanation. That’s when you know something “just works”. With Lion, Apple is working to further integrate multi-touch gestures into the PC. You reach out and “almost” touch what you’re working with. We use all the same gestures we’re used to working with but now on our laptops.
Imagine what this could mean for producing music. Your DAW could integrate multi-touch features into the program easily. Two finger swipes take you back and forth between Session and Arrangement view. Maybe four fingers down, opens up clip view. Swiping from left to right adjusts the volume of your track. Swipe around the trackpad to set your filter frequency. Record the automation by “drawing” your automation curve on your trackpad.
What if two fingers started playback. A two finger swipe to the right jumped to the next song/marker? A swipe to the left takes you to your previous song. Three fingers sets your tempo. Four fingers stops your track. The possibilities are endless. Maybe instead of looking at iPads to control our DAW’s, we’ll look at using our trackpads in a more in-depth way. Combine your iPad and your trackpad and you’ve got the ultimate DAW controller.
Air drop
Do you ever have a thumb drive when you really need one? I know I don’t. When you’re sitting around and working on songs with your friends, or creating a set-list for Sunday that you need to get to your drummer, you’ve got to go find your thumb drive. Now you can just open your mac, drag the file to your drummer’s picture representing his mac and off the file goes. No need to worry about the thumb drive. It’s just there. Open your mac and transfer the files while you finish setup. No need to let the file transfer to your thumbdrive and then get it to your drummer. This could be a good solution for those of us that are used to using dropbox for file sharing, but maybe the internet isn’t great where the church meets. Maybe airdrop will do file transfers the way i-chat file transfer should have. Here’s to hoping file transfers get the Apple, “it just works” treatment.
Auto-Save
Oh wow.. this is huge. Sure, there are programs that do this now, and that’s great. But how about the feature being built into the OS? How about Ableton adding the function in? We already have a file-recovery system for when our favorite free-ware plugin crashes Live, but what about never having to worry about saving again! You’re working on a loop for Sunday late Saturday night (I know YOU’D never do that…) and the coffee and Red bulls are wearing off. You haven’t saved in a few minutes and one C chord too many, it’s time for bed. You go to close live, and because of the ungodly amount of caffeine keeping you awake is clouding your judgement. You choose to close Live without saving.. Oops. There goes that great remix of As the Deer (Maybe it’s a good thing it crashed after all?) With auto-save we don’t have to worry about our files. We just create. We record and we play music. “Command S” is so 2010.
iCloud backup and file transfer
Maybe I saved the best for last. iCloud’s implementation of the cloud for backup and file transfer is pretty snazzy. It works in the background without us having to learn/re-learn anything and again…just works. Apple is allowing Developers to build the option to send files to iCloud into their programs. So now the game is changing. Imagine opening Live to work on a file. You’re working for a good 45 minutes and you’re making some good progress. You’ve got to stop working for some reason (there’s a rob bell webcast on) and so you go to check it out. Remember we’ve got Auto-save so Live automatically saves your file. But because it’s connected to iCloud your files are magically making their way to the home in the sky (really a giant building in NC).
Let’s say the Webcast with Rob Bell went well, so you get together with your seminary buddies to discuss it over a Piper sermon. After your Theological conversations, you turn to discussing your great new dub-step track. You didn’t render out an mp3 to play for them, so you borrow your buddies laptop. You open his version of Ableton Live and log into your iCloud account. Of course by then Ableton Live is sold in the Mac App Store, so if he doesn’t have it, you can log onto your account and download it to his computer. Within a few minutes your Live session with all your clips and all it’s dubstep goodness, is now playing for your friends. Make some changes, tweak the mix, and then close the program. The changes are backed up to the cloud for you to wrap up the mix at home.
Okay so clearly some of this would take place in the distant future. (Rob Bell and John Piper in the same day? Not even Steve Job’s could make that happen)Sure Ableton isn’t in the App Store yet, and downloading all those clips from the cloud could take a while. But all this functionality is simply waiting to be implemented into Live (9 maybe??). With the release of Lion and iCloud it’s all possible. The future is closer then we think. With Lion and iCloud its even closer now.
These are only a few of the features of iCloud and Lion that could change the way we make music. What are you most excited about?
Here’s part three of our interview with @thebwack. We chat about the making of Church Music and how the Crowder Band approaches using loops. Before you check out the article make sure to check out Part 1, and Part 2.
What role do loops play in the Crowder Band? How do you guys treat the idea of using loops?
It’s totally different for every song. I think our philosophy is that we’re going to try and perform as much as we can live. For me as a drummer its just another way of looking at drums. I guess for me the role is subdivisions, its like adding a whole lot of cool subdivisions, and layers. You know in the studio I really like the sound of two or three drumsets all playing at once, so alot of times the loop is either other drum kit parts i’ve recorded or extra beats that I’ve programmed. Alot of it is just trying to get that electronic or urban sound. And for me its a way to play on the beat a little more.. I don’t want to feel restricted to the feeling that if I’m not laying down the backbeat, no one is. I want to feel like if I want to go away from that and not lay down that strong backbeat I know that the loop is providing that.
This record is kinda the first record where we are really starting to blur the line between the drummer and the band and the loops. The way we are performing it, there’s really not that division anymore. There are so many elements of what you would typically call the loop, that are being played by members of the band. Its like we’ve taken over the loop and are now performing the loop, and its not really a loop at all.
