Re: Anyone here never livelooped?

[Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@gmail.com>]

Hi Tyler, 

The looping you're talking about is so commonplace that a discussion list about it would be like having a discussion list about copy/paste. (Actually, it would be exactly like that, because copy/paste is one of the ways you get loops in the studio.)  

Here's a list of the loops I could hear in "Toxic" by Britney spears. 
1) The first 1.6 seconds of electronic bass drum and snare drum
2) The first 3.3 seconds of string samples (the riff of the song)
3) The acoustic guitar is looped, but parts of the loop are muted in the beginning of the song. You hear the entire loop from 0:27 to 0:40.
4) Same with the synthesized bass line - you hear the entire loop from 0:27 to 0:40
5) The entire chorus from 0:57 to 1:24 is probably looped. I bet each time you hear the chorus, you're hearing it copy/pasted from this first time.
6) In fact, at 2:51, you hear the seam of the loop, but they had to overlap Britney's vocal performance, so you hear her singing "toxic" and "with a taste" at the same time. 

Now, the chorus loop isn't like they take one big chunk and copy/paste it. You're probably hearing about 8 tracks of instruments and even more tracks of vocals. Typically, new instrumental loops are to choruses that are further on in the song. Not so much in this song - there's just a new synthesizer line in the last chorus. 

In order to make the loops sound less repetitive, the producers often drop out most of the tracks (this is called a "drop out", and is really common in hip-hop), and replace them briefly with other synths or heavily processed versions of the other loops. I like the part at 2:37 where they run her voice through multiple vocoders before fading in the chorus loop again. Looping isn't the challenge here - it's trying to get the song to sound like it's not looped!

Frankly, I think it's a well-produced song. The guys who wrote and produced the music went and formed their own band later, called Miike Snow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLHjKgQt39s). 

Unfortunately, most pop stars like Britney Spears have very little to do with the music they're associated with. They are pretty people with slightly better than average singing ability. Usually the songs are written and produced by other people. There are even vocal coaches to tell the singers when to sigh and how to emote when singing. 

This song was completely written and produced before Britney Spears came into the picture - it was offered to Kylie Minogue first. 

I'm certain there must be some discussion groups on the internet about how to use DAWs (digital audio workstations) to create pop songs. I imagine most of the folks on those lists probably discuss EQing, mastering, plugins and stuff like that. Looping is one of the first things you learn. 

For folks who aren't familiar with the song: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU

And for those who are: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwFXy_yl4hE



-- 
Matt Davignon
mattdavignon@gmail.com
www.ribosomemusic.com
Podcast! http://ribosomematt.podomatic.com

Tyler <programmer651@comcast.net> was like:

> Hello! Are any of you guys members of this mailing list because you loop in the studio? Anyone never
> livelooped? After all, this site is about looping, including livelooping; not just livelooping, even
> though there is an abundance of livelooping. It is okay to talk about pop music with a lot of repeated
> samples; we just need to tell a lot of indie studio loopers about the list, and we can make the list more
> like how it is described on the website; looping of all kinds.
> Tyler Z
>