I just picked up ACID Pro 7 and am in geeky-music-making heavan. The loop based approach to song creation is just fantastic, especially for people like me with next to no actual musical talent. Does anyone know where I can get my hands on some free loop packs for this? I have a bunch of good ones, but I would really like to expand my sonic palette, especially with guitar loops. The free ones I see when googling are like 1 or 2 free samples, then pay for the rest. I’m not good enough at this that I want to start dropping $ yet, I would like to play around with some other stuff. Anyone know of a good site for getting loop packs?
OK lets open this up a bit since this didn’t get any traction - Anybody else used this program at all? What did you think? I’ve used several DAWs including cubase, pro tools, and ableton and found this to be the most user friendly for what I wanted to do. I haven’t tried recording live with it, I use pro tools/mbox2 for that, but for quickly throwing together loops and making stuff I think it is fantastic. Any other wannabe home musician/producers out there?
I have Pro 7, and LOVE it as well. I have used previous versions, none of which have the capabilities of this one, and have purchased several packages over the years, mainly drum packs. I would also like to find some decent free loop packages.
You know, you can also use free midi files, which are very prevalent online. The KitCore drum machine, included with Pro 7, sounds really good. I have yet to use the synthesizer, Garritan Aria, but keep meaning to mess with it. I’ve heard the instruments included with it are pretty good.
Interesting, I haven’t messed with the midi stuff yet. I tried doing some vocals in protools and bringing them in today without much success, it kept trying to match my vocals to the beat (it seemed) and I couldn’t get clean integration. It is a new program for me so I am still learning the tricks.
As for drums, I picked up a bunch of good ones and that is my strongest library at the moment. It is good guitar loops that I am short on, if you know of any of those let me know!
Well, I’m a guitarist, so I use it mainly for the drums. I have a keyboard and a guitar synthesizer, so I have a lot of other sounds covered. I mainly record to a Boss Multi-track.
The reason I upgraded to Pro-7 is that it has a LOT of stuff under the hood. With this version, as opposed to Acid 2.0 which I used earlier, I can use Midi Time Code to synch the drum track (on my laptop) to the recorder. That allows me to edit the drum track in real time as I’m laying down other tracks.
I have the demo version of Acid Music Studio 7.0. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll spring the bucks for the whole shooting match. I did pick up a few free loops from www.playinmusic.com, but I haven’t had a chance to fool with them much. Acid Planet also has a new free “8-pack” every week. You have probably run across both of those sites, though; they are both “take a few free, then pay for the rest” places.
I also downloaded the test version of Magix Music Maker, another loop-based program which is a lot of fun to play with. (I even posted a question similar to yours but about MMM a couple of weeks ago.) I like the Music Maker “soundpools,” and you can buy more soundpools from Magix, but the selection is tailored overwhelmingly toward trance, electronica, and hip-hop, with a little rock thrown in. There is a grand total of 1 country music soundpool (with some great riffs in it, though). MMM can’t use Acidized loops, and that cuts down on its desirability.
One other thing you might want to look into if you are enjoying yourself is PG Music’s Band-In-A-Box and RealBand software. You can enter a chord progression and pick a style and BIAB will generate MIDI tracks for you. They also have “RealTracks” – similar to Acid loops – that you can add in place of the MIDI instruments. I bought it a few days ago and I’m just now learning how to use it, but it looks like it could come in handy with my Gospel quartet.
If you do find any good sources of free loops, please update this thread so I can check them out myself.
Hope this helps,
RR
Also, check out Groove Monkee (www.groovemonkee.com) They have some excellent midi drum tracks. Of course, that doesn’t answer your question about where to find loops, does it?
I knew about the site but somehow missed the free 8-packs a week. Thats pretty cool, cuz I can slowly add them in as I get better at using the program. I’m going to download their More Vegetables pack tonight.
Yeah I am finding a big electronica bias in the loops I have found too, which is sorta lame but better than nothing I suppose. I’ll have to check that and BIAB out, although I am still learning ACID at the moment so I don’t know if I want to overwhelm myself with a whole different program.
I also have a project studio in my home. I’ve tried pretty much every audio sequencer out there. I actually started on Acid 2.0 back around 2001 I think. Acid’s very easy to use and you can do a lot with relatively little. Personally, I grew out of Acid quickly. As of now, I use Reason and Reaper as my midi and audio apps, respectively. It’s a nice combination that works well together…
To tell the truth, I’ve gotten so into building guitars lately that I haven’t even set foot in my studio for a while. I actually just downsized a little to free up some money for my guitar fetish. Oh well…