Hey all,
 
I know this isn't the "right forum" to ask this, however this is the place where I trust the people to guide me.
 
Very long story short... I've been a muisician since I was 6 years old. I grew up on music that was played by musicians, recorded when the musicians PLAYED the instruments, and a good many wrote their own music.
 
I'm getting serious again about music and production, but I'm having a hard time getting a handle on how things work today. I am not against electronic music, and I'm really starting to appreciate the music I hear today. I just don't understand HOW it's made anymore and I want to.
 
For example - musicians use samples and loops. No harm no foul... but when thousands of musicians are buying the same loops, sample packs and soft instruments... what's the point? And if I purchase a sample library with lets say a mess of great sounding trumpet riffs... Does that mean I have to write the same song that everyone else who purchased them wrote?
 
I'm not trying to be smart. I really want to know what I'm missing that I can learn and begin to integrate into what I want to do. I've always loved writing jingles for example. And I want to compete with today's producers.
 
So I guess what I'm asking is where can I learn how all these factors... loops, samples, etc. are used today in order to produce fresh original music? What's the process? What's the secret? What am I missing that if I pick up on will help me to take my music to the next level efficiently?
 
ANY thoughts or advice would be helpful! I don't want to fear the future (which is already here), I want to embrace it.
 
Thanks!!
 
Gavin
 

I'm in the same boat. None of it comes naturally for me and I think of loops as small pieces of tape. Midi patterns I find much easier to use because I used to use midi a lot. I don't think we need to be good at all types of music to be good at music. There's just so much to explore.

You sound like a guy who should writing and performing his own music. Anyway, you've probably already discovered that there are no audio loops that match what you hear in your mind. I'm not an advanced MIDI user, but I know there are MIDI samples of pretty much every instrument that you can trigger to play what you want, as opposed to 2- or 4-bar audio loops that would lock you in to a specific musical phrase.
 
I'm old now, but I've been listening to "hit radio" for the past few months, and modern stuff is astoundingly complex and well produced. But the best of it does not seem imitative, once you start paying attention and taking it apart. I don't think you can be "competitive" by trying to do what others have already done. With the possible exception of drums, play "live" whatever instruments you know how to play and look into sample packages for the rest.

Loops are a double-edged sword as well (I am not a big fan of them). Music is about time, so even if you have say 10,000 loops/samples that average 5s each, you would spend 833+ hours just previewing them (let alone finding them again).
 
However, that being said, the crux of a song is often a nice riff, beat, loop, whatever; so there is no problem "thinking" in loops, but I have headed down the path to creating my own. There are so many tools/tricks available to capture ideas quickly, with a simple cell phone being a handy one. When an idea strikes, is simple to capture it quickly, then even use it in SONAR. Audio->MIDI conversion is a massive advantage... you can beat box (totally suck at doing so), and begin laying out a drum pattern from it. Same with even humming something... bass lines, riffs, etc.
 
The digital downside (for me) is that you can edit till the cows come home and not feel pressured to commit, so a lot of ideas can loiter in a sandbox state. This has been more of my challenge, but collaboration has upped my game a bit, as an old friend likes to send me ideas which I flesh out more quickly each time.
 
When it comes to loops, I find I can invest less time creating them myself than hunting for a "perfect" one, so I have spent more time focusing on learning how to manipulate the tools to make them (synths being the biggest challenge for me).

Well, the current adage is that thanks to loop packs just about anybody can make music that's passable and "ok". But it won't help you make GREAT music.
 
Anybody who uses off-the-shelf loops and doesn't do something to make them unique is going to suffer from boring music. Why do you think music has become so disposable? 
 
So, go ahead and use them, they really help to quickly try out ideas! But, go back and muck with them. Chop them up, edit them, use effects, etc. Just keep doing things to them until you've made them "yours". You see this all the time on very good tutorial videos for Ableton Live. They show you how to take a few loops and make a song, but then they show you how to get very detailed with them and to turn them into something new. 
 

I don't use audio loops a lot because the time required for screening to find and edit something useable (as mettelus pointed out) is just too long and a creativity killer ...
 
But I use MIDI loops from drum sampler packages (AD2, Abbey Road drums) a lot because you get a good sound and feel for a demo or scratch tracks really quick ... and some of the included MIDI loops are really great because they were played by excellent musicians and are just as much off the beat as you need it ...
 
Yet, nothing beats the feel if the track/groove/riff is played by a real musician - but if you consider the tremendous time and effort required to get a multi-mic'ed drum kit sounding good (phase correction, editing, ...), you will understand that for some smaller budget productions and jingles, you can only get a decent drum sound via MIDI drum loops and sampler packages.

I have hip-hop clients that insist on using samples and loops exclusively. As far as my composing and working on commercials, I always use a drum rompler ( Superior Drummer 2, AD2, etc., Kontakt, Addictive keys,etc.). Working with samples is just too much a headache. If you can find samples that contain the pieces of audio you want, then you spend ours and hours cutting tiny bit and pieces and pasting them together and then nothing sonically matches from clip to clip. But it makes the client happy and that's what counts.
I am blessed to have played in bands and was taught classical piano starting age 7 so I wear a lot of hats in my production studio. I know how to play a drum kit and I know that a drummer only has 2 feet and 2 hands. I play piano and understand how to score for horns and orchestra, I gained my rep as a guitar player. If you play guitar, you already have a basic understanding of how to play bass.
My point being, get you a good drum rompler with some good midi libraries and a nice cheapy bass to learn on. From your pic I see you play guitar. Start with just those three and see what happens. I'd be willing to bet that the results will be much better and you will get something happening a lot quicker than sitting and cutting and pasting audio clips all day and still not be happy with the results.
Live music is not dead! It's just in tech shock right now. No matter what we do, I don't think we will ever lose the yearning to hear a real person expressing themselves with a real instrument.

A guitar player or piano player might be noodling around and come up with a riff.

That riff is what the song is built on.

No different with loops. Audition some and see if you get some inspiration. That loop could easy become the base of a song.

There's millions of guitar players but they don't all sound the same or play the same music. Don't let loops lock you into a box of some sorts. Besides the loops will be fillers and create the backing, the rhythm of a song. Just another tool to help you get to where you want to go.

I never use audio (or MIDI) loops in my electronic music...
 
If I do then it is something that I have created myself.
 
just sayin...

Thank you all for your encouraging answers!
I've been watching a lot of music production interviews lately - especially at "Pensato's Place", and they all talk about the "beats" they used, etc. It became discouraging.
 
I'm lucky enough to have a good music background and can play many instruments. I'll keep playing ;-)