Are we musicians getting too spoiled with loop recording? Too be honest I'd say that I myself am Loop recording is a nice feature, but are we musicians coming to rely on it too much with our music? At this point in my music I cannot even think of owning a keyboard that doesn't loop record. My PSR-550 may be low end, but it at least will loop when recording styles.. I remember years ago when I owned a Casio CTK series. The sounds weren't the greatest, and it only had 6 tracks for recording with no loop settings at all.. Plus song length was quite limited... However with that keyboard I didn't lose the creative flow with my music. Everything I recorded was done in realtime including entire drum tracks. I remember how the music had such a natural flow to it. It's funny when I think about it.. When I bought a PSR-540 several years ago, I didn't know it loop recorded for the longest time.. I was too lazy to look into "style creation".. I was quite content with the preset drum patterns, and when I recorded songs on the 540 I always recorded them in realtime as I did in the past. Months after owning the keyboard I looked in the manual and read the style recording section. Eight months after owning the keyboard I read the it would loop when recording styles. From that point I was looping everything with the styles. Sure loop recording speeds up the process of recording a song, but I feel that the natural flow of the music is greatly compromised with it. I guess over the years I have gotten lazy with recording my music and have heavily relied on using loops. So how do others here feel about this?

Squeak

Honestly? Never use it, I have no need for it at all with my applicatons.
Last time I used it was on my Korg M1 many years ago.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 02-08-2004).]

My musical direction has gone just a bit more toward the electronica genres lately, much as it had in my earlier playing days.

The difference is that today there is so much more affordable equipment to help me. I had only a Poly six, electric piano and simple drum machine 20 some years ago. I think loop recording has it's place, especially for the electronica genres. It can be a great tool for "painting" creatively. When I listen to the best what is out there, some of it is very creative, even if the larger part of some compositions has little of to do with playing an actual instrument.

I don't usually like that looped feel when I'm creating or listening to what are more traditionally non electronica genres, except of course when there may be hybrids or fusions of electric and acoustic stuff.

Arrangers to me, in this little studio, are pretty much in the same boat as looping tools, pattern sequencers, etc, though I may occasionally mix and match some style parts here or there on a few tunes. More often than not though, with loops, arps, style parts, etc, I find that there is more work in the editing I do just to get a more humanized feel, than if I just recorded the parts I want in real time. The loops and style parts do give me a good groundwork to start with though.

Natural flow, as you say Squeak, comes from timing, velocity, pitch, and other nuances, as translated by a real player. I miss that in a loop or style piece. I really notice it a lot in drum and bass parts.

Of course, on the performing stage, I think most of it becomes moot, as the focus shifts to the abilities of the performer to entertain, and the nuances and abilities of his / her real time playing.

AJ