Like on Shadows I don’t really play the drum kit at all. I’ve got electronic pads, I’ve got an arcade button box i built (midi controller), and for the entirety of the song I’m just triggering all the sounds that were programmed, and there are no loop beats going on. Mark is playing one of the beats too.
How do you go from what you created in the studio to what you do on stage? How do you decide how will we play this live?
Thats a few days per song process it seems like. We got up in the barn about a month before the tour and just went through song by song and worked it out. If you watch some of these new songs, you’ll see everyone is multi-tasking, and theres not really a lot of moments where anyone is just standing around with nothing to do.
We really wanted everyone to be involved in all the sounds. I’ve got the Protools file opened up and we’re going through and listening to each part, because a lot of times 1,000 sounds will go into the record and by the time its mixed maybe only 250 of those sounds are really out front in the mix. So we go through and solo stuff and figure out what we are going to do live. I know what Drum parts were played and Dave and Jack and Mark know what Guitar parts were played, so its about going “okay so who is free in the bridge to do this synth”? Everything else we give to Mike D. and Hogan. It’s just time and effort, and then playing it over and over again.
We love Korg Nano keys. We’ve got like 20 of them, and they are all spread out over the stage. There’s times where Mark walks back to the drumset and theres a Nano Key there and he’s playing synth parts that are running off Sylenth on my computer. There’s stuff all over the stage to give people the ability at any moment to play those parts of the song.
At what point in the demoing and recording process do you guys bring the loops in?
We’ll for this record it was first, it started with loops. It started with Reason files that if you listen to them by themselves sound like techno instrumental things and we used those as the foundations for writing the lyrics.
This album doesn’t really feel like a post-production album it really does feel like the loops are part of the band.
Thanks, that’s what we were hoping for.
What was the coolest new thing you guys did for this record?
The robot. Have you seen Steve the robot? You know we’re talking about all this layering and there were a lot of drum sets going on in the record doing al ot of parts, and pretty much during the making of the record the question was asked so what are we gonna do about these parts?
Everyone was pretty sad, like- “We aren’t just gonna track this are we?” Theres gotta be something and I jokingly said I’m gonna build a robot.
I think when you say robot everyone thinks humanoid, something that looks like c-3po… but in my head i think of the BestBuy vending machine you see at the airport, thats a robot. Something taking a task that takes a lot of people to accomplish and it does it for them.
So when I’m thinking of a drummer robot I’m thinking of a player piano, this will be a player piano but a player drummer, like auto-drums kinda thing. I just wanted something that would play those other beats on an acoustic drum set and kinda be a visual representation of those beats, but still sound like a machine.
I posted this video of steve and the website Hackaday ended up re-posting the video. It’s funny to me reading the comments on Hackaday because a lot of the comments are “you know if you put some error in there and like changed the velocities it would sound more human.”
But my thing is – “Why would I want my Robot to sound more Human?”
We would play it if we wanted it human. I want it sound like a machine gun. You know really stiff, really technical. And it works better on some stuff than others.
You know Solomon from Family force 5? We were talking at a conference the other day and he was saying that it is beautiful because you don’t always need velocity. Some of the best beats don’t have velocity. Thats the joy of the 808 stuff. The original 808 drum machine had 3 steps of velocity but most of the beats are just full on.
Yeah most people can’t walk away from a record and say they built a robot.
Yeah i do have to give credit to these two engineering students in Waco that are friends of mine (Eli Hernandez and Josh Caldwell). I went to their school during their breaks over two months and they machined the metal parts and turn rough sketches into real designs. They are great.
What tools do you use to create and use loops?
Well i think it is still the trifecta: Ableton, Reason and Protools.
I think I’m kinda getting away from Reason, not for any reason other then I’m starting to get into VST synth stuff like the Sylenth thing is incredible. I’m also getting more into protools because I’m trying to spend more time making stuff out of recorded sounds. Those are the three main ones.
There’s a group called D16 group, they make these really sweet drum machines and plug-ins. You know in Reason on the Scream Distortion how one of the settings is “Digital” the 8-bit degradation thing, they’ve got one called “Decimort” thats really great. It reminds me of some of the Owl-City stuff where its like some of the drum sounds seem to be out of phase, like the bit-rate has been dropped just a hair, this Decimort thing is pretty close to that sound, I’m really into that.
Whats the one piece of Gear, Hardware or Software that you can’t live without? If you had one piece of Gear you could take with you on a Desert Island, what would it be?
My laptop. I guess that’s kinda cheating but.. thats my desert island gear. Or you know one of the new Miko’s would be cool. It’s like the computer and everything you need in there. I don’t know though my laptop is cool because I can do everything on it and take it anywhere. I don’t even have a desktop computer – its my laptop. I plug it into Pro tools and its my full on recording system.
This wraps up part 3 of our Interview with Bwack. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 make sure to check them out! If you’d like to stay up to date with what’s happening with Loops in Worship, sign up to join our Mailing List, to the right of this post. Also while you’re here check out the rest of what we have to offer. And as always feel free to drop us an email if you’d like!
Here’s Part 2 of my interview with @thebwack. If you haven’t checked out Part 1 yet, go ahead and get caught up before you check out this article. In this post we chat about how he approaches playing with loops, and he offers up some tips for drummers. This is an article you’ll want to share with your drummers. Make sure to hit the Re-Tweet or Facebook Like buttons to the right of this post to quickly share with your team.
What advice can you give to drummers that are playing to a loop, to make the most out of it.
