I (almost) alway use a combination of single shots and loops. Nowadays, you hear almost every tune using a loopsample from the vengeance pack, that's really annoying, you'd go like, damn... I just used that loop to.

I find it difficult to get a percussion loop 'moving/flowing' with singleshots. That's where my loops jump in. I use them to get a certain percussion flow, and I make sure, there not to obvious in the track.

I also use the following trick alot (got it from the Ian Carey videos). Take a loop and throw it thru the Sonnox Dynamics, doing so, you can really tighten your loop.
Another thing (for Cubase users), is to take your loops and select 'event to part'. In that way you can easily cut up your loop (with hitpoints) en manipulate it the way you want.

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quote:

Originally posted by Theran Another thing (for Cubase users), is to take your loops and select 'event to part'. In that way you can easily cut up your loop (with hitpoints) en manipulate it the way you want.

In FL, that job is nicely done by the Fruity Slicer. Pretty nice tool to chop up your loops into single shots and rearrange them. Its the way I work most often... take a Vengeance Essential Clubsounds drumloop and throw it into the slicer.

Heres a small tip if you didnt know it already.

If you want to maintain a certain groove of a loop but use a different arrangement, then go into the piano roll of the fruity slicer where it has arranged the several hits of your loop... Then choose piano roll options (the triangle in the upper left corner) -> file -> save score as. It saved your groove to a .fsc file.
after that load a new loop into your slicer or rearrange the sounds, again go into the piano roll options -> tools -> quantize. Then load the quantization you saved from your first loop (a .fsc file). FL will now automatically snap your sliced loop to the groove you saved before.
This works pretty well most of the time... and it is also an excellent technique if you have 2 drum loops that have nice sounds and sound great on their own, but when you play them together they just dont fit groove wise.

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Cybernetika albums (free DL): Atropos (2009) | Nanospheric (2008) | Neural Network Expansion (2007) | Promo #1 (2006) | Paralysis (2005)

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Sometimes I like to write percussion loops BEFORE the bass, just to make them fit and roll with the kick. This method usually gives me strong-rythm percussion loops.