Uneven loops?

[jakerobert]

I'm pretty sure this is a basic concept, but I have been producing for about 4 years and I still haven't grasped it.

Say you're playing around in ableton session view and you have an idea for a looping melody. You sequence it out using your midi keyboard. Then you try to loop it and the loop length is something like 2 bars, 3 beats, 1/16th. What do you do? I can't match any other loops up with it.

I would like to just play all the parts live but I can't hear what they'd sound like together since they are out of sync. Is the answer just to play it as if I were using an old 4 track i.e. sequence out one instrument over the whole song, then add the next and so on? That would definitely change my writing process (maybe for the better who knows?)

Is there another way around this? I am not so great at maths...

[NinjaEdit]

Can you cut and paste a bit somewhere into it to make it 4 bars?

[jakerobert]

But the issue there is that it changes the melody completely.

[fragments]

What difference does it make? The melody doesnt have to play constantly. Let it be two bars and 3 beats and a 1/16th. Then make a 4bar drum loop to go with it. Or a six bar one. Just let there be dead air in the melody... or add more to it. Your problem is trying to shoehorn your music into the idea of loops. There is absolutely no reason to do that. Yes, dance music is usually loopy. So either force your shit into loops or dont. *shrug*

[wub]

Sounds like you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Music is art, not science. Let the song itself dictate how it flows, rather than trying to force it into a space it may not want to occupy.

[nowaysj]

I love ableton, and I really love the session view, but I think it may be a problem here. Lemme ask you this, you like the melody looping at that length, you want it seamlessly looping? If so, cut your other loop lengths down to that length. Or don't. Investigate polyrhythms. Paste out your shorter melody, looping over and over again within a 16/32 or whatever bar clip. And do the same with your other shortened elements in their respective clips. Can you play some examples of what you're doing? There really is so much you can do. I have to recommend you just feel your way around (see below).

I'm interested, as I'm kind of shifting into this direction, or at least growing a new tentacle. I've just been working with totally out of time audio in the playlist/arrange type page of flstudio. Just working with audio, totally off the grid. Like for real, off that motherfucking grid bitch fuck tnuc motherfucking grid. Fuck the grid, I do what I want, when I want. Note to daw developers, lemme work with the grid like it is a piece of audio. Like, let me cut and paste the grid, break the grid. Embedded within looping audio is a grid, perhaps irregular, but it is there. Would be great to pull the grid out of the audio, into a visual background element, but that still could be worked with. Broken and chopped. I've been really liking totally fucked rhythms, or non-rhythms. Rhythms that exist for like a loop and a half, or three quarters of a loop, and either never materialize, or disappear right when the body accepts the beat.

I think there is so much interesting, potentially unexplored space there. I'm potentially the most musically ignorant person, on every level, like music theory to what music has been made or is being made. I really don't know anything. But from what I know, I feel like I'm slipping away, off of the musical grid (call back and metaphor) into a freer, emptier space. I really don't like crowds. I had to leave LA because there were just too many people, in their cars. Getting in my way all the time. I realized I'd be happier without all the people around me. Same in music

Here's a sort of recent archetypical track. I've noticed that generally by the end, as I work linearly, I've kind of spent my energy, and allow myself to fall into something approaching a groove. Maybe a groove only I can appreciate. It is kind of like a model/metaphor for life, after the chaos and distortion of youth, exhausted you collapse into some acceptable compromise between your shifty feet and inertia. Your rage and down pillows.

Soundcloud

[nowaysj]

Oh yeah, and nevermind that part about the horse.

[jakerobert]

Mmm

The answer here seems to be to loosen up and go with the flow of my track, and I couldn't agree more.

I just wanted to know if there was something simple I was missing... sometimes I feel like I have some dyslexia related to numbers.

Anyway, I like where you're going with your new tentacle nowaysj.

The tentacle I'm nursing is moving in a similar direction, just toward sequencing everything with controllers, away from the grid. And I have definitely found the session view really limiting in that it never leads me to finish a song.

Now I am wanting to pretend that I am working with an old cassette based four or eight track. I've been paring things down more and more so that plays into it as well. But in imitating the way composing/recording was done on a cassette recorder, I'm forced to move forward rather than just expand into infinite loop space. And I've been more and more interested in traditional songwriting, loads of which has been done on those machines. If it worked for them it can work for me, plus I've still got all my nondestructive editing and gizmos should I decide to use them.

[nowaysj]

Have you considered picking up a 4 or 8 track? Can still use the session view. Jam out into tape. Then take the tape back into the arrange page in ableton, or what they call it, forget, the multitrack view, for editing and mixing. Just picked up a 4 track for a dollar on ebay.

[dddemain]

I know this is old but did you try rendering the melody as an audio file, exporting it into the playliist and then changing the bpm so that the melody fits into 4 bars. That is usually my problem if i cant get a melody to loop right