I think like you’ve said before, playing “with” loops and not “to” loops is key. When we started messing with the whole loop thing, we bought a metronome and started playing with that. It was uncomfortable for a few months. There was a process of learning to follow something thats true, thats an absolute. You realize “I tend to rush when we’re going into a chorus”, or “I tend to drag when we’re ending a song”, so you learn a lot about yourself and how you play-playing with a metronome.
And the same thing with a loop. It’s about getting to a point where following a metronome and a loop is so comfortable that you don’t have to think about it. Thats what I try to do. I try to be at a point where when we’re playing I’m not thinking “am i with it” i’m just thinking “this is fun and this feels good”. I know when i’m starting to slide off a little bit but for the most part its just ingrained and natural.
I know a lot of drummers will practice with a click and then take the click out and bring it back in to see if they could stay with the click, to practice their timing. Did you ever do that?
Well no, I think thats kinda silly. If you’re trying to see if you can play without a click to a given tempo that might be a good study, but really I’m gonna play with a click 90% of the time. The songs we don’t use a click on we do it because we like the feel of the movement and not having to be tied down. Like You Are My Joy, we never do that to click, we’re just going for it, and some nights it’s a little fast, and some nights its a little slower, and sometimes the choruses are faster then the verses but we like the kind of energy that lies in that. That’s a song that needs that feel. All the other times I’m gonna be playing to a click so I just want to know – can I stay with the click?
How do you approach playing with loops?
For me the first thing I try to do if theres a significant beat in the loop is try to play something different than the loop and something that compliments it. For Example, on Beautiful Collision the drum beat on that is pretty solid and driving and very pronounced. I made the loop part the secondary beat and third beat. They are similar but completely different. They are kinda playing in between notes. In that song its about playing something thats not contrary to what the loop is doing but complimenting the loop while not playing the same beat.
I’ve found there are few times that I’m playing the exact same thing as the loop, as far as kick drum energy and snare energy.
It can be dangerous because if you’re not 100% locked in it can become very apparent. So playing something complimentary but different from the loop, you can create energy that comes from all the layers opening up and working together.
As an arrangement too, loops are a great way to add dynamics and make certain parts of a song really grow and blossom and other parts stay very minimal. Especially if you’re running to a click with a loop, there can be times that everything but the band drops out but since your on a click when that loop comes back in it is really powerful and more evident.
One thing I appreciate about your drumming is that you’re not afraid to play four on the floor. When you do a four on the floor thing, how do you approach it.
To me, four on the floor with a loop is pretty static. So you’ve got the four on the floor, the big kick drum that everyone is bobbing their head to and if there wasn’t the loop element playing this really static thing, then I probably would feel the necessity to do the open hat (disco thing) or subdivide somehow. But if thats what the loop is doing then I can feel the freedom to let my hands be the speaking force. You know something thats not just static but something thats moving and changing and dynamic. I just try to have fun with it… and having a loop lets me feel like I can have fun.
Check out the Peter Gabriel DVD “Secret World Live” with Manu Katche (Drummer). They are using loops and the way he plays the Drumset around the loops is incredible. Basically the loop is driving the song and he’s complimenting it. It changed the way I thought about playing with loops. It was like “this is why you have electronic elements in the band. Same thing with most of the early Alanis stuff, the drummer isn’t laying down this solid time, its more about being a layer. Stewart Copeland was someone that could take a four on the floor beat and turn it into something with a lot of driving power. To me he was the epitome of a pop drummer. He took pop music beats and made them exciting.
Don’t miss Part 3 of our Interview with Bwack, Tomorrow at 10 AM EST on the blog!
Blog
Introducing Textures: Original Pad Presets for Ableton Live
Posted by Will on Aug 1, 2011 in Chatter | 0 comments
You may of heard the buzz on Twitter and Facebook the past few days. We’ve been hard at work creating our brand new product, Textures. Textures has been part of the vision of Loops in Worship since the beginning. “To provide Training and Tools for Worship Leaders to Create and Use their own loops.” We feel strongly that the best way to use loops and sequences with your team is to create them yourself. We know it can be a time consuming process so we’ve worked hard to provide you with the best tools possible to do that. Up till now we’ve had Elements, Foundations, and Kits. All of which have done well and we’ve heard great reports from Worship Leaders that have used all our products. Now we’re releasing the next step in our process to equip Worship Leaders with the necessary tools to create their own loops.
Can’t wait? Check out the Textures Page
Textures features 53 different pad and synth sounds organized into four different categories and Live sets. Bright Pads represents sounds that start with a brighter foundation and will cut through even the muddiest mix. Textures Pianos includes great Piano patches that will help enhance any Worship band with a different touch besides just a normal grand piano sound. The Special/Rhythmic patches are great for simple chord progressions where you can let the patch do all the work for you. Last but not least.. Warm Pads is a great collection of thick and ethereal sounding Pads that layer well with a Piano patch, and work incredibly well during the invitation, prayer times, or in-between songs for smoother transitions.
Want to learn more about Textures? Check out the Textures Page. We’ve put up the Textures Forum to provide support and answers to some common questions.
Try out a few Textures Patches
New Site Launch!
Posted by Will on Jul 25, 2011 in Chatter | 0 comments
Today we’re launching our brand new website! We’ve completely rebuilt the website from the ground up using WordPress. We’ve still got some tweaking to do to get things looking exactly right but, this is a huge step in a new direction. We’ll be able to launch new products quicker, we’ll have a tighter integration between the main site and the blog, and things will run much smoother and faster.
