Stretchy Loops in Ableton Live

One of the really easy and cool things with Ableton Live loop handling is that you could munge the loops to nearly any configuration you want. There’s absolutely no need to keep the original 4/4 loop structure in place, you could do just any kind of musical craziness with the loops.

For example, drum loops (see picture). I took an ordinary sounding 808 drum loop, and the placed fixed warp markers in very unexpected places. The end result is something that does not sound the normal kick/snare/hihat beat, rather something that has odd accentuations in the beginning, and a quick sudden burst at the end.

And that was just touching the tip of the iceberg, you could go through bass lines, pad lines, nearly anything, and make it sound very different from the original purpose. Still, there’s a need to make sure it sounds musically interesting, so it’s not yet-anther fun-with-effects-release.