Tempo Issues with Drum Loops

I apologize if this is a frequently asked question. This is my first post. Anyway...

I bought some drum loops that were supposed to be compatible with Sonar, but they only work at certain tempos, otherwise they sound horrible. I was told something about time stretching, but I don't want to edit each loop individually. I just want simple, straight-ahead rock and pop loops that I can easily insert into songs and change tempo anywhere between about 65 and 120.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matthew Kuehl, Chicago

With ACID loops or audio groove clips you can only change the tempo so much before they start sounding wierd, Usually about 10 to 20 BPM plus or minus. You'll get much better results by using midi clips to trigger a drum sampler or a drum soundfont. With midi clips you can change the tempo to whatever you want and the sound it triggers will sound the same. I recently got EZ Drummer which is a sampler with a lot of midi clips. It sounds like real acoustic drums. But there are lots of choices depending on what kind of drum sounds you are looking for.

Bill

Can anyone suggest one of the $40-50 packages that have loops cut at different tempos?

I can't. Not at tempos that vary as widely as you want to use. Why don't you create your own loops?

Matt - I had thought about those myself, but the reason I didn't buy them is the very reasno that papa stated - they constrain me too much. I'm not a drummer, either, and I'm having a hard time figuring out even what the terminology means to my ears. The smartloops have a good range of tempos and I rarely would go outside of the 75-150 range, but I do often go outside of the 4/4 time and that would preclude me from using them for those songs.

This is probably the least professional sounding solution, but I have just stuck with MIDI for my drums. I can either play them on my keyboard and then edit them in Piano roll view, or just paint them there to begin with. So far I haven't ventured out to finding a good set of inexpensive sound fonts for them, so I'm just using the synths for now, but they suffice for my current needs.

Hi Matt,

I know what you mean about the audio drum loops inside HS4, they sound great to start with but soon become pretty limited - have you tried the MIDI loops inside the RXP softsynth? Some of those sound a lot more authentic to my ears, and I've read on this forum that you can 'lift' individual beats from the loops - haven't tried that yet myself.

Regards

James