Using Loops in Worship - The Journey Part 2

Today, I'm trying to get a little more sophisticated with our use of loops. I'm starting off today by getting some better click tracks. Most people I've talked to recommend creating click tracks in Reason using more percussive elements. We use stage monitors with our middleschool band so it will be nice to have a click track that sounds okay if it bleeds into the house mix. The built-in click from Ableton Live is piercing and sounds out-of-place if it bleeds into the house mix. Our other bands on Thursday, Sunday morning and Sunday night all use ear monitors so it won't be as bleeding into the house mix won't be an issue but I still think that people play better to a click that is more like a percussive element of the song (shaker, tambourine, etc) rather than a traditional metronome.

I'm also on the search for some pre-made loops to get us started before we jump full-speed into creating our own loops.

My first stop was at sacredloops. This site has a tremendous amount of stuff! It doesn't look like it has been updated recently but the content section of the site has loops, Live files, Reason files (unfortunately I can't open them with my Adapted version - maybe time to upgrade!). So now I have a ton of content to search through.

Next I headed over to DigitalWorship. The loops section here is really nice for a few examples. It looks like this guy went through the same process a few years ago that I'm just starting. He chronicled his adventure and there are some great insights he shares along the way. His journey starts here.

Finally, I landed at InteractiveWorshipLive. This is a pay service that is building a good selection of loops, clicks and fully-produced Live Sets that can be used to replace missing instrumentalists in your band. They have a free account you can sign up for (you do have to give a credit card no. and a crapload of personal info, though) and you get one free complete song and one free loop. I decided to give it a try. I downloaded "Salvation is Here" and the loop for "Holy is the Lord." I'll write more about when I get a chance to really check 'em out.

So, in summary, I picked up a lot of tips and samples to sort through. Tonight, I'm trying to put together basic click and and loop combinations. I'll post more about how it goes.

Using Loops in Worship - The Journey part1

Image via Wikipedia

I've been using loops in worship off and on for almost 3 years now. Technical difficulties, time and other factors have kept me from using them more but now, I am heading that direction full-on. In the past, we have used loops for 1 or 2 songs in a set but never the entire set. So, we have the technical setup - a Macbook Pro with Ableton Live 6.0 (still debating the upgrade) running out of the headphone jack into 2 channels. In Ableton Live, I set the click to come out the left channel and panned all loop channels to the right. Eventually, I may pick up an M-Audio interface so we can send out stereo loops and still have a channel dedicated to sending out the click. I also have Reason 3.0 Adapted for Digidesign (may upgrade this also) for loop creation and Logic Express/Garageband. I thought I would document the journey here.

Last night with our middleschool band, we used 3 basic loops from the Ableton Live library and and the built-in click from Ableton Live. Here's a screenshot:
http://tinyurl.com/cjw6j2

Ableton has a cool feature where you can map anything to any key just by pressing the "KEY" button in the top right. I pressed this and assigned assigned the Master Column on the right to the number keys so one of the musicans could fire the next song just by hitting "1", "2", or "3" and could stop the song by pressing the space bar.
Here's a screenshot of that:
http://tinyurl.com/c7aula

Thanks to Duane Mixon at portcitychurch.org for showing me that trick!

Another fun trick I figured out yesterday is how to change tempos in Live for the different songs. In the master column on the right, you control click on any of the numbers, select "Edit Launch Tempo" from the pop-up menu and voila! Anything you put in that row will start at the selected tempo!

Pro Tools 8 Sneak Peek Event!

Tonight I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek at the new version of Pro Tools before it is officially released next month. Jonathan N. accompanied me and we had quite a good time. There were about 75 people at Atlanta Pro Audio as one of the Digidesign reps walked us step by step through the new features coming soon. I've been to events like this in the past and honestly, I expected more a of a style over substance approach - you know, a big splashy presentation to get everyone excited about the new release but not a lot of details. What I got was exactly the opposite. The rep did a brief presentation about the history of Pro Tools but then he just opened a copy of the new version on a big projection screen and jumped right it. The tech-geek in me jumped for joy! We got to see how the new improvements in Pro Tools specifically impact the everyday use.

Here are some of the highlights:
* Darker, more modern overall look
* Ability to customize track colors, window size and arrangement.
* Extra plug-ins and virtual instruments
* Even more total tracks available
* Easier to create comp tracks from multiple takes
* Ability to lasso sections to make group changes faster
* Basic notation software included for creating sheet music

I have to admit I was simultaneously excited/dissappointed. I'm super excited about getting the new features that will improve workflow. I know that several of these features will save me time compared to the way I currently work in Pro Tools. The disappointing part is that so many of these features have been available in Logic, Live and other programs for years. It's frustrating to realize that Pro Tools is so far behind on some of these basic features that are considered standard in other DAW's. In many ways, Pro Tools 8 doesn't feel like a step forward as much as it feels like they finally caught up with the innovations others have enjoyed for quite some time.

Pro Tools is still the industry standard software for music production. I think it will stay that way for quite some time. However a few other programs have emerged that do many of Pro Tools tasks better/easier. So as someone who runs a project studio I'm forced to choose between innovation of newer projects or being confined to a very reliable set of features. In the end, I'm sticking with Pro Tools but I seriously wish they would incorporate new features faster rather than just maintaining their position.