We’ve still got some small tweaks to make along the way, but we’re off to a great start. You can expect us to start rolling out new products over the next few weeks, and the web experience to only get better and better!
Registration for the new Essentials of Ableton Live Course and the Using Ableton Live for Worship Course is now open!
Here’s some of our favorite new features on the site:
Essentials of Ableton Live Course- We’ve relaunched our new training courses with new pages and more info. Our Essentials course is everything you need to know about Ableton Live in a 5 week course.
Using Ableton Live for Worship Course - We’ve revamped both courses, but this one got the biggest overall. We’ve now added 4 more weeks of content to the course. You’ll walk away with even more focused content on how to use Ableton Live for Worship.
Contact Us- Need to get in touch with us? Here’s how
The Buzz- Check out what some of our favorite people have to say about us!
Twitter- Check out our Twitter buzz page to see some Tweets about us.
My all new MIDI Controller (The Ultimate Hands Free Controller for Ableton Live)
Posted by Will on Jul 21, 2011 in Gear | 0 comments
I‘m thinking about ditching all my MIDI controllers and starting from scratch. I’ve actually had this controller for 25 years and never thought about using it until now. It’s really accessible, easy to carry around, and I rarely forget it. I could use it to control Ableton Live hands free. In fact.. It’s probably the ultimate “Hands-Free” Ableton Live Controller.
Here’s a demo video of someone else using this type of MIDI Controller:
faceOSC & touchOSC testing with ableton live from Kostia Rapoport on Vimeo.
And of course I’m not giving up my other controllers, but hey.. it’d be pretty cool to control Live with your face, huh? Here’s the gear I’m currently using though, if you’re interested.
OSX Lion Software/Hardware Compatibility
Posted by Will on Jul 19, 2011 in Chatter | 5 comments
We’ll be updating this post as we gain more info about Lion Compatibility with some of our favorite Hardware/Software used in Worship. Bookmark it and check it out frequently. We’ll also be pushing this info out to our Mailing List. You can subscribe using the form below.
Registration for the new Essentials of Ableton Live Course and the Using Ableton Live for Worship Course is now open!
Compatibility Chart
Don’t see your software/hardware? Send us an email and we’ll track it for you! * This info is based on info we’ve found online. Install new software at your own risk!* Looks like overall there are issues with Plugin Compatibility.
Ableton Live 8- Yes via Ableton Website
Reason- Yes via Propellerhead website
Pro Tools- Yes with Beta release via Avid
Digital Performer- Yes (Using DP 7.24) via MOTU website
Apogee -Certain Products Check out their site for more info via Apogee Site
Products compatible with Lion:
Products not currently compatible with Lion:
Info via Apogee Digital website
Apple Logic- Yes (with recent updates) via Sweetwater
Apple Logic Express- Yes (with recent updates) via Sweetwater
M-Audio Interfaces- Some Products Compatible via M-Audio website
PreSonus Interfaces- Possibly with Driver update - Drivers available here
Novation- Some Products working via Novation
Products currently working on Lion:
UltraNova & Logic 64 Bit
LaunchPad (Ableton Live is not yet supported on Lion but Launchpad works as a MIDI controler)
Zero SL MKII & SL MKII both work as MIDI controllers in Logic 64 Bit however there are currently known issues with Automap.
Products not currently working with Lion:
Info via Novation
Native Instruments- No for 64 bit, 32 bit mode seems to work fine (A fix is on the way sometime in September) via NI . Here’s how to switch to 32 bit mode.
Spectrasonics -Not Sure via Twitter
Akai Controllers- Yes via Twitter (Hardware is Lion Compatibile, not sure with specific Hardware)
Want to know about your other important software? Check out this site!
Why you Shouldn’t upgrade to Apple OSX Lion Tomorrow
Posted by Will on Jul 19, 2011 in Chatter | 0 comments
What? How dare you say such a thing? I know..I know. I’m looking out for the lightning strikes right now. But there are a few reasons why you shouldn’t be one of the first to download Apple’s new Operating System tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait for Lion to come out. I gave a few reasons why a few weeks ago. But.. give it sometime before getting Lion. Here’s why:
Check out our Compatibility Chart we created. We’ll track your favorite Software/Hardware for you
Software/Hardware Compatibility
Macs are great. We all tend to agree on that. But our Macbook’s aren’t just Apple products. They include lots of 3rd party software. When you rely on that software for work, or use software every weekend, you can’t afford to “hope” the software is going to work on Lion. It takes developers a bit of time to test out the new software, make some tweaks and make sure everything is working properly. You can believe that as soon as Apple released the first developer beta of Lion, all the developers across the world, got to work. It may not be for a few more weeks till our favorite software is updated and compatible with Lion. Oh yeah, and if you use any hardware interfaces, you’ll need to check on the compatibility of it with Lion as well.
Getting all the Kinks worked out
With any new software, there’s always kinks to be worked out. Thankfully before software gets released it goes through beta testing, and gets tested out by people all across the world. Tweaks get made, and improvements are rolled out. Even still, sometimes after software is released it still needs some time for improvement. Odds are in a few weeks, or in a month or so, Apple will release an update to fix those kinks.
