Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
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2025 is the year I'm going for force myself out of the 4 bar loop nightmare.
I've got a million of them. Some of them more promising than others but I just can't seem to be able to push myself to progress to complete a track.
Comments
I believe we can do it.
ABCBCA or something
That is my plan. Or as the band Genesis would say. ABACAB
Find two or three that you like and import them into Launchpad, or Logic Pro's Live Loops, and build an arrangement from there. If you're stuck trying to create a flow and structure this is a fun way to work it all out.
What no loopy
As far as I go personally, I create a 4-bar/8-bar/16-bar loop (depending on my mood) in a DAW, adding as many layers as I wish, and then structuring it out by repeating the loop a few times and then subtracting elements from it to help create an initial flow. Then I automate effects (usually filters) to help add to the flow, or even to the transitions/fills. I use filters even in Ambient music to help aid the flow of the piece of music.
Happy 8-bar loop nightmare! 🥳
Whats helped me.
Jam on a synth, and record your free style jamming. You will most likely jam out a few riffs that are different enough but go well together.
Now you have a few parts you can use to build a track from.
Most of the energy and inspiration seems to come in the first 15 minute’s to 30 minutes.
Don’t use that time to just focus on a part or a loop but rather to create a few parts. Doesn’t have to be perfect and have every note figured out. Just a sketch.
Don’t think about mixing or getting every effect, every parameter of the synth exactly how you want it.
Drop in your go to effects.
Create some loops.
Go back and tweak the effects and automation later. Just get the bones laid out, then worry about the nervous system, build the muscles and then the epidermis lol.
😂
Yes Loopy works too 😄
Try constructing a series of songs minus any kind of drums or percussion. Focus on melody instead.
This. ☝️ I usually start a song with a piano sound and mark down chords, melody, and bass. Sometimes I even nail the counterpoint that way. 😅
👍 I tend to get too bogged down in the minutia of production until I’m able to gain some distance from a project. Only after gaining some distance can I better determine if what I’m making is even worth listening to. 🙃 Getting back to basics by humming, whistling or playing without thinking about production at all can break bad habits and get one out of a musical rut.
Piano and guitar are great instruments to compose with, and certainly keep you out of just 4 bar loops.
A trick I learned years ago (works not just for music)
If you’ve written the A section and you’re happy with it, treat it as the B section, and write a new (better) A
I agree. This principle is why I purchased the Korg NKS, and an M-Vave. Just to noodle around and come up with ideas.
Exactly. I'm blessed to be a professional pianist, but even just using a piano sound or guitar sound and programming in the notes can get you pretty far imho, even without the need to be savvy at the piano.
I do this quite often when I write lyrics, but I didn't realise it could also work for instrumental music. 😅 Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out to me. Brilliant idea.
@jwmmakerofmusic yeah I saw that advice for lyrics originally, but it’s all just the same, right? 😅 and why stop at B? Go to C! Or D, I dunno..
You ever heard The Beach Boys' song "Good Vibrations". That song has like....6-7 different sections. Quite a feat I'd say. I wonder if Brian Wilson wrote the music for each section and then swapped them around until they made sense in his head, or if he just wrote the whole thing start to finish.
That said, I posted my track "Scarlet" in the "what is your best song" thread. That has four sections. For the new version, I took the fourth Trance section of the original and made it a Medieval-sounding intro. And you know what? It flows better that way.
So yeah, nothing wrong with a multi-sectioned piece of music regardless of genre. I think my next Electronic JMJ/Tangerine Dream-styled piece will have 3-5 sections. I must figure them out first.
The fun thing about writing music is coming up with a small melodic motif you can then fit into the chord progressions. So, perhaps in my next piece, I will have the same melodic motif for sections 1, 2, and 5, and a different motif for sections 3 and 4.
I wouldn’t say 6-7 sections, more like like variations on a motif like you say.
But there’s a reason that song was (and still is) so popular: it’s clever
Never underestimate your audience’s IQ, although I fear that’s the norm nowadays
It truly is clever. Brian Wilson at his finest. Afaik, he wasn't the lyricist, but he wrote the music to which the lyrics were sung.
That's true. Not many youngsters have the attention spans we had growing up. Why, back in my day, we used to listen to songs that were longer than 4 minutes (like "Thriller", "Smells like Teen Spirit", etc) and would get lost in those songs. A lot of modern music seems more disposable than something to get lost in, something for the youngsters to dance to on TikTok. 😂
But getting back to the original topic, there are many ways to break out of the 4-bar loop nightmare.
Yeah, upgrade to 8-bar nightmare, did I stutter? 😂
Good tip.