Looping and Layering When Songwriting

More songwriting tips for you! Today we’re sharing some tips on looping and layering during the songwriting process. More songwriting tips, including advice on chord progressions and combating writer’s block can be found here.

Looping/layering is a fantastic writing tool for everyone to use. This technique lets you mock up how your ideas work in combination, without having to worry about fitting your ideas into a song structure you don’t know yet. You can find the song through the sounds.

This is a more manageable bite when writing music. Instead of having to conceive an entire songs worth of material all at once, you just get one groove working, than add another, than another.

How much you use these tips might depend on the style of music you make: for some rap and electronic artists, looping might be the only way you’ve ever written music.

Timing your loops

Loop timing is very important here: don’t add a new layer until the one you’re working on is nicely in time, and stays in time when looped over multiple repetitions.

If your loop start and end points are not exactly aligned, your sounds will gradually fall out of sync with each other as they continue to play. This is where a grid-based recording setup like Ableton Live can have an advantage. The program takes all the annoyance of manual loop timing out of your hands, by locking every clip you record onto the same master timing grid. A lot of people love Ableton’s grid mode, for this reason. Apple’s Logic Pro software also has a grid based system now!

Warping your loops

If you’re using Ableton Live, you can take advantage of its handy “warp” function. This lets you flex the boundaries of a loop to fit into the time grid, if your performance timing was slightly off when you recorded the loop.

Apple’s Logic Pro has a similar feature called “Flex Time”.

Both warp and Flex Time can also be used creatively; they’re fun ways to glitch out sounds if you try pushing them to their extreme boundaries.

Other options for loop timing

Another option for syncing loops is to write to a click.

If you don’t like recording using a click, try using a drum backing track instead; it’s the same steady reference tempo to write around, but more fun.

Or, you could have a friend record some drum loops in different styles, for you to write over.

Options if you don’t like a click

If you don’t want to use a click when writing/recording, that’s cool, but your internal time and/or the rhythm of your band will need to be very strong and well-rehearsed, or it might sound weird.

To develop your own internal time, you’re back to practicing your instrument on your own with a click or a backing drum track.

If you don’t want to hear a click when you’re playing music ever (even on stage), also cool, but I’d make sure you have a very good and steady drummer in your band in that case! Then, you can just listen to them and play along.

Especially if you’re looping while writing on your own, keeping very steady time will make things much easier!