Upgrading your Machine
Most of us don’t think about this. If your Mac is a few years old, it may be worth checking out the System Requirements for Lion:
If you’re still rocking that old PowerPC.. it’s time to upgrade. It may be worth clearing off your hard-drive, and upgrading your RAM as well, before you take the plunge.
Hey sometimes good things come to those who wait. I definitely tend to think of myself as an open-minded early adopter, but as dependent as I am on my computer, I’ve got to make sure everything functions properly. The good news is, if you’ve got a home or office computer that isn’t crucial that everything works on, feel free to install it and try it out. Just please for the sake of no tech problems on Sunday.. don’t install it on your laptop between now and then!
Join our Mailing List to stay up to date with when your Music Software is Compatible with Lion!
What the Heck is Warping?
Posted by Will on Jul 8, 2011 in Ableton Live Tips & Tricks | 0 comments
If you’ve used Ableton Live for a small amount of time, then odds are the mention of the word “Warping” probably makes you cringe a bit. But NO FEAR! Warping isn’t that bad after all, in fact Live’s Warp Engine is our friend. It allows us to do some really great stuff with audio, really quickly. If you aren’t sure what Warping is exactly, odds are you’ve faced the effects of it before and probably found yourself scratching your head, wondering what’s wrong with Live. If my inbox and twitter feed is any indication then most of us stuggle with Warping. Here’s a quick post to help you understand what Warping is.
*Feel free to click the pictures below for a full-size view. I’m working from Live 8.2.2 so if you’re using an earlier version of Live the warping process may be a bit different, and clip view will look a little different.*
What the heck is Warping Anyways?
Ableton Live treats audio like it’s Elastic. We can speed up and slow down our audio without drastically altering the quality. This makes tweaks to our loop’s tempo in rehearsal (or *gasp* LIVE) very easy to do. Live performs these tempo changing feats of strength through a process called Warping.
When you drag audio into Ableton, it has to “analyze” your audio. When it does that it’s going to automatically guess at the tempo of your audio and depending on your settings it will try to “auto-warp” your audio file. If you’ve ever dragged a song into Ableton Live and tried to adjust the tempo, you’ve experienced one of two things:
Either outcome doesn’t make us much of a believer in this incredible thing called warping does it? Here’s one tip that will help. You have the option to turn Live’s “Auto-Warping” option on/off. Most likely you’ll probably want to turn this function off. Here’s how:
Now that Auto Warp is turned off things should be better. But what do we do when we want to change the tempo of our tracks? We’ve got to Warp our Audio. Here’s a quick 2 minute run-down on how to do that. For more detailed info check out Live’s manual, it’s pretty great for this stuff.
The Warping Process
The Warping Process is essentially this:
Pretty simple.. so step one:
Find the Downbeat
Once your audio is in Live (I’m working in Arrangement view in this case) Double click on your clip to open up Clip View. Zoom in on the begining of your clip. You can zoom by placing your mouse over the white area of your clip and clicking and dragging down to zoom in, and move your mouse to the right, to go towards the beginning of our clip.
Press the “Warp” button to ”warp” our clip. Now find the strong downbeat of “1″. Double Click on the waveform to create a “Warp Marker”. This pins that part of the audio to Live’s Grid. At this point, the playback of the audio shouldn’t improve. We haven’t really warped anything yet. You can see in the example clip I’m using about that beat four is not in the correct spot. We’re about to fix that.
Warp From Here Commands
Right click on the Warp Marker you just created and select “Warp from Here” from the context menu. There are a few “Warp from Here” commands but in most cases the Warp from Here command works fine. This runs Live’s “Auto-Warp” Algorithm on the content to the right of the Warp-Marker.
You can now see in the example above that beat four is in the correct place. BUT.. notice that our song is playing too slow. This is because Live’s Current Tempo is set to 72, and the Clip’s Original tempo is 100.99 (101). It’s important to note here that we’re experiencing the effects of Warping. Even though our clip is originally recorded at around 101, Live is playing it at 72 bpm. It may still sound a little wacky..we’ll fix that in a moment.
For now bring Live’s tempo back up to 101 and take a listen. If you want to turn on Live’s Metronome to see if everything is locked into the click. Everything should be functioning properly now. If everything is working properly with the track then let’s look at adjusting our tempo. Again if we drop or raise our tempo now, odds are it’s gonna sound wacky. We’re going to fix that by using a different Warp-Mode.
Choosing the Proper Warp Mode
This is a piece of cake. We have 7 different Warp modes. Depending on what version of the software you’re using, and if you’re using a REX loop or not, you could have 4-5. Changing the warp mode, helps Live determine how to best interpret the content it’s trying to warp. Here’s a quick run down of the warp Modes and what is good for what:
If you’re using a Full Song set your Warp Mode to either Complex or Tones (if you’re using Intro). It will give you the best results. Now you should be able to adjust the tempo of your song pretty freely and the track should still sound pretty close to the original. If you make a crazy tempo change, i.e. 120 bpm to 72 it’s gonna be more noticeable, but for the most part it should work great!
On the Other side
pshh…We made it! Warping isn’t really that bad now is it? Just remember, find the downbeat of 1 and select Warp from Here. 95% of the time everything will be all good. Remember this is only the tip of the iceburg and one specific song. We could really dive in deeper if we wanted and look at other issues, but there’s only so much time in the day and so many words this post can hold. If you’re interested in learning more about Warp Modes check out Live’s manual. If you have any further questions ask them below in the comment section, or if you’d like some one on one training drop us an Email.
