vintagevibe

chuckebaby


loops, loops are a songwriters best friend, 

Real songwriters don't depend on loops.  

If you were kidding - that's one thing, but I think that was just a swipe. Actually, some do use loops, and in any case it's up to them and not you. 

Don't like that kind of music? Change the station or don't buy the song.

I don't happen to choose to complete songs with any loops, as a matter of personal choice, but I CERTAINLY do use dummy click tracks for different parts of songs while I am writing them, and often while laying basic keyboard tracks over which I may solo or whatever, replacing them later on in the process with actual drum parts or whatever.  


Drum loops or chord progressions that are looped are handy for the composition process, for me.


And I don't care if you happen to like it or don't - I do what I do for me.





Bob Bone

Feel better now?

hey
before this thread goes sideways
sonar's songwriting strengths are midi clips, midi effects processing, step sequencer, groove clips, session drummer, staff view, staff view lyrics, chord symbols, multiple soft synths, PRV editing, event inspector, audio transient movement, browser drag and drop, templates, screensets . . .

when the song's done . . . there's plenty of mixing / mastering  facilities . . .

vintagevibe

chuckebaby


loops, loops are a songwriters best friend, 

Real songwriters don't depend on loops.  

Making good use of loops doesn't mean that you "depend" on them. "Real songwriters" use loops all the time, whether it's moving clips around in a DAW or deciding to strum the same pattern for 8 bars. 


In terms of songwriting, the ability to loop clips over a section is invaluable. It really helps to be able to sketch out a song structure with loops, so that you quickly have a sense of the overall feel of the track and where it's going. 


My creative process often goes something like this: I'll sit and play around with a loop, say 4 bars or so, and really put my creative all into getting a good musical idea going in that loop. Then, I'll stretch it out into a song section, then make the next loop, and stretch that out into another section - and so on, until I have a basic tune structure. Then, you can work your way through the song from the beginning, adding subtle and not-so-subtle variation into each loop as you go along. Or you can chip away parts of it from the beginning so that new elements are gradually introduced as the song progresses. I do this for all tracks. Then, you make another pass through the whole thing, and work on the interplay between parts. So whereas you initially had a drum loop playing the same thing over and over, now you go in and work on how the drums interact with the variations in the bass line you just made, or play with the interaction between synth parts or whatever. 

You can make as many passes as you feel the need for, and with each pass you're refining the composition and noticing new possibilities in the way the tracks relate and respond to each other. Before you know it, you have something which is anything but a bunch of repeated loops, even though it started that way. This is no different to the sculptor who starts off with a bland cube of marble, chips away a basic shape and then keeps passing over the whole thing and chipping away with smaller and smaller tools until he has an intricate piece of artwork. 

The amount of repetition that you can get away with varies from genre to genre. With EDM, for instance, it's perfectly acceptable (and preferred sometimes) to have a lot of outright repetition and heavy quantization. Whereas with a jazz piece, listeners are going to expect a lot more variation. 

Drums loops are a gift to a non drumming guitar playing song writer. I grimace and kick the desk sometimes because they are my best alternative for certain songs. But then I remember to be thankful. 

vintagevibe

chuckebaby


loops, loops are a songwriters best friend, 

Real songwriters don't depend on loops.  

not for a final product, just for getting foundation of a song down.
I don't use use loops in my music, but I do create foundations of songs around hooks,
what is a hook, its a loop basically isn't it ?
 
I do though on the other hand think there are many great musicians out there that do use loops.
so for you to say, "real musicians don't use loops, that is thin and weak, shallow even.
 
an artist is an artist , loops may help them get to where they want to go.
like I said, I don't use loops but that is non sense to say real musicians don't use loops.
I used to think like that, that's narrow minded.
 
hope i cleared this up for you 
 
good luck with that  :)

But aren't all these "SONARs strengths" that you're listing available in all major (and many minor) DAWs?? IMO they are just features most DAWs have, not in any way SONAR-specific.

vintagevibe


Feel better now?

Sorry - I over reacted to your comment.  (I did feel better, but then I felt bad) 


:)


Bob Bone

Personally I think the power of Sonar comes from it's relative ease of use as opposed to some DAWs which seem, to me, to be big fiddly monsters. Mind you a big fiddly monster may be what you want for some things, but not song writing.

Sonar seems to do so many things for me, particularly routing softsynths, that I am better able to concentrate on the music and not the technology. If I can develop a workflow sooner in Sonar that means I can concentrate on the songs.

Oh, I use loops for composing. ;-)

Regards,

Lots of great replies, thanks guys. I think some of the "off" replies are based on the fact that the term "songwriter" is very vague.
 
Songwriters come in various shapes & forms. Many do not play any instrument with any proficiency whatsoever. For them, loops are invaluable. The ability to change a loops tempo & key with ease would be indispensable. As I recall, Sonar is very good at that (my last version was Sonar 5).
 
Some songwriters can play an instrument, but they aren't "very good" for them, the ability to correct tempo of a recorded clip is very useful. For the person who plays keyed instruments (Keyboards, synths, piano, etc...) midi quantization is a great tool. Input quantization would be helpful. For the hack guitar player (raises hand) the ability to quantize audio would be great, the ability to slice out a note/chord & raise/lower it's pitch would be great.
 
As mentioned earlier, loops are a great way to organize & compose an arrangement. Do I need two choruses? What happens if I repeat the Intro here? etc... Being able to move them around freely is very helpful. & the Matrix in Sonar X2a looks like a good way to do that. Can I record my parts directly into the matrix like I can with Live?
 
Other DAW software includes this functionality as well. Some implement these better, some worse. The same can be said for many of the other issues some of you have mentioned that I did not, like staff view, publishing, virtual instruments, session drummer (which I agree is a great help to a non-drumming songwriter)
 
After Sonar 5, I haven't bought another DAW (until recently) because I realized it wasn't really what I needed. It was more geared towards the producer, for mixing & editing purposes. If you had a song that needed to be recorded, mixed, & produced, then yeah Sonar performed very well. Then Ableton live came out & I think changed the whole industry.
 
I didn't buy Live, but to me it seems like a lot of the concepts introduced by live has been adopted by other distributions. Cubase & ProTools developed play lists, where you could name a section of a song "Intro" or "Verse 1" then tell the DAW which sections to play & when. Which I thought was a major step for the songwriter.
 
Sure you could do the same thing with Sonar, with a few mouse clicks, but it was a "manual" tedious process compared to the way you could do it in other DAWs.
 
Recently, I bought ElevenRack, a guitar processor/audio interface for ProTools. it came with a free copy of ProTools 10 (basically LE)so I got to thinking about DAWS again; basically looking for something that can improve my current process, or just make it easier.
 
When I got away from Sonar5, I just started working with hardware; either a Fantom-S, Fantom-X, or an MV-8800. I sample a guitar loop, build a pattern around it, then arrange it. After I have a "working copy" I track it from start to finish into an AW4416 (another reason for looking into computer based DAWs, is that the AW is about to give up the ghost). My daughter plays the drums, I play guitar & bass, I record the sequenced keys (if there are any), then I'll sing or my daughter would sing, or we'll both sing.
 
Then I'd edit, mix, apply effects, & master all on the AW4416. Which I can do with Sonar 5.
 
So my current need isn't to replace the AW4416. I want to replace the MV-8800.