I was just going through my files today and I just realized I have gigs and gigs of loops. And I go to thinking about trying to DJ just using loops and build tracks up from them and so on.
Has anyone tried this? What are some the issues, if any, that you have come across?
My biggest issue is that there’s only four decks or “channels” to work with. Doesn’t leave much room to work with when you have the drums and percussion on one deck, a bass line on another, lead/hook on a third and what ever you want on the 4th, be it FX, vocal samples and so on.
just something I’ve been giving some thought to as of late and would love to hear what you guys are experiencing. Cheers!
i find loops are a lot easier to play with and combine in ableton. the issue with only 4 channels is obsolete because you have so many banks to put different loops in.
The problem with looped based music is it sounds like just that… loop based music - that said some genres lend themselves to this technique better than others. For instance minimal techno sounds alot better using loops than say neurofunk drum and bass.
Theres also mixdown factors that need to be taken into consideration, because your mixing down the music live your not going to be able to get as tight a mixdown as someone spending hours in the studio putting together a track followed to being sent to a mastering engineer.
Im not saying dont play looped based music, im just saying you need to be really careful otherwise a really good traditional dj smashing big tunes left right and centre will get a better sound than what can be performed live. That said loop based music can be really interactive and thus great for the crowd because if executed correctly they can really see see what you are getting up to on stage.
My advise would be to try and find a balance between the two worlds of djing and live music performance - this way you get a nice tight sound comming out of the speakers while still being able to use the embelishments of live music performance and put on a bit of showmanship. Its a delicate balance
sometimes if i’m only just using a certain part of a song i’ll cut it up into a loop to use with traktor to simplify things. I also like to bring in samples/clips for little one shots, like small vocal snippets to drop whenever.
but i’ve never used only loops/samples for traktor mixing, I think ableton would be best for that type of work.
