Tools: More Mixcraft

Rather than talk about how to do something, I will mostly talk about concepts and maybe ideas what to do rather than specifically how to do it. The reason is, most of the tools have extensive resources on their site on HOW. They just don't deal with What or Why.

So today, I want to talk about matching in parts from different kits or from outside sources. In addition to the Mixcraft loops and loops I built,  I acquired a set of loops online, from a website called Prime Loops.  There a lot of sites out there that supply them, some of them for free. Though I have yet to find a free site that isn't in some way funky (and I am not talking Parliament). Prime Loops has good loops, and they are reasonably priced. They are not the only site that fits that description, but they are the ones I chose.

The most daunting part of the project is importing them and doing the data quality. You don't HAVE to do that step, but I am doing it because it will allow me to search for them more easily later rather than just clicking on the imported list and fishing through them that way. So I am changing the names, adding the key where it is missing, and placing them into song kits. You can just leave them in imported and listen to them to see if they fit the project you are working on.

Loops can be altered, gently using Mixcraft and radically using something like Audacity, which I will cover later. Mixcraft allows you to alter things like the key and tempo to match a project. Not all loops will sound good when altered in either of those two ways, but some will sound fine, or maybe even better than the original.

So on Project Alpha I used some imported and altered loops. I am pretty sure you wont be able to tell from listening to this which parts are which. In fact, I will guess that most people will guess parts that came from this kit actually are the foreign parts. Part of that is the magic of arrangement, and part is the choice of sounds they included in the original kit. The new bits were altered for both pitch and tempo, but I think it sounds pretty good. Of course, that is the reason to make your own music in the first place isn't it. If this sort of thing isn't your style, then there are plenty of things out there to make your own favorites.

By using the ability to alter pieces, you can get a melody you like matched with a beat you like, and other supporting instruments that may not come in a given kit. It also allows you to use a number of different voices and melodies in sequence to change up what may seem to be a bit too homogeneous, or fill out a kit you like, that simply came with too few parts to make anything full length.

Anyway, thats all I have for today. Thanks for playing along.