Join Dot Bustelo for an in-depth discussion in this video Rocking out with Apple Loops, part of Logic Production Techniques: Making Beats.
I'd like to share with you the basics of what Apple Loops are and how to use them to quickly make a really cool professional beat. So, what are Apple Loops anyway? Apple Loops are audio or MIDI files with metadata that allow them to lock in real time immediately to the tempo and key of your project and can repeat seamlessly. They're available here on the right, under the Loop's tab of the Media area. Let me drag a few in.
(music playing) Now, this is important. They have metadata with key words, called tags, used by the Loop Browser to filter searches by instrument, genre, and mood. So, I'm going to reset the tags and select Percussion > Processed, and I'll scroll down to a couple that I liked. Let's preview, listening against the track.
(music playing) I'll drag this one in, and this Indian Tabla. You notice it takes a minute to actually hear the loop preview, and we just drag it right into the project. (music playing) So, the tempo sync is automatic.
I can change the tempo from 100 to 90 or 20, no problem. Let's check. (music playing) I'll bring that down to 90. All the loops conform to the tempo, or we could speed this up, no problem. (music playing) They do lock in pitch, but it requires a few steps in the global tracks, which I'll cover later.
There are two types of Apple Loops identified by color. The blue Apple Loops are audio-only, the green ones contain the original MIDI performance plus software instrument and effects. Green MIDI loops have this icon of the music note. Blue Apple Loops have the icon of an audio waveform. I like to say the green Apple Loops go both ways. Let me grab one from the synths.
Let's just scroll down here. (music playing) Let's try that one in the track. Now, if I drag it on to an audio track, it builds an audio Apple Loop. Let's take a look. (music playing) There it is. However, if I drag it onto a software instrument track or an empty track, it loads the actual software instrument and effects used to create that Apple Loop, as well as the MIDI file.
Let's try that now. I'm dragging adjacent to the empty space and it built out the instrument that was used to create it, and there is the MIDI file. (music playing) It sounds exactly the same, but we have some advantages with it on an instrument track. I could easily change the instrument playing back the pattern. Let's go to the library, and maybe I'll try, in the keyboard folder, some of these warped electric pianos. Let's see what it comes up with.
(music playing) Just by changing the Channel Strip Setting, it might lay into our track better. Let's try one more. (music playing) I think I like that first one. I'll take it back up to the Analog Flange Stage and bring down the volume a bit. Now, the reverse is not true.
Blue Apple Loops cannot load on software instrument tracks, only on audio tracks. And you know what? Let's put our tempo back to 100. (music playing) This little track idea is an example of a time where the Apple Loops themselves inspired me to play a bunch of other parts and make the beat my own. Here is how the track ended up, with some other parts I played and the vocals.
(music playing) A few more Apple Loops dragged in, programmed that bass line, added some other beats, and here come the vocals. (music playing) A little breakdown with a quite a few Apple Loops again. (music playing) While commercially released songs use Apple Loops, few became quite as viral as Rihanna's Umbrella.
The main drum track is basically a standard Apple Loop found in GarageBand as well as Logic. Let's type it into the Search field: Vintage Funk Kit. I'll go down and maybe you recognize this beat. (music playing) That song earned Rihanna a Grammy and a nomination for Song of the Year, so don't hold back on using Apple Loops yourselves in your compositions.
There's an art to making Apple Loops really work in fresh creative ways, with any number of Logic's techniques for slicing, adding effects, and re-grooving audio or MIDI, which is what we'll talk about next.
- Rehearsing the beat
- Recording kick and snare drums
- Understanding Logic Pro regions and quantizing effectively
- Sound designing your kits
- Step sequencing
- Making stutter vocal effects
- Customizing Apple Loops to lock in pitch and feel
- Finding your tempo and changing the tempo of audio
- Slicing your samples by transient and by beat
- Flexing like a pro
- Making groove templates and other advanced quantizing techniques
- Making retro Logic groove techniques with the Transform Editor
- Vocoding and side-chaining in Logic Pro