New Website on the way!
Posted by Will on Jul 4, 2011 in Chatter | 4 comments
We’re busy at work this week to make some tweaks and updates to our website. We’ll be rolling out the new design piece by piece over the next week. If you’re trying to access a portion of the site and having trouble, odds are it may be down temporarily as we transition to the new site. If you need to ask us a question or get in touch during this time feel free to contact us via our Support Page.
The improvements to the new site will help us speed up product releases and make everything a little easier to manage on our end, ultimately making it easier to make improvements and release new content, which makes it easier for you! The new site will allow us to release some improvements and aspects of the site that we’ve been working on for a while. Needless to say…it’s going to be a busy and fun summer!
Why Lion and iCloud are going to revolutionize the way we make music
Posted by Will on Jun 8, 2011 in Gear | 0 comments
What a big statement for a title right? A revolution is a pretty big thing. One of our most popular blog posts set out to declare the iPad would change the way we perform, create, and produce our music. In alot of ways we can say the iPad has done that, but there’s still lots of room to go. In a way the iCloud and Lion announcements have got me back into dreaming mode. There are four new features I’m particularly interested in and I’ll explain why I think they’ll revolutionize the way we make music.
Before you upgrade to Lion you’ll want to check out this post to see if your software is compatible
Gesture Tracking
Apple revolutionized (again with the powerful words…) the way people experience media, browse the web and use non-PC devices with the iPhone and iPad. The touch gestures just work. I’ve seen my nephews use an iPad and an iPhone without needing any explanation. That’s when you know something “just works”. With Lion, Apple is working to further integrate multi-touch gestures into the PC. You reach out and “almost” touch what you’re working with. We use all the same gestures we’re used to working with but now on our laptops.
Imagine what this could mean for producing music. Your DAW could integrate multi-touch features into the program easily. Two finger swipes take you back and forth between Session and Arrangement view. Maybe four fingers down, opens up clip view. Swiping from left to right adjusts the volume of your track. Swipe around the trackpad to set your filter frequency. Record the automation by “drawing” your automation curve on your trackpad.
What if two fingers started playback. A two finger swipe to the right jumped to the next song/marker? A swipe to the left takes you to your previous song. Three fingers sets your tempo. Four fingers stops your track. The possibilities are endless. Maybe instead of looking at iPads to control our DAW’s, we’ll look at using our trackpads in a more in-depth way. Combine your iPad and your trackpad and you’ve got the ultimate DAW controller.
Air drop
Do you ever have a thumb drive when you really need one? I know I don’t. When you’re sitting around and working on songs with your friends, or creating a set-list for Sunday that you need to get to your drummer, you’ve got to go find your thumb drive. Now you can just open your mac, drag the file to your drummer’s picture representing his mac and off the file goes. No need to worry about the thumb drive. It’s just there. Open your mac and transfer the files while you finish setup. No need to let the file transfer to your thumbdrive and then get it to your drummer. This could be a good solution for those of us that are used to using dropbox for file sharing, but maybe the internet isn’t great where the church meets. Maybe airdrop will do file transfers the way i-chat file transfer should have. Here’s to hoping file transfers get the Apple, “it just works” treatment.
Auto-Save
Oh wow.. this is huge. Sure, there are programs that do this now, and that’s great. But how about the feature being built into the OS? How about Ableton adding the function in? We already have a file-recovery system for when our favorite free-ware plugin crashes Live, but what about never having to worry about saving again! You’re working on a loop for Sunday late Saturday night (I know YOU’D never do that…) and the coffee and Red bulls are wearing off. You haven’t saved in a few minutes and one C chord too many, it’s time for bed. You go to close live, and because of the ungodly amount of caffeine keeping you awake is clouding your judgement. You choose to close Live without saving.. Oops. There goes that great remix of As the Deer (Maybe it’s a good thing it crashed after all?) With auto-save we don’t have to worry about our files. We just create. We record and we play music. “Command S” is so 2010.
iCloud backup and file transfer
Maybe I saved the best for last. iCloud’s implementation of the cloud for backup and file transfer is pretty snazzy. It works in the background without us having to learn/re-learn anything and again…just works. Apple is allowing Developers to build the option to send files to iCloud into their programs. So now the game is changing. Imagine opening Live to work on a file. You’re working for a good 45 minutes and you’re making some good progress. You’ve got to stop working for some reason (there’s a rob bell webcast on) and so you go to check it out. Remember we’ve got Auto-save so Live automatically saves your file. But because it’s connected to iCloud your files are magically making their way to the home in the sky (really a giant building in NC).
Let’s say the Webcast with Rob Bell went well, so you get together with your seminary buddies to discuss it over a Piper sermon. After your Theological conversations, you turn to discussing your great new dub-step track. You didn’t render out an mp3 to play for them, so you borrow your buddies laptop. You open his version of Ableton Live and log into your iCloud account. Of course by then Ableton Live is sold in the Mac App Store, so if he doesn’t have it, you can log onto your account and download it to his computer. Within a few minutes your Live session with all your clips and all it’s dubstep goodness, is now playing for your friends. Make some changes, tweak the mix, and then close the program. The changes are backed up to the cloud for you to wrap up the mix at home.
Okay so clearly some of this would take place in the distant future. (Rob Bell and John Piper in the same day? Not even Steve Job’s could make that happen)Sure Ableton isn’t in the App Store yet, and downloading all those clips from the cloud could take a while. But all this functionality is simply waiting to be implemented into Live (9 maybe??). With the release of Lion and iCloud it’s all possible. The future is closer then we think. With Lion and iCloud its even closer now.
