Using loops with an Ipod (Introduction)
If you’ve followed the Blog for a even a little while you know we are big on using Ableton Live for loops, and not just treating loops as “backing tracks” but interacting with loops and treating them as their own instrument. Well we stumbled across this post a week or so ago from Georgia Based Worship Leader Brandon Divine from The Church at Chapel Hill and we were reminded that churches need to hear what he was talking about. There are churches that want to use loops but don’t have the budget to buy Live or in-ears, and so we want to let those churches know that you can still use loops even without those things.
If you read our “Using Loops without In-Ears “ post you’ll remember that we talked about how there is no right or wrong way to use loops but simply good and better ways. It is still important to focus on those “less then best” ways because it allows churches that can’t enter into the world of using loops a chance to do so without spending tons of money. Almost everyone has an ipod laying around, so imagine if you could use what you already have available to start using loops now and not having to wait until you can afford more equipment. If thats you, then these posts are for you!
If you use I-tunes or an Ipod for loops we want to hear from you. We will continue this post with some tips for people running loops out of I-tunes or an Ipod and we would love to include your thoughts..shoot us an email at liwstaff@loopsinworship.com. For now check out Brandon’s article below and let us know your thoughts and special thanks to Brandon again for letting us share his thoughts with you guys!
“After last weeks Abelton Live fiasco I decided to try and find a simpler way to play our loops/click tracks. Our previous set up was using Abelton Live with an MAudio 410 interface. We ran 6 outputs from the 410 to the FOH (front of house). 1 for click and the rest, pads, loops, strings, synths, percussion etc…. It’s a great, no wait, fantastic set up. however it’s complicated and i’m the only one on our team that currently knows how to run Live. It’d take me about an hour or more every week to set up the Live tracks. Anyway – this past weekend we hosted Aaron Shust, Chris Sligh and a few other artists at our church for a concert. The drummer had a macbook pro setup running loops so I ventured up to find out how he was running it. To my surprise I saw his laptop w/ an 1/8th stereo cable split to 2 1/4 inch cables going into 2 DI’s. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he was really running it like that and he said “Yep”. He then went on to tell me his story. It was exactly the same as mine. He wanted a simpler set up that he didn’t have to use “out of the box” gear (i.e. audio interface etc…).
Here’s the deal. You take your tracks in ProTools, Logic or Garageband for that matter. Send the Click to the Left side of the master output channel and then mix all the other tracks to your liking and then pan them all to the Right master output. Bounce the files down to AIFF files and dump them into iTunes. It’s simpler for the FOH engineer as well. You don’t have to worry about them not pushing up certain sounds in the loops at certain times etc…We rehearsed w/ this setup tonight and it worked awesome. I’m not saying we won’t use Abelton again – but considering the time this saves… I could see us using iTunes a lot more in the future.”
So stay tuned for our next post in this series where we will take a look at Brandon’s Response to using loops this way, and we will look at the pros and con’s of using Itunes/an Ipod for using loops. And remember if you want to use loops this way, make sure to not miss the last post in this series where we will give you some tips and advice on how to use loops this way!
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that’s what we do….once we agree on an arrangement, our loops guy bounces it down to stereo…..you can even run it from an iPod at that point!
Andrew
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I used to run loops out of ProTools and had several major catastrophes with ProTools crashing or computers crashing. After that, I went on the same search as you are referring to…trying to find a ‘fool-proof’ way to make this work every time! After working through a few different options, I’ve settled on working through the loops in Logic and then bouncing it stereo and playing it out of my iPhone. I even used to run it out of my MacBook Pro, but if the computer is on the same riser as a really wild drummer, there is the possibility that the computer will skip a little…we’ve had that happen.
I’ve been doing the iPhone thing for a while now, and have had no issues. We do it at church and on the road, and as long as you have a solid FOH guy who knows what the loop is designed to do, I think it can work great!
Caleb,
Thanks for the comment. If you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to check out the follow up article where I posted Brandon’s Part 2 thoughts. http://www.loopsinworship.com/blog/using-loops-with-an-ipodi-tunes/using-loops-with-an-ipod-or-i-tunes-pros-cons/ . Using an iPod for loops can work great in some situations, but it can hinder as well. We try to explore both spaces/ideas on the blog, while realizing the only way to truly play “with” loops and not “to” loops is using a flexible software like Ableton Live. Thanks so much for adding your thoughts!