Does anyone use these primarily in their productions? Only time I can remember using loops is maybe 3 or 4 times when I was being lazy and didn't feel like programming some perc, bongos or congos in a production. So I just slapped a 4 bar percussion loop on certain parts of the song. lol. Yet I've never used melodic loops or a hihat, kick or snare drum loop in a song. Seems like cheating. Thoughts..

 

"Feels like cheating"; I didn't know we could cheat at making music, lol!
It is definitively not cheating. In fact most of the time, you must be kinda good to make the loops blend in with the other elements of the song since they all come from different sources. A lot of tracks I love make good use of those early loops found on sample CDs.

A shaker loop, a drone, some percussions, beds/atmospheres, etc. all valid stuff if used correctly
I don't think I've ever used successfully melodic loops, because with those you really don't have much control on the melody and you can hardly change key. Oh and never main drum loops/kick loops either.

 

This is a fairly old argument... Are loops cheating....
There is nothing wrong with using loops...

Lately, I've been extracting the midi from loops and using the rhythms to create tracks.
Sometime I chop bass or synth loops and re-arrange them to create new ideas.
Some times I chops individual percussion sounds from Top loops/ Perc Loops, Just because I like the Sample.
Sometime i extract the Polyphonic Midi from a Piano or guitar track, and create an entire song based off it.
Sometimes I will create one shot Synth or Shots from Loops.

Depending on your DAW Software you can re-pitch loops. In Logic the have Apple Loops that can be re-pitched. In Abelton you can pitch WARP your loops and in Cubase It will automatically re-pitch yours loops if designate a KEY to your song.

Regardless, Don't be ashamed to find uses for loops.
They are just another tool in your production tool box that you can use to create better music.

Cheers.

 

I remember this one:

 

I don't think anything's wrong with using loops really. No cheating in music. It doesn't need to be hard to make to be good. I want an artist to make something that sounds good not climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I just don't use loops much because it's such a pain in the ass to find something that I think sounds good. A lot of loops, construction kits, etc. just sound rather generic to me so I don't end up using them. And I've gotten sick of the amount of crap I seem to have to wade through to find something good so I just try and make them on my own now. And I usually feel way more accomplished when i make my own. And that's what this whole thing is about for me just having fun. And its really damn fun when I can make a whole song on my own. So no if you can find loops and such that sound good to you go for it, loop away.

 

even Hollywood uses loops (seriously)

once again, depends on the music you make

I use mainly drum loops, because I think - unless you play them by hand, or finger drum - it's a waste of time trying to achieve by yourself what has already been done a hundred times in sample loops packs, most of the time with a better sound than you'd get with your DAW
I do all synths & other stuff myself

tbh, I see the quality of loops sample packs decreasing as time goes, even if some are still doing a great job

regarding construction kits, I don't like it.
it's good to copy structures, when you're learning music, or when you want to do something that won't get people lost
but it's also good to break them, and find your own, that's a part of being original

something else I don't like in construction kits, is that you might lose the sense of arrangement even before you get it.
I see a lot of people on FB posting videos like "my new sound, what do you think guys?" and they call themselves a producer
: dude, you're not a producer, and that's not YOUR song.
you've just played LEGO with a DAW and you think you're creative if you change a few presets, but you're not.

in that sense, building a whole song with loops that you will pick here and there, that don't belong to the same pack, the same genre, and make them fit together is more creative than construction kits.

ableton is the best daw to be creative with loops.
I'm learning it right now, and a lot of people have turned it into a composing tool, but it's not its primary use, it was made for people doing
techno, and all other stuff based on loops.

melodic loops are a bit more tricky, that's where you start to lose originality ..

when I started, I also used adobe audition a lot to chop samples and even go deep in preparing tracks, because it's not tempo based,
so when you import a loop, it remains at its original time signature, whereas other DAWs are forcing the loop into a specific tempo, whether it's the loop tempo, or the one you'll chose

 

before asking yourself if its cheating, ask you self these questions instead
who are you making music for?
who is your main audience?
how long have you been practicing music?

your answers will inform you and you can take action accordingly to those answers.

i will leave it at that instead of just sprouting my view