These are only a few of the features of iCloud and Lion that could change the way we make music. What are you most excited about?
Interview with @theBwack (pt.3 ) Behind the Scenes of "Church Music" and the Crowder Band
Posted by Will on May 20, 2011 in Chatter | 0 comments
Here’s part three of our interview with @thebwack. We chat about the making of Church Music and how the Crowder Band approaches using loops. Before you check out the article make sure to check out Part 1, and Part 2.
What role do loops play in the Crowder Band? How do you guys treat the idea of using loops?
It’s totally different for every song. I think our philosophy is that we’re going to try and perform as much as we can live. For me as a drummer its just another way of looking at drums. I guess for me the role is subdivisions, its like adding a whole lot of cool subdivisions, and layers. You know in the studio I really like the sound of two or three drumsets all playing at once, so alot of times the loop is either other drum kit parts i’ve recorded or extra beats that I’ve programmed. Alot of it is just trying to get that electronic or urban sound. And for me its a way to play on the beat a little more.. I don’t want to feel restricted to the feeling that if I’m not laying down the backbeat, no one is. I want to feel like if I want to go away from that and not lay down that strong backbeat I know that the loop is providing that.
This record is kinda the first record where we are really starting to blur the line between the drummer and the band and the loops. The way we are performing it, there’s really not that division anymore. There are so many elements of what you would typically call the loop, that are being played by members of the band. Its like we’ve taken over the loop and are now performing the loop, and its not really a loop at all.
Like on Shadows I don’t really play the drum kit at all. I’ve got electronic pads, I’ve got an arcade button box i built (midi controller), and for the entirety of the song I’m just triggering all the sounds that were programmed, and there are no loop beats going on. Mark is playing one of the beats too.
How do you go from what you created in the studio to what you do on stage? How do you decide how will we play this live?
Thats a few days per song process it seems like. We got up in the barn about a month before the tour and just went through song by song and worked it out. If you watch some of these new songs, you’ll see everyone is multi-tasking, and theres not really a lot of moments where anyone is just standing around with nothing to do.
We really wanted everyone to be involved in all the sounds. I’ve got the Protools file opened up and we’re going through and listening to each part, because a lot of times 1,000 sounds will go into the record and by the time its mixed maybe only 250 of those sounds are really out front in the mix. So we go through and solo stuff and figure out what we are going to do live. I know what Drum parts were played and Dave and Jack and Mark know what Guitar parts were played, so its about going “okay so who is free in the bridge to do this synth”? Everything else we give to Mike D. and Hogan. It’s just time and effort, and then playing it over and over again.
We love Korg Nano keys. We’ve got like 20 of them, and they are all spread out over the stage. There’s times where Mark walks back to the drumset and theres a Nano Key there and he’s playing synth parts that are running off Sylenth on my computer. There’s stuff all over the stage to give people the ability at any moment to play those parts of the song.
At what point in the demoing and recording process do you guys bring the loops in?
We’ll for this record it was first, it started with loops. It started with Reason files that if you listen to them by themselves sound like techno instrumental things and we used those as the foundations for writing the lyrics.
This album doesn’t really feel like a post-production album it really does feel like the loops are part of the band.
Thanks, that’s what we were hoping for.
What was the coolest new thing you guys did for this record?
The robot. Have you seen Steve the robot? You know we’re talking about all this layering and there were a lot of drum sets going on in the record doing al ot of parts, and pretty much during the making of the record the question was asked so what are we gonna do about these parts?
Everyone was pretty sad, like- “We aren’t just gonna track this are we?” Theres gotta be something and I jokingly said I’m gonna build a robot.
I think when you say robot everyone thinks humanoid, something that looks like c-3po… but in my head i think of the BestBuy vending machine you see at the airport, thats a robot. Something taking a task that takes a lot of people to accomplish and it does it for them.
So when I’m thinking of a drummer robot I’m thinking of a player piano, this will be a player piano but a player drummer, like auto-drums kinda thing. I just wanted something that would play those other beats on an acoustic drum set and kinda be a visual representation of those beats, but still sound like a machine.
I posted this video of steve and the website Hackaday ended up re-posting the video. It’s funny to me reading the comments on Hackaday because a lot of the comments are “you know if you put some error in there and like changed the velocities it would sound more human.”
But my thing is – “Why would I want my Robot to sound more Human?”
We would play it if we wanted it human. I want it sound like a machine gun. You know really stiff, really technical. And it works better on some stuff than others.
You know Solomon from Family force 5? We were talking at a conference the other day and he was saying that it is beautiful because you don’t always need velocity. Some of the best beats don’t have velocity. Thats the joy of the 808 stuff. The original 808 drum machine had 3 steps of velocity but most of the beats are just full on.
Yeah most people can’t walk away from a record and say they built a robot.
Yeah i do have to give credit to these two engineering students in Waco that are friends of mine (Eli Hernandez and Josh Caldwell). I went to their school during their breaks over two months and they machined the metal parts and turn rough sketches into real designs. They are great.
What tools do you use to create and use loops?
Well i think it is still the trifecta: Ableton, Reason and Protools.
I think I’m kinda getting away from Reason, not for any reason other then I’m starting to get into VST synth stuff like the Sylenth thing is incredible. I’m also getting more into protools because I’m trying to spend more time making stuff out of recorded sounds. Those are the three main ones.
