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Forum: Music discussion

Topic: Looping

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cottieHome userMember since 2006
Can someone give me a briefing about using the loop. Is it to hold a beat accross two songs to blend them in, as well when is a good time to use them. I am fairly new i've used vdj for about 6 months now and am ready to learn a little more advanced tricks.

Thanks
 

Posted Mon 29 Aug 11 @ 12:04 pm
Sorry used the wrong id, this is my licensed id.
 

Posted Mon 29 Aug 11 @ 1:35 pm
it depends what type of music your playing on how you would use looping...

to start, if your playing anything with vocals that isn't produced with dj's in mind, looping is what you use to give yourself time to mix, but that is the only time I would use a loop at the start of a track, otherwise you risk boring your audience...

next, if your playing techno which is heavily loop based anyway, but progressive in nature, you can use loops to grab the most intense part of the track, and for some reason the more you hear 8 bars of a loop, the more locked in to the groove you become and the feeling of intensity goes up, but you have to vary the sound by playing with your eq's while the loop is playing.

If you loop a vocal sample or stab, the more you hear it the less real and more musical it becomes, again increasing the intensity of the music, but sounding familiar, really only works with deeper more intense music... not so much with poppy songs...

finally you have loop effects which sound amazing, with these you can stutter and completely mess up parts of a song for interesting fills, so in effect you record a sample then change the size of the sample for instant rolls, it also sounds great to reverse parts...

effects you should try are
=rollit (vdj)
=looproll (vdj)
=instajungle v 1.0 (vst)

there is mapping for these effects all over the forum, do a google search to find them...

good luck
 

Posted Mon 29 Aug 11 @ 3:53 pm
How do you start a loop right at the downbeat, the 1 beat in 4:4 time?

I'm new to virtualDJ, and have been able to figure out beatmatching, sync, cue points, but I'm still not as effective with setting loops as I'd like to be. The problems I'm having with loops are:

1. when hear a section I want to loop, the track i'm playing already moved past the point where I want to start the loop. If I could set the out marker and beat count for a loop I could still set it, but I don't think that feature exists

2. when I am approaching the outro for a track, I'll set a loop to help with the crossfade to the next track, but I often have a hard time precisely setting the loop "in" on the downbeat. If I miss by a little bit, on either the in or the out, then the loop is of an irregular size (not an integer number of beats) and the track gets out of synch with the cue track every time the loop restarts. If I set just the intro to the loop then set 8, 16, or 32 beats for the loop the out of synch problem doesn't happen, but the loop still doesn't start on the proper downbeat so doesn't feel quite right.

3. I often want to start a loop at a cue point that I've prepped in a track, at a thematic peak or cool section. There doesn't seem to be a way to save loops like I can save cue points, so while I'm spinning the track I've tried to trigger a cue point on the track i'm playing, then start a loop right at that cue point. While the track is actually playing I'm not fast enough to start the loop right on the cue point, and I'm back in the problem #2.

(note #3 works ok on the cue track. I can stop the track, the go to the cue I want while the track is not spinning, set the loop, then hit play in synch with the playing track. So basically I can use loops in this method for an intro, but I'm not able to use loops as an outro from a playing track)

Maybe a macro is an approach for solving (2) and (3) above, but I wanted to ask the forum if there is an easier solution that i'm overlooking here. Thanks for the help,

Brian


(BTW... I'm using a macbook and keyboard only for now, VDJ Home edition. Plan is to pick up a Mixtrack or Mixtrack pro in the next month or so, then eventually migrate to NS6 when I have the funds. I like VDJ better than Serato, although VDJ doesn't seem to get much respect in some of the other forums ???)
 

Posted Sun 08 Jan 12 @ 9:54 pm
unfortunately this function of looping on beat is not native to virtual dj yet, however, when you get a pro licence you will be able to download kaleo's plugin "loop games" which can set the loop on the next beat. Using home however you still have a couple of options... there should be a "loop_move" knob in the loop section that says "shift" above it. You can rotate this knob to finely adjust the position of the loop.

you can map the keyboard in vdj home

you could map these
loop backward
loop_move -0.01

loop forward
loop_move +0.01

for a hot loop, because you cant use a controller with led feedback you could simply map a key so the third hot cue functions like a hot loop, then you will be able to see on the skin if one is present in the playing track. This will loop however many beats you have selected. that is just
hot_cue 3 & loop
 

Posted Mon 09 Jan 12 @ 3:06 am
Thanks for the advice above.

I was able to set proper loops in VDJ; the approach I would use on an outro was to first set the loop size, usually 16 or 32 beats, then trigger a (previously set) cue point which would move the whole loop of the set size to start at the cue point. I could them synch the next track and ramp over to it.

As long as the cue point was previously set properly on a downbeat, and I triggered the cue on a downbeat, the approach worked fine.

 

Posted Sat 11 Feb 12 @ 10:31 pm
I everybody... i need help... my style is house, deep-house and afro-house... i just need loops about for that style... my english is not very good but i think everybody can understand what i need. thank u.
 

Posted Sat 08 Jun 13 @ 5:06 pm
Loops are about making yourself some extra time on a track that the crowd won't notice.

As a Hard House DJ, the only time I really use a loop is to capture a single kick from the next track, and halve it and halve it again to speed up the kick drum to a 16 beat, and build the current record up.

Or, loop a sound effect from the end of the last track, a whoosh or something, then add effects over it, and bring that sound in on the new track from time to time.

If your timing is out, you can use the smart loop button, which will start and stop on the 4th, 8th, or 16th beat for you. Clever.

Play with it. And when you think you got it down, play with it some more. Every day is a DJ School Day!

Ta
Mike
 

Posted Sun 09 Jun 13 @ 12:46 am
Another method is to make use of the sampler in VDJ.

Record some of your favourite sections from tracks as loops into the sampler slots. Then you can play them back in sync to other tracks.
 

Posted Sun 09 Jun 13 @ 8:27 am
You don't need to beat match every track as a lot of people will tell you on here, but I use loops to help me beat match transitions from one track to another. Sometimes I use it for a vocal section like the chorus or a little bit of the outro. Other times I use it to bring in the next song from the chorus then let a bar or 2 play then 1/2 it, then again and again and again then hit loop out and my cue point that I set for where I want to actually start the song from (on the first beat or where ever I think it works for me). I am by no means great at hitting the loop where I want it every time so the loop adjust knob helps me out a lot. I have a Mixdeck so having a controller helps me big time. I'm slowly getting better at it, and you will only get as much out of this as you put into it.
 

Posted Mon 10 Jun 13 @ 5:36 pm
Hello,

Just got the Numark Party Mix.

I dont know why my loop is not on time. for example, I want to loop a section of 8 beats in a track. instead of starting to loop the 8 beat from when i hit loop bottom. it goes back 8 beats. I want it to start looping the moment I hit the loop bottom.
I tried to looking at the setting on VirtualDJ but I couldnt find it.

Thanks
 

Posted Wed 07 Feb 18 @ 11:02 pm
DJFera331 wrote :
Hello,

Just got the Numark Party Mix.

I dont know why my loop is not on time. for example, I want to loop a section of 8 beats in a track. instead of starting to loop the 8 beat from when i hit loop bottom. it goes back 8 beats. I want it to start looping the moment I hit the loop bottom.
I tried to looking at the setting on VirtualDJ but I couldnt find it.

Thanks


I think the setting you are looking for is "loopBackMode"
 

Posted Thu 08 Feb 18 @ 8:02 am


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