There’s a group called D16 group, they make these really sweet drum machines and plug-ins. You know in Reason on the Scream Distortion how one of the settings is “Digital” the 8-bit degradation thing, they’ve got one called “Decimort” thats really great. It reminds me of some of the Owl-City stuff where its like some of the drum sounds seem to be out of phase, like the bit-rate has been dropped just a hair, this Decimort thing is pretty close to that sound, I’m really into that.
Whats the one piece of Gear, Hardware or Software that you can’t live without? If you had one piece of Gear you could take with you on a Desert Island, what would it be?
My laptop. I guess that’s kinda cheating but.. thats my desert island gear. Or you know one of the new Miko’s would be cool. It’s like the computer and everything you need in there. I don’t know though my laptop is cool because I can do everything on it and take it anywhere. I don’t even have a desktop computer – its my laptop. I plug it into Pro tools and its my full on recording system.
This wraps up part 3 of our Interview with Bwack. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 make sure to check them out! If you’d like to stay up to date with what’s happening with Loops in Worship, sign up to join our Mailing List, to the right of this post. Also while you’re here check out the rest of what we have to offer. And as always feel free to drop us an email if you’d like!
Interview with @theBwack (pt.2 ): Tips for Drummers
Posted by Will on May 19, 2011 in Chatter | 1 comment
Here’s Part 2 of my interview with @thebwack. If you haven’t checked out Part 1 yet, go ahead and get caught up before you check out this article. In this post we chat about how he approaches playing with loops, and he offers up some tips for drummers. This is an article you’ll want to share with your drummers. Make sure to hit the Re-Tweet or Facebook Like buttons to the right of this post to quickly share with your team.
What advice can you give to drummers that are playing to a loop, to make the most out of it.
I think like you’ve said before, playing “with” loops and not “to” loops is key. When we started messing with the whole loop thing, we bought a metronome and started playing with that. It was uncomfortable for a few months. There was a process of learning to follow something thats true, thats an absolute. You realize “I tend to rush when we’re going into a chorus”, or “I tend to drag when we’re ending a song”, so you learn a lot about yourself and how you play-playing with a metronome.
And the same thing with a loop. It’s about getting to a point where following a metronome and a loop is so comfortable that you don’t have to think about it. Thats what I try to do. I try to be at a point where when we’re playing I’m not thinking “am i with it” i’m just thinking “this is fun and this feels good”. I know when i’m starting to slide off a little bit but for the most part its just ingrained and natural.
I know a lot of drummers will practice with a click and then take the click out and bring it back in to see if they could stay with the click, to practice their timing. Did you ever do that?
Well no, I think thats kinda silly. If you’re trying to see if you can play without a click to a given tempo that might be a good study, but really I’m gonna play with a click 90% of the time. The songs we don’t use a click on we do it because we like the feel of the movement and not having to be tied down. Like You Are My Joy, we never do that to click, we’re just going for it, and some nights it’s a little fast, and some nights its a little slower, and sometimes the choruses are faster then the verses but we like the kind of energy that lies in that. That’s a song that needs that feel. All the other times I’m gonna be playing to a click so I just want to know – can I stay with the click?
How do you approach playing with loops?
For me the first thing I try to do if theres a significant beat in the loop is try to play something different than the loop and something that compliments it. For Example, on Beautiful Collision the drum beat on that is pretty solid and driving and very pronounced. I made the loop part the secondary beat and third beat. They are similar but completely different. They are kinda playing in between notes. In that song its about playing something thats not contrary to what the loop is doing but complimenting the loop while not playing the same beat.
I’ve found there are few times that I’m playing the exact same thing as the loop, as far as kick drum energy and snare energy.
It can be dangerous because if you’re not 100% locked in it can become very apparent. So playing something complimentary but different from the loop, you can create energy that comes from all the layers opening up and working together.
As an arrangement too, loops are a great way to add dynamics and make certain parts of a song really grow and blossom and other parts stay very minimal. Especially if you’re running to a click with a loop, there can be times that everything but the band drops out but since your on a click when that loop comes back in it is really powerful and more evident.
One thing I appreciate about your drumming is that you’re not afraid to play four on the floor. When you do a four on the floor thing, how do you approach it.
To me, four on the floor with a loop is pretty static. So you’ve got the four on the floor, the big kick drum that everyone is bobbing their head to and if there wasn’t the loop element playing this really static thing, then I probably would feel the necessity to do the open hat (disco thing) or subdivide somehow. But if thats what the loop is doing then I can feel the freedom to let my hands be the speaking force. You know something thats not just static but something thats moving and changing and dynamic. I just try to have fun with it… and having a loop lets me feel like I can have fun.
Check out the Peter Gabriel DVD “Secret World Live” with Manu Katche (Drummer). They are using loops and the way he plays the Drumset around the loops is incredible. Basically the loop is driving the song and he’s complimenting it. It changed the way I thought about playing with loops. It was like “this is why you have electronic elements in the band. Same thing with most of the early Alanis stuff, the drummer isn’t laying down this solid time, its more about being a layer. Stewart Copeland was someone that could take a four on the floor beat and turn it into something with a lot of driving power. To me he was the epitome of a pop drummer. He took pop music beats and made them exciting.
Don’t miss Part 3 of our Interview with Bwack, Tomorrow at 10 AM